Ceiling of the Sea

Tokyo, Japan

Photo © Anna Nagai

Architects: Unemori Architects

Location: Tokyo, Japan
Year: 2022
organization: The Nippon Foundation
Direction: stillwater
Sign design: direction Q

This is the venue design for an exhibition related to the sea held at the Spiral gallery, a representative work of Japanese architect Fumihiko Maki, located in Omotesando, Tokyo.

We proposed to suspend three different colored fishing nets above the venue to express the color of the sea. The dark red fishing net at the top is actually used for fishing, and the middle and lower nets are blue and green dyed fishing nets.

The reason why the sea looks blue is that colors other than blue are absorbed by the seawater. Even though the color is called blue, it looks different depending on such as the depth, floating matter in the sea.

These three colors of fishing nets also look different depending on the position and the angle visitors stand on, and connect multiple spaces while changing as if visitors were in the sea.

Since the exhibition is a short period and needs to be set up and dismantled in a limited amount of time, we designed the details so that they can be easily attached and detached. The used fishing nets can be recycled after the exhibition.