Shitara-cho Okumikawa Folk Museum

The Shitara Town Oku-Mikawa Local Museum, nurtured by the rich nature of the mountainous region of Aichi Prefecture, inherits the message of the old museum, "Conveying the life and spirit of our hometown." It is attached to the newly built Shitara Roadside Station and has been completely renovated as a core facility for town development. displays space is filled with local treasures and numerous valuable materials that have been collected since the Taisho period. The displays space is modularized with latticed cypress wood from Shitara Town, making it easy to update, and can be used as a spatial infrastructure unique to the region into the future.
Visitors can experience the rich forest scenery, the diversity of living things, trace the history and archaeology, and learn about the wisdom of daily life that has been passed down to this day, surrounded by a rich collection of folklore. By creating and expressing the relationship between makers and users and the relationship between actions and changes in consciousness, we aimed to raise awareness of sustainable lifestyles.


[Social issues/customer issues/requests]
1) Building facilities that utilize materials produced in Shitara Town, in line with the town's comprehensive plan and forest creation plan
2) As the old local museum building deteriorated, the displays needed to improve the displays environment and to preserve the tens of thousands of documents that it had inherited.
3) Located at the southern gateway, it will serve as a guide to the northern part of the area and local resources, and will be revitalized as a field museum.
4) Reusing handmade displays from the old local museum and visualizing the inherited spirit of “Yui”
5) Video archiving of local resources, including the nationally designated important intangible folk cultural asset "Tamone Dengaku"


[Solution]
The displays room at the Oku-Mikawa Folk Museum, which follows the guidelines of Shitara Town, is made of locally sourced Shitara-cho cypress wood that has been processed into a lattice structure. The folk materials on displays are a collection of handcrafted folk tools made from wood from the Edo, Taisho, and Showa periods that have been preserved and passed down. It has been concept design as a space unique to the region that conveys a message of awareness and value of the rich forests of people who have been connected for 100 years.
displays begins with a diorama recreating a rich forest scene, and goes on to learn about the region's natural history, archaeology, and history, including the diversity of living things and geology, while the folk scene recreates the way of life in the past. It expresses the spirit of "Yui" and makes the folk tool collection feel lively. displays allow visitors to experience the "life and spirit of their hometown" and convey the wisdom and ingenuity of their ancestors who survived in the harsh mountainous areas.


[Customer feedback]
Your company's extensive experience and technology helped us to overcome a wide range of challenges, including continuing the old building's theme of "conveying the life and spirit of our hometown," structuring the displays themes in an easy-to-understand manner, displays the exhibits, and utilizing materials produced in Shitara Town.


<Our project members>
[Sales/Project Management] Tetsuya Kurita, Teruko Takai
[concept design direction] Shunsuke Shimizu
[Planning, design, layout] Koichi Ido, Yoichi Miyakoshi, Nobuyuki Endo
[Production and construction] Koichiro Takahashi, Takeshi Suezaki