In Tokyo's Sumida Ward, where Katsushika Hokusai lived and worked over two centuries ago, architect Kazuyo Sejima has crafted a striking monument to the artist’s enduring legacy.
The Sumida Hokusai Museum photographed by Jiachuan Liu, completed in 2016, is not merely a vessel for a vast archive of ukiyo-e woodblock prints—it is a spatial interpretation of the dynamic line and rhythm found in Hokusai’s own compositions. The building, a prismatic four-story structure, catches light and shadow like an etched surface, echoing the crisp delineations of the master’s iconic imagery.
Sejima, best known as one half of the architectural duo SANAA, has created a form that appears both monumental and discreet. The museum's reflective aluminum façade fractures the surrounding cityscape, simultaneously disappearing into and mirroring the neighborhood that shaped Hokusai’s vision. Angular incisions in the structure usher natural light deep into the galleries, sculpting an experience that is as much about spatial perception as it is about art historical reverence.
Inside, the geometries persist. Walkways zigzag like brushstrokes across an imagined canvas, apertures frame the Tokyo skyline with painterly precision. Beyond simply presenting artwork, the museum facilitates a deeper dialogue between Hokusai’s practice and contemporary audiences through lecture halls, workshop spaces, and ever-evolving exhibitions. It’s a place designed not only to honor the past, but to provoke new readings of it.
