Echigo-Yuzawa, Matsudai and The House of Light

Wednesday, May 20, 2009, 9:15 PM

We started today in Echigo-Yuzawa. This morning we went to the largest ropeway in Japan, about ten minutes away from our hotel. At the top, we went down the summer bob sleigh, which was a lot of fun. I had never been on a bob sled before, so going down the track was a really cool experience. It let us out near a rock garden, with beautiful views of the mountain around us. We spent some time there and then headed back to our hotel to check out.

My group consists of Carisa, Katie, Karen, Sig, Jeff, Trent, Scott, Jon, Norio and myself. We all got our luggage from the hotel and then headed to the train station. From there, we went to Matsudai for the Snow-land Agrarian Culture Center by MVRDV. We didn’t have too much time there, so we kind of rushed through the outdoor exhibits so that we could get to the James Turrell House of Light in Tokamachi. The exhibits were interesting, mostly abstract art.

The House of Light is an art piece/architectural work by James Turrell. We were able to see some of his other work on Naoshima in the Chichu Art Museum. The main room of the house is called Outside In, and is focused on the changing lights of the sky in the morning and evening. A portion of the roof opens up to the sky, and we were able to watch the sky change from sunset to complete darkness. There are orange lights installed on the walls, providing up-lighting towards the ceiling, creating the visual effect of a film over the sky. This creates a stronger contrast between the room and the sky, making the gradual changes more noticeable. It was a really interesting experience. We were all lying on the floor in a circle, with our heads in the center of the room, staring up at the sky and taking pictures for an hour.

The other nice experience at the House of Light is the bath. The bath itself is another artistic experience. There are no lights in the bath room except those designed by James Turrell. At night, there are lights in the water that make anything within the water glow. When the girls went in, we actually took some pictures…nothing graphic, but more artistic to show how the combination of the light and the water can distort form and create interesting optical illusions.

The experience of actually being in this house and having the opportunity to photograph here, let alone sleep here is just extraordinary. It is amazing to think that one man envisioned the effects of the light in such detail that he was able to design and create these spaces. Pictures will be posted soon. We are getting up at 3:15 am to watch the sunrise in the Outside In space. Tomorrow we head to Kanazawa for two days. I’m excited about that because this is the city that my grandfather was stationed in when he was in the army. I’m looking forward to it, but we aren’t supposed to get into the city until the evening. I will have internet there, so I will post my blogs from the past couple days and try to get some more pictures up. Until then…