Takamatsu Art Day: A Private Journey through the Art of Isamu Noguchi's Garden and Nakashima's Wood Workshop
Visit sacred art sites and sample local udon noodles in this one day Takamatsu art tour!
Overview
Why did artists of world stature gather in a quiet corner of Kagawa? This private six-hour day sets out to answer that, and it begins the way any good day in the prefecture begins: aboard the Kotoden, the local railway, riding out to Waraya, an udon house that residents have loved for generations. Beneath the deep thatch of a farmhouse you take Sanuki udon, the noodle Kagawa gave to Japan, in a room where the building is as much a part of the meal as the broth.
The afternoon turns to the art. At Sakura Seisakusho, the only furniture maker whose skill the Japanese American designer George Nakashima recognised and worked with, from 1964 onward, you tour the memorial gallery raised to carry his philosophy forward. In the first-floor cafe you are invited to sit on a chair he designed, which makes it the rarest kind of collection: one meant to take your weight.
Then to the Isamu Noguchi Garden Museum, set beside the Aji stone quarry whose granite drew the sculptor here in the first place. Noguchi kept a studio and residence in this valley for more than twenty years, and his production partner, the late Masatoshi Izumi, together with fellow craftsmen and neighbours, preserved the studio and garden with great care. More than 150 sculptures stand across the grounds, the whole site conceived not as a display of objects but as a single earth sculpture.
From the atelier the land opens onto Yashima, the flat-topped table mountain, and the jagged ridge of Gokenzan: the view Noguchi loved, and the clearest argument that the peculiar geology of Kagawa belongs in any account of its art. The day is private and unhurried, shaped around your pace rather than a timetable, and should you prefer to finish in the city rather than at your hotel, we are glad to set you down in the shopping arcade and reserve a table for dinner.
Details
❖ Meet at JR Takamatsu Station
11:00
Your guide meets you at JR Takamatsu Station at 11:00, or arranges a hotel pick-up if your accommodation lies within a ten-minute walk of JR Takamatsu Station, Kotoden Kawaramachi Station or Kotoden Kataharamachi Station. From here you board the Kotoden, Kagawa's local railway, and travel out toward Waraya.
❖ Waraya
12:10 - 12:45 (35 min)
Sanuki udon began in Kagawa and has become one of Japan's most loved noodle styles. Waraya serves it inside a thatched farmhouse two centuries old, where the room does as much work as the kitchen.
The house speciality is kama-age udon: thick noodles brought to the table still in their steaming cooking water, the kama-yu, with a dipping sauce served alongside. Only a handful of restaurants in Kagawa build their menu around it. The secret stock is drawn from Ibukijima iriko from Kagawa and kombu from Hokkaido, and you notice its aroma before the first mouthful.
❖ George Nakashima Memorial Gallery (inside Sakura Seisakusho)
13:30 - 14:30 (1:00 h)
The gallery opened in 2008 to mark the sixtieth anniversary of Sakura Seisakusho, the only furniture manufacturer whose skills the Japanese American designer George Nakashima recognised and with whom he worked, from 1964 onward.
It was founded on a wish to make his way of life, his approach to making, and his artistic philosophy known as widely as possible. Around sixty works are on view, among them his most famous piece, the Conoid Chair. In the cafe on the first floor you may sit on Nakashima's furniture over a coffee or tea, which is the truest way to understand it. His furniture is still made in only two places in the world: his studio in New Hope, Pennsylvania, and Sakura Seisakusho here in Takamatsu.
❖ The Isamu Noguchi Garden Museum Japan
14:50 - 16:00 (1:10 h)
Isamu Noguchi (1904-1988) ranks among the most famous sculptors of the twentieth century, an artist who refused to settle into one discipline: the environmental design of monuments, gardens and parks, the interior design of furniture and lighting, and stage design.
He first came to the town of Mure, the birthplace of Aji stone, in 1956, and in 1969 established a studio and residence here between Mount Gokenzan and the flat-topped Mount Yashima. For more than twenty years he travelled back and forth from New York, working alongside the stone artist Masatoshi Izumi, his production partner. The museum, opened in 1999, realises Noguchi's wish that the place become a source of inspiration for future artists, scholars and art lovers at large. More than 150 sculptures, the storehouse he selected and had relocated, the house he lived in and the gardens are together intended as one large earth sculpture rather than a collection of objects. The environment is kept as close to its original atmosphere as possible and serves as an archive for professional research and study, holding open a vision of the world that is genre-defying, cosmic and cosmopolitan.
❖ Drop-off
17:00
After the museum you are brought back by around 17:00. If your hotel is within a 10-minute walk of JR Takamatsu Station, Kotoden Kawaramachi Station, or Kotoden Kataharamachi Station, you are dropped there; otherwise your drop-off is at JR Takamatsu Station. Should you prefer, you can instead be set down at Takamatsu's covered shopping arcade, where we are glad to help arrange a dinner reservation.
OPTIONS
Notes
Hotel pick-up is available only for hotels within a 10 minute walk of JR Takamatsu Station or Kotoden Kawaramachi Station (Kotoden Kataharamachi Station is also acceptable). If your hotel is further away, you may request a pick-up at extra cost, or you may meet your guide at JR Takamatsu Station.
Please let us know in advance if you have special dietary or mobility requests.
Tour extension available on request: ¥8,000 per hour (¥10,000 per hour in high season). Please arrange the extension at the time of booking or with your guide on the day.
Meeting Point
1 Hamanochō, Takamatsu, Kagawa 760-0011
Hotel pick-up is available only for hotels within a 10 minute walk of JR Takamatsu Station or Kotoden Kawaramachi Station (Kotoden Kataharamachi Station is also acceptable). If your hotel is further away, you may request a pick-up at extra cost, or you may meet your guide at JR Takamatsu Station.
What's included:
English guide
Hotel pick-up and drop-off (only near JR Takamatsu Station or Kotoden Kawaramachi Station)
Entrance fees
Transportation costs (train, taxi, bus)
Local tax
Photos of tour participants
What's not included:
Food and drinks
Free cancellation up to 8 days before the experience starts (local time)
Private experience
1
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3
Participants
Kagawa
From ¥22,000 /person
6 hours
Traveler Photos
From ¥22,000 /person
6 hours
Kagawa