Miho Museum, Shiga Japan - I.M Pei

MICHIGAN ORIENTAL ART SOCIETY - Our 39th Year

DATE: Sunday, March 21, 2010, 1:30 pm
SITE: St. Johns Hospital – Oakland: Education Center
27351 Dequindre Rd (West side); Madison Heights
(North of 11 Mile Rd • South of 12 Mile
Conveniently located North of I-696 and East of I-75)

Meeting Information: Patricia Beer @ (586) 558-9767


 
"Miho Museum, Shiga, Japan:
by exemplary architect, I.M. Pei"
DVD presentation by MOAS member, Harry Levine

In 1991 Pei was commissioned to design a museum to house a private art collection. The site for the Miho museum was in the Shigaraki Mountains in Japan. The structure of the building is mostly underground, but rather than digging into the earth,’ which is a very expensive and slow method, especially given the seismic problems we had to face...the decision was made that it was easier to remove the earth, build the building, and then put the earth (and the same kind of trees) back. As a consequence (I think the building is in harmony with this particular site) ...it blends with nature. (in my opinion), you cannot separate the two from each other.'

“Japan’s architects in the distant past strove to bring their buildings into harmony with their environment and the surrounding view. Of course, I don’t want to be a copycat but I do want to respect the thinking of the Japanese people and their culture and traditions.”

“I think you can see a very conscious attempt on my part to make the silhouette of the building comfortable in the natural landscape.”

“It goes without saying that the external structure is an essential element but at the same time the content must be of an international grade as well.”


In Chinese, Ieoh Ming means “to inscribe brightly." The name Pei's parents gave him proved prophetic. Over the past fifty years, Ieoh Ming Pei has designed more than fifty buildings around the world, ranging from industrial skyscrapers and important museums to low income housing. "The name Pei's parents gave him proved prophetic. Over the past fifty years, Ieoh Ming Pei has designed more than fifty buildings around the world, ranging from industrial skyscrapers and important museums to low income housing.

Pei grew up in Shanghai, but in 1935 he moved to the United States to study architecture and engineering at the Massachusetts
Institute of Technology, and later at Harvard University. By 1948, he was Director of Architecture at the real estate development firm, Webb & Knapp. He founded his own firm in 1958.

The difference between the way Eastern and Western architects use this relationship, though is striking:’ look at the works of le Notre, the great 17th century French landscape architect. He reshaped nature into a work of architecture. I can think of no better example to illustrate the difference between the east and the west with respect to the relationship between architecture and nature.(Since the site was) considered to be a sacred place, once chosen to be the site for an important temple… (we) took great care in planning the museum with minimum disturbance of the surrounding nature.' the second challenge Pei faced was how to meld 'tradition with modernity', creating a building that was rooted in Japan’s cultural history -Pei drew inspiration from large farmhouses of the Edo period - while rendering it a stable, luminous and spacious space, using steel, glass and aluminum. 'This is a building built in our times...but I had the responsibility to respect the tradition that has developed through the centuries.' (quotations from 'conversations with I.M.Pei')

The Miho Museum houses Mihoko Koyama's private collection of Asian and Western antiques, as well as other pieces with an estimated value of between US$300 million to US$1 billion, bought on the world market by the Shumei organization in the years before the museum was opened in 1997. There are over two thousand pieces in total, of which approximately 250 are displayed at any one time

During his career, Pei and his firm have won numerous architecture awards. He won the prestigious Pritzker Prize in 1983.

- - -
Harry Levine, a long time member of MOAS, is a New Jersey native. He will be presenting the video of I.M. Pei’s Miho Museum in Shiga, Japan. Harvey is a registered Architect in Michigan, California, D.C. Florida, Indiana Illinois, Louisiana, Maryland, New Jersey, North Carolina and Virginia. Harvey has an extensive academic career, having studied Architecture at University of Michigan. Urban Planning at Case-Western, Skyscrapers at the Harvard Graduate School of Design, Concrete Technology at Oakland Community College, Graphics the New York Art Students League and painting at the Cranbrook Academy of Art.
Harvey has taught at the University of Michigan and Lawrence Technological University.

While living and working in New York, Harvey was inspired to come to Michigan by a customer who painted an enticing picture of Michigan and the Cranbrook Academy of Art, an image he could not forget. He came to Michigan to study at Cranbrook Academy of Art in 1955 under the G.I. bill after being stationed in Hokkaido, Japan during the Korean War while serving in the army.

Working for an international firm he designed several hundred buildings that were constructed throughout Asia and the Pacific, including Japan, Okinawa, Taiwan, Korea, Indonesia, Vietnam, Thailand, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Hawaii, Guam and many other Pacific Islands. Most projects were large in scale, ranging upward of 300 million dollars, and including a new University (Kabul), a new International Airport in Kandahar, ship building and repair facilities in Japan Indonesia and Thailand as well as military airfields and bases communities building systems and individual structures.

After many years of work related travel in East Asia Harvey and his wife Marie Woo returned the States to settle down, where worked for several firms prior to becoming the design coordinator in the joint venture that produced the new Detroit Receiving Hospital and Wayne State University Clinics Building. In 1977 Tom Gunn and Harvey founded Gunn Levine Associates architectural firm. The American Motors Building (now renamed) in Southfield, is a 20 story glass building that can be seen in the area of Telegraph Rd., South of I 696 is one of his local structures.

- - -

Coming Events: Saturday April 10: Exploring Indian Cuisine: Dinning experience; cuisine researched by Cavers & Hall. Convene by 12:50 pm.
Reservation Required by Thursday April 8. PLEASE Call Patricia Beer at (586)558-9767.

Next meeting: Sunday, April 18: Natsu Oyobe, PhD Research Curator of Asian Art UMMA Ann Arbor - Highlights Current Exhibitions -
Turning Point: Japanese Studio Ceramics in the mid-20th Century,
& Wrapped in Silk and Gold: A Family Legacy of Twentieth-Century Japanese Kimono

Members & Guests are encouraged to bring items relating to the topic to show and share with the group.

Welcome New Members: James & Kathryn Treece

- - -

Comment by Amelia Kit-Yu Chau, former Assistant Curator of Asian Art at the DIA, at the February Year of the Tiger meeting last month: She reiterated the importance of MOAS members taking an active part in pushing for the reinstallation of the DIA’S Asian Galleries, to express your displeasure at the failure of the museum to reinstall the Asian Galleries . . . . .
Please write to: Dr Graham Beal ● Detroit Institute of Arts ● 5200 Woodward Avenue ● Detroit, Michigan 48202