A steel structure 2 story curator office added to the Hara Museum of Art in Shinagawa, Tokyo.
The new building employs various methods of fusion and coexistence with the museum which has a history of renovation and addition to the former Hara residence designed by Jin Watanabe in the early days of the Showa era. The building follows the existing axis of the adjacent traditional Japanese warehouse (KURA) and storage building. The main grid is parallel to the storage to the west, while the eaves facing the court and the north wall is extended to the plane of the KURA wall. A mesh screen has been planned as a future addition, extending the plane of the KURA and outlining the expanded court, intended to function as a projection screen for events held in the court and for exhibiting works of art.
Mainly clerical functions are on the ground floor and curator spaces are provided on the upper floor. A 7.2m square block houses the main work spaces and subsidiary elements such as stairs, toilets and meeting rooms are placed adjacently. The exterior of the 7.2m square block is clad with ribbed metal sheet. A glazed surface is inserted between this and the north fa cade finished with prefabricated cement board. Methods for achieving low-cost and shortening construction time have been adopted such as ribbed metal sheet roofing etc. Simultaneously, the use of these materials which are seemingly heterogeneous to materials in other parts of the building is in accordance with the historical context that the museum has gone through numerous additions, each part being an expression of the period it was built in.