Sculpture[d] Park

Author(s): Marc Treib

Source: Landscape Architecture Magazine , MAY 2006, Vol. 96, No. 5 (MAY 2006), pp. 106-
117
Published by: American Society of Landscape Architects

Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/44676109

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 from central Sap oro, the prefect ural capital of
Japan's northern island of Hokkaido. You need
to take the subway and then a bus, and it takes the
bet er part of an hour, even if you are lucky enough to
IT Japan's from catcahtcbhetonerotfothISeNi'nTfrteaqkue nctenctornanel cotnioenps.arGitvtehneitnos ortih-e■rn EASY of of subway the Sap oro, an TO hour, infrequent island GET and the even to then of prefect ural Moerenuma Hokkaido. if connections. a you bus, are and lucky capital You Park it
gin as a garbage dump there was no reason for selecting a lo- fl
cation closer to housing, scho ls, and shop ing. But people 1
se m to come there al the same, even in the autumn rain, fl
(It was pouring on the October day I visited the park; 1
the temperature was in the 40s with the rain, driven by *
strong winds, fal ing nearly horizontal y - hence the lack of j
people in most of the photographs. When miraculously the fl
rain stop ed late in the afterno n, and patches of bril iant 1
sun returned, so did the more adventurous Sap oroites.) 1
The idea for the park originated as part of a 1 979 plan to ļ
deposit waste on a site set on the city's northeastern fringe, '
But the authorities, in particular Mayor Nobuo Katsura, had
greater visions for the place after the dump's projected clo-
sure. He wanted a public park - a park of somewhat heroic
scale - and that is exactly what was achieved, although it > j
to k more than two decades to realize.
In 198 , the last year of Isamu Noguchi's life, the city
commis ioned him to convert the wasteland into a major

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 Components of the plan, opposite top, include (1) play
areas; (2) Moere Beach; (3) Play Mountain; (4) Tetra
Mound; (5) service buildings; (6) watercourse; (7) Cedar
Forest; (8) Sea Fountain; (9) Glass Pyramid; (10) sports
field; (11) amphitheater; (12) Mt. Moere; and (13) base-
ball diamond. An aerial view shows the park as seen
from the east, opposite bottom . A small-scale model,
right, constructed before Noguchi's death, guided the
more detailed development of the park's design. Play
Mountain (in model form, bottom) was never built.

park, or even better, a work of art. The processes

of deposit and reformation had been under way
for almost 10 years before the city approached the
Japanese-American sculptor, and certain aspects
of a pastoral vision had already been implement-
ed. Engineering works executed over the prior
decade included three new bridges and a water-
way that set the site off as a peninsula. Noguchi
would keep thousands of newly planted cherry
trees to anchor the northeastern edge of the site
despite their lacking a distinctive profile.
Noguchi's design process proceeded swiftly - a necessity, given
metro system - on a base of nonflammable garbage: a conical Mt.
the volume of his prior commitments - beginning in Sapporo
Moere, ainreenactment of his Play Mountain of 1933 that had re-
May 1988 with on-site meetings with the consulting architects
mained only as a maquette, and an amphitheater set as a vast inclined
and the political forces behind the park. All these took place in rap-
plane. These structured the terrain and created the places for the
id succession. The program for the landscape was simple subsidiary
in that it playground elements and what was to become a pyra-
asked Noguchi to provide a mountain and an amphitheater,
midasoutlined
well in steel. Unconsciously, Noguchi was working in the
as baseball fields, a track, and other sports grounds and facilities
manner for
of the Japanese gardener, first setting the key stones as the
active recreation. Always concerned with the play andskeleton
develop-of the landscape to come; smaller stones and plants were
ment of children, Noguchi dedicated his creation to them. "I like
then conceived and positioned in relation to the principal elements.
to think of playgrounds as a primer of shapes and functions,"
Noguchi died in December 1988 at the age of 83, leaving the
Noguchi had written in his 1968 autobiography, A Sculptors Worldauthorities
Sapporo ' with some sketches and two or three stages of
"simple, mysterious, and evocative: thus educational." design
In accor-
development models produced with his Japanese collabora-
tors. Noguchi's
dance with that belief he cast the park as a playground sculpture of normal working method explored ideas in model
vast dimensions, with elements of his prior landscapes now writ
form at adjusted them - often to a considerable degree - on site
but
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a gargantuan scale. with his design studies as a guide. For some projects his partner,
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In some ways this approach is highly problematic, certainly at
Shoji Sadao, would work out the technical realization of Noguchi's
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a conceptual level. In other ways, however, that is howaesthetic
the parkideas, producing the construction documents and trou-
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is perceived, and it works incredibly well on those terms. For any difficulties arising during construction. But now
bleshooting
Ī example, Moerenuma Beach - a shallow pond with the
a shallow
master was gone. Noguchi had worked on the project for less
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shore - has been a particularly outstanding success, offeringthan
Sap- nine months, and thus to Junichi Kawamura and Tak-
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2 poro s kids a shoreline that nature ahiro Terasawa of Architect 5 Part-
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herself did not provide.

