Ishinomaki City Museum

This project involves the relocation and construction of the Ishinomaki Cultural Center, a museum in Ishinomaki city that was damaged in the Great East Japan Earthquake.

After the earthquake, Ishinomaki City planned to build a multi-purpose cultural facility that would include a theater and museum, which would serve as a new cultural hub for the city, and work began on the Ishinomaki City Museum, which would take over from the Ishinomaki Cultural Center.
The concept of Ishinomaki City Museum is "a museum that conveys the rich history of Ishinomaki, nurtured by its great rivers and the sea," and it is made up of a historical and cultural displays room, a Mori Collection displays room, a Takahashi Eikichi works displays room, displays room for ancestors with ties to Ishinomaki, and a special displays room.

displays space experience is characterized by displays that focuses on "landscape" as a new way for a history museum, displays that shares "history = time" in collaboration with contemporary artist Yukihiro Yamagami, displays space concept design that resonates with the architectural design of the complex cultural facility, and hands-on displays that allow visitors to immerse themselves in the real thing, imagine the site, and learn about history, with many ideas to arouse the interest and curiosity of visitors from various angles.In addition, exhibitions will be held in the special displays room, which meets the requirements of a "publicly approved facility" that allows valuable materials to be borrowed and made public.

This is a renovation project to relocate and reconstruct the museum facilities that were damaged in the Great East Japan Earthquake.
The issues to be addressed include concrete methods for displays utilizing the valuable stored materials restored through the Cultural Property Rescue Project, portraying the unique history and culture shared by the citizens of Ishinomaki City, which is made up of various regions such as the coast, rural areas, and urban areas, and increasing the attraction of the complex as a cultural facility together with the theater. It was hoped that recovery and reconstruction from the earthquake disaster would be promoted from the perspectives of cultural and educational administration and tourism promotion.

In the History and Culture displays Room, in order to allow local residents to experience Ishinomaki's history and culture in a familiar way, in addition to being able to enjoy actual materials, the museum focuses on "the people who live in Ishinomaki" and places emphasis on displays methods that stimulate visitors' imaginations to see how people have lived and overcome obstacles in each era in a place like Ishinomaki.
Based on this idea, the museum has created an exhibition space where visitors can feel that the present exists within the continuous flow of time, like a great river, and where the familiar scenery/places seen in daily life displays in a variety of photos, videos, and illustrations of the city's "scenery." displays space is designed to make the visitors feel that the present exists within the uninterrupted flow of time, like a great river. The five eras of the museum's displays, which trace the history and culture of Ishinomaki in detail, are interspersed with "hands-on displays" where visitors can experience the sensations of people who lived in each era, and "column displays" that are edited in a visual magazine style to introduce topics about the history and culture that live on in Ishinomaki today. The space is filled with various ideas that allow visitors of all ages to enjoy Ishinomaki's past and present together in a lively "tea-drinking" mood.
In addition, in displays rooms for the "Mori Collection" and "Works of Eikichi Takahashi," inherited from the former Ishinomaki Cultural Center, in addition to a chronological structure of the works, we provide detailed explanations of the background of the works, such as the lives of Mori and Eikichi Takahashi and their days spent in Ishinomaki, allowing visitors to appreciate the works while learning about the thoughts that went into them. In the layout of the flow of traffic that connects with these displays, we have also laid out the "Predecessors with ties to Ishinomaki" displays room, which introduces predecessors who were active in various fields.