In the hills of Kurobe, Japan. A few steps from the Maezawa Garden House that Fumihiko Maki, winner of the Pritzker prize, built in 1982, there is a splendid architecture that someone would call shy. Or kind.
“Since this gazebo is located at the foot of a slope covered by a forest – almost like a Japanese Shinto shrine – its sinking entity looks like a part of nature itself”
APL Design Workshop
From a distance, it seems to mix perfectly and even more with nature itself. While not imitating it, preserving the spaces needed for performing the typical functions of a theater’ foyer – this architecture penetrates nature as it rarely happens to see.
This open-air theater was designed by APL Design Workshop and is “built” with 17 oak and cedar trees which, emerging from the ground, penetrate the first slab and act as the green perimeter wall of the entrance foyer. A little further on, under the sky of Japan, the real theatre stands in all its simplicity.
Photo Copyright: Toshiharu Kitajima