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I nership, Shoji Sadao of the Isamu
> In his first scheme Noguchi ac- J ■i Noguchi Foundation, Koji Saito
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cepted site work already execut- m of Kitaba Landscape in Sap-
ed: drainage, grading, water- poro, and others fell the task of
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ways, and forestation. The j turning the small-scale mod-

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program had called for a Ě els into reality. That process
"mountain," and it took lit- ā I would span almost 18 years,
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tle prompting for Noguchi wjj % as the park didn't official-

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that piled clean fill - if UHk A model and a few
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dimensions became the basis for the park's realization. Year after
year Architect 5 and the Sapporo Parks Department continued
their efforts toward realizing the project. The layers of garbage
were capped, the waterways were cleaned and their banks given
more definite contours, and masses of cherry trees were planted.
Over time, clean fill was piled and graded into the topographies
indicated by Noguchi's model. In addition, the architects and
their consultants developed the sculptor's schematic mass into
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The granite steps of the Play Mountain, at ¡eft,
reprise elements of Noguchi's 1933 Monu-
ment to the Plough . The abstracted forms of
a concrete playground area, below, were de-
signed by Architect 5 Partnership in a manner
sympathetic to Noguchi's design language.
the handsomely detailed glass pyramid
that serves as the park's service, adminis-
trative, and exhibition center. In all their
efforts the design team attempted to re-
main faithful to the original concepts and
varied from them only when the exigen-
cies of the site work or building codes de-
termined otherwise. These were very mi-
nor, however, with no radical departures
from the ideas and forms that Noguchi
had established. Nor were there any cata-
clysmic surprises instigated by soil con-
ditions or the process of filling and grading.
In Noguchi's first scheme the key features were proximate and,
in places, even intersected: For example, several of the earth forms
merged at their bases. The whole was organic and read as a compos-
ite comprising differing elements. The circulation curved to fit the
earth forms, bringing movement and terrain into accord. Howev-
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er, although joined as a coherent whole, that whole sat somewhat cr
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removed from the perimeter of the site and could have been taken 2
 Two stages in the
as being more focused on mass than on space. For unexplained rea- works and assembled them in a suitcase. The se-
40-minute cycle of
sons - perhaps colored by questions of construction over an extend- ries - Boite-en-valise, 1936-1 94 1 - allowed
ed period of time, or simply for clarity as an aesthetic statementthe
- Sea Fountain, Duchamp to replicate his past and make it
above
the sculptor s revised scheme pulled this integrated composition and below . portable. In contrast, at Moerenuma Noguchi
apart, defining each of the land forms as distinct elements, inde-
pendent, and easily identifiable. While the sense of the whole was
diminished, a greater disposition of form and activities on the site
was gained. The roads were straightened and now read almost as
axes although they aesthetically structure neither vision nor pedes-
trian circulation. Without a doubt, they support the north- south,
and to a lesser degree east- west, movement across the site - but
they do not formally link the various nodes of the design nor do they
function spatially. Circulation, in fact, is the weakest aspect of the
park design as executed. Not in terms of accommodating walking
and bicycle riding - no, these are quite clear and work well. But in
terms of unfolding the experience of movement they offer very lit-
tle. Looking at the park in plan or in aerial view makes this short-
fall even more apparent. The paths are not where you would want
them, nor do they engage the mountains and constructed features
in a manner that would intensify visitor involvement with them.
Then there is the question of scale. Nature tells us that the size and
structure of any organism are related. You can't scale up the bone
structure or organs of a bird to support an elephant; you need to re-
think the entire organism at the enlarged scale. In Moerenuma Park,
Noguchi willfully mined his past, and in many ways the entire park
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appears as a collection of motifs once produced for prior projects. Late
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in life the artist Marcel Duchamp produced small-scale replicas of his

