UNESCO Prize Awarded: Shimose Art Museum in Hiroshima Among World’s Top 7 Most Beautiful Museums

The “Prix Versailles” for “The World’s Most Beautiful Museums,” established at the UNESCO headquarters, announced its list on June 13, Thursday. Shimose Art Museum in Otake City, Hiroshima Prefecture, was selected.

The “Prix Versailles,” inaugurated in 2015, is a prestigious global architecture prize adjudicated by renowned architects and philosophers across seven categories including airports, commercial facilities, hotels, and sports facilities. Starting from 2024, an eighth category “Museums” was added, with Shimose Art Museum among the seven global facilities chosen for this list.

Opened in March 2023 in Otake City, Hiroshima Prefecture, Shimose Art Museum was designed by the acclaimed Japanese architect Shigeru Ban, with a concept of “viewing art within art.” Inspired by the islands of the Seto Inland Sea, its unique feature is the colorful cube-shaped “movable exhibition spaces” that can be rearranged using water buoyancy, creating an unparalleled exhibition environment. Alongside viewing artworks, visitors can enjoy “Emile Galle’s Garden,” where seasonal flowers sway in the wind, and the “Panoramic Terrace” offering views of the scenic Seto Inland Sea islands.

The Prix de Versailles Internationale commented on the reasons for the selection as follows

In 2002, at Expo.02 in Murten, Switzerland, architect Jean Nouvel, who won the Pritzker Prize in 2008, first came up with the idea of a temporary monolith weighing 4,000 tons that appears to float on the surface of a lake. A cosmic journey! What one architect conceived was later expanded upon by another, 2014 Pritzker Prize winner Shigeru Ban, in the form of eight movable exhibition rooms with colored glass walls at the Shimose Museum. These walls are illuminated at night over the surface of the reflecting pool. This iconic landscape amplifies the physical landscape of the Seto Inland Sea and pays homage to the beauty of the islands of the Seto Inland Sea. The structure is harmonized with a garden of seasonal plants and flowers, a motif inspired by the French artist and designer Emile Gallé (1846-1904), who was an important part of the museum’s collection. Despite the grandiose ambition of the concept, visitors are greeted by a canopy of a pleasant scale.

International Versailles Prize Organization

In late November, the best Versailles prize, a special interior prize, and a special exterior prize will be selected from a selected list and announced at UNESCO headquarters in Paris.