Image: Chichu Art Museum, Naoshima
Benesse Art Site Naoshima has highlighted a special accommodation experience on Naoshima that lets visitors spend the night among Hiroshi Sugimoto’s photographic works and Tadao Ando’s architecture. The site’s archived article, a contributed piece by Jun Ishida titled ‘A world-unique overnight experience to enjoy Sugimoto’s works in Ando architecture,’ presents the stay as a way to experience the changing character of the rooms and artworks from evening into morning.
The article frames the offer as part of the broader art-and-architecture environment developed across Benesse Art Site Naoshima, where site-specific works and carefully designed buildings are closely interwoven. It notes that the author first visited Naoshima on a private trip six years earlier, touring Chichu Art Museum and Lee Ufan Museum, then crossing by boat to Teshima for Teshima Art Museum. That visit left a strong impression of the island’s site-specific installations, from Yayoi Kusama’s ‘Pumpkin’ at the tip of a pier to Monet’s ‘Water Lilies’ viewed in natural light.
A key point in the piece is that the island also offers a different kind of encounter through lodging. Within the art site, the article says, there are four accommodation buildings, and contemporary art is placed throughout the rooms and shared areas. The writer’s example is Benesse House Park, described as an unusual wooden structure among Ando’s works, with a James Turrell print in the room.
The archive article also lists works encountered in circulation through the property, including pieces by Thomas Ruff in the lobby, Thomas Struth in the lounge, and Teresita Fernández along the corridor connecting the accommodation building and restaurant. The piece emphasizes that simply walking through the site brings art into view repeatedly, rather than confining it to formal exhibition spaces.
The most striking setting described is the hall displaying Sugimoto’s photographs, where exposed concrete and white walls frame works including ‘Seascapes,’ ‘World Trade Center,’ and Ando’s own landmark ‘Church of the Light.’ According to the article, the experience differs sharply between morning, when natural light enters the space, and night, when darkness alters the atmosphere of both the architecture and the works.
The writer says the nocturnal viewing of Sugimoto’s work in concert with Ando’s architecture was especially memorable, presenting the stay as an unusually immersive way to encounter art without the time limits of a museum. The article ends by returning to that contrast between day and night, and to the rarity of the collaboration between the artist and architect within this lodging context.