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enlarged the accomplishments of past designs or fi- Elements of the play-
nally executed ideas that had long lain fallow. The grounds, above, recall
Play Mountain at Moerenuma Park, for example, earlier projects, in this
reprises a sculpture of that name from 1933, but it case Noguchi's 1970s
also draws upon certain features of Noguchis proto- designs for Playscapes
earthwork, the Monument to the Plough of 1933. in Atlanta. Below, the
Noguchi applied ideas from a now-lost drawing of abstracted forms of the
the project to the three-sided pyramid, sheathing one play areas challenge chil-
side with granite steps and using varied plantings on dren both physically and
each face. Now, half a century or more after their orig- creatively but leave no
inal conception, these landscapes somewhat surpris- room for rearrangement
ingly achieve their desired effect as art and landscape. or construction.
112 I
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Almost without exception visitors are drawn to the
summit of Mt. Moere and Play Mountain or the view-
ing terrace of the Glass Pyramid (within the pyramid
are a gallery, performance space, viewing platform, café,
and administrative offices). This is one of the park s un-
questionable triumphs, confirming Moerenuma as one
of the very few landscapes that dramatically encourages
upward movement - like the great pre-Columbian
complexes of Mesoamerica. One can literally get high
in Moerenuma Park, with that delicious thrill of achiev-
ing the apex and surveying all laid out before you.
Compound this mild euphoria with the novelty of per-
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 The sculptured forms of the skating area, right,
are set against the earthen terrain of the Play
Mountain. The straight path to the summit is an
unfortunate solution to the need for access. Be-

low, the raked retaining walls of the amphitheater

rise strikingly from the sports fields at their base.

ceiving the sculptural elements or the park

in new relations: for example, the formal op-
position of the Play Mountain s tetrahedron
and the circular belt of cedars surrounding
the Sea Fountain. From above, Noguchi s
forms and strategy become more legible, in-
cluding his reliance on the circle in planning
the cedar forest, the footprint of Mt. Moere,
and the play areas.
That the earth forms dominate views of
the Moerenuma landscape is no surprise
given their scale and the distinct geome-
tries of the pyramid and the cone. But in the dynamic play of mountains
open at whose feet they lie. The Tetra Mound creates just the
spaces between Play Mountain, Mt. Moere, and the raked slope of
opposite impression: a gigantic sculpture that marks the park's
the amphitheater, one finds the design s most satisfying aesthetic
northern entrance, but a work that offers only one basic reading.
moments. There are shortcomings, however. At the foot ofConstructed
Mt. of tubular stainless steel, it is finished with the same
Moere, in the triangular Aqua Plaza, a watercourse issues from a
brushed swirls as Noguchi s 1979 Dodge Fountain in Detroit. Its
stone fountain - and both seem lifted directly from Noguchi s forms
mas- suggest no purpose beyond visitors sitting at the base of the
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terpiece, the 1982 California Scenańo in Costa Mesa, California. elephantine
But legs to marvel at their polished surfaces or to view the
2 here the stream and fountain feel far too small in relation to earth
the forms framed by the giant tripod. In total, the Tetra Mound is

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the park s most purely sculptural moment
as its interaction with the other features of
the park is confined to the ground plane.
Sculpture can be its own justification, how-
ever, and in any event, the work does frame
views of the park s other principal elements.
If filling, piling, and grading were the
most important gestures at Moerenuma, it is
water that complements and vivifies the sta-
ble landforms. A belt of water surrounds the
park site, offering its elongated stream and
banks to boaters and picnickers respectively.
The artificial Moere Beach attracts hundreds
of people in warm weather although it is dry
and covered during the winter months -
unfortunate but hardly avoidable in a loca-
tion that hosts a festival of snow sculptures
each winter. The Sea Fountain continues
Noguchi s long string of animated water fea-
tures and most closely resembles, in program
if not in actual form, the Dodge Fountain.
Set within a band of densely planted cedars,
the fountain is programmed to run from
nearly dry, to a low ring of water that tingles
in the sunlight, to a geyser some 80 feet
high. When its 40-minute cycle commences
people in all parts of the park gather to watch
the performance, oohing and aahing at the
spectacle and indiscriminately taking hun-
dreds of digital pictures. Alas, the small for-
est that comfortably buffers the fountain
from some winds and other park features -
thus giving it a reasonable scale - also de-
ters any tme formal or spatial synthesis with
the parks other major features. Typically, in
the Moerenuma landscape each element
stands independent of the next.
Also curious are the numerous settings
for play equipment at the northeastern tip
of the park amid the cherry forest planted
before Noguchi 's commission. The play
equipment recasts playgrounds designed
by the sculptor in the 1970s, only a frac-
tion of which had been realized in his life-
time. The swings and slides recall the 1976
Playscapes in Atlanta, but other pieces,
such as the wavelike Play Sculpture, more
directly refer to Noguchi sculptures such
as the 1977 Sky Gate in Honolulu. Here,
unlike Sky Gate, however, the gently un-
dulating surfaces support straddling and
climbing. In one zone, the play landscape
is constructed in concrete and looks cred-
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ibly Noguchian; in fact it is completely £

the work of Architect 5 and its consult- o cc

ants. The equipment is brilliantly colored 2

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in oranges, yellows, and sea foam green set offby contrasting sur-
faces rendered in chocolate brown and black. They are handsome
sculptural settings in and of themselves, and there is little doubt
that children encounter, negotiate, and invent among them as
they would among an abstract set of blocks. In a world in which
standardized play equipment of red, blue, and yellow fiberglass
cubes has become the kudzu of playground design, Noguchis
variety of forms and their dispersal in the park are most welcome.
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Architect 5 Partnership developed the elegantly
detailed Glass Pyramid, left and below , from a
schematic suggestion on Noguchi's original mod-
el. The pyramid creates a welcome meeting and
performance space on a windy and rainy autumn
afternoon. Standing at the base of Play Moun-
tain, with the Tetra Mound behind, these struc-
tures, opposite , must be history's most highly
modeled pair of restrooms ever.
But in other ways the separation of play
zones into distinct pockets is problemat-
ic. What is the reasoning behind them,
other than as a spatial distribution with-
in a forest that encourages children to dis-
cover the new locations? This is a highly or-
dered fixed world in which children must
encounter hard surfaces and forms - it is a
far cry from the personal involvement so
characteristic of the adventure playgrounds of the 1960s with their
celebration of society's detritus and emphasis on combination rather
than mere encounter. The elements of the adventure playground
were often reused materials erected, demolished, and re-erected by
the children in creations of varying structural stability. As such the
constructions provoked free expression and possessed an element of
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danger, one of the factors that made them so appealing to children. o
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But that was then and this is now, and the liability that burdens 2
 municipalities everywhere has vastly increased,
even in less litigious Japan.
inni Park, Kon text substantially of his own making. While
Moerenuma Park offers little of the variety
Given its distance from the eyes of city gov- and subtlety of the richly variegated Central
WILLFULLY MINED HIS PAST,
ernment seated downtown, how well will Park, it is an impressive place, and one that in
Moerenuma Park be maintained? The cedar its scale and abstraction acknowledges its lo-
AND IN MANY WAYS THE ENTIRE
and cherry forests are in excellent condition; cation and the open landscape of Hokkaido.
the planted contours only slightly less so. But I* appears asacoueceior Is Moerenuma Park a work by Isamu
should the grass on the earthen slopes falter, Noguchi? Its hard to say, although all the
erosion will soon undermine the purity and, OF MOTIFS ONCE PRODUCED publicity for the park credits Noguchi as its
perhaps, even the very existence of the earth- creator. Creator, without question; designer,
works. Given an annual precipitation of 44 (OR PRIOR PROJECTS. perhaps. Does Moerenuma Park today repre-
inches, coupled with periods of heavy snow- sent what Noguchi would have done? Proba-
fall, upkeep will be a challenge - but as in all landscape projects, bly not. Given that nearly 18 years have passed since he produced
public and private, maintenance will be the key to sustaining the his design, it is safe to predict that the sculptor himself would
quality of the Moerenuma park-as-artwork. have developed as an artist, and thus would have wanted to mod-
This is a large park of 467 acres, almost two-thirds the area of ify the design accordingly. However, it is also highly doubtful that
New York s Central Park. But a Central Park it is not. Although he would have lived to witness the 2005 opening date regardless.
Frederick Law Olmsted himself regarded Central Park as a work And so the design in many ways must be regarded as a skilled re-
of art from which nothing should be removed, changed, or added, alization by the design team of an original idea by Isamu Noguchi.
his model was naturalistic. Noguchi thought differently: "It is not That in itself is no mean feat, and despite some shortcomings in
wise to mimic nature within nature," he told Hitoshi Yamamoto, form and feeling one must be grateful for the park s realization. No
Moerenuma Park s director, early on his first visit to the site. New doubt the residents of Sapporo share that sentiment. " s
York, even in the mid-nineteenth century, was hardly nature; nei-
ther was a twentieth-century garbage dump and landfill. Offered Marc Treib' s most recent books are Settings and Stray Paths: Writings
s three possible sites for his intervention, Noguchi declined the art on Gardens and Landscapes (Routledge, 2005) and The Donnell
¡1 park and central Sapporo sites in favor of the Moerenuma dump - and Eckbo Gardens: Modern Californian Masterworks ( William
s presumably because there he could create a purer work in a con- Stout, 2005).

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