schlinky: February 2006

- much less naked -

This is something I scavenged from Auckland. An image that, to me, resembles Huynh Cong Ut's famous photograph of a nude girl running from a napalm attack in the Vietnam War, albeit much less dramatic and much less naked. I don't remember what I was making that face at either...

- Perfect Liberty (PL) Peace Tower at Tondabayashi -

When I was visiting the Sayamaike Museum by Ando I was astounded by this tower in the distance. "What the fuck is that?!" was my first impression from afar. Later that day I found out from Hector that it was the PL Peace Tower, and that I ought to be careful not to be sucked-in to their religion if I were to go visit. Curious, I went the following day to Tondabayashi to check it out.

Perfect Liberty is the religion and it's about world peace, apparently. They had very strict rules not to allow visitors past certain areas and you can pretty much only visit the ground floor and a worship hall on the first level, even though the tower was many storeys tall. The tower is dedicated to peace, and all the names of the people in the world who have perished in wars are stored on microfilm in a sacred golden container...somewhere.

The late Second Kyoso (religious founder) designed this sculptural building in clay, and it is reminescent of a pointing finger as it symbolises their dictum "The Truth is One". They seem to like art and sculpture judging from the displays and explanatory text I read. I remember reading something along the lines of "through art we can find truth and peace".

There are other administrative buildings nearby and kids were playing at a PL school playground when I passed it. It was an interesting day out I must say. :)

- a facade at dotombori -

I mean, I rather like it.

- Osaka - Suntory Museum -

This is the Suntory Museum. Unfortunate for Martin and Tsubasa (and perhaps a whole lot more people who are deceived by its name), this is not a museum of liquor.

Designed by the osaka native and internationally renowned Tadao Ando, the Suntory Museum houses the world's largest IMAX theatre (which I did not experience, boohoo) and exhibition spaces for high profile artists such as Toulouse-Lautrec, Mucha and Cassandre.

I'm guessing this gigantic balloon-like construction houses the IMAX theatre. This part reminds me a bit of Sydney's NIDA.

It's a pretty stunning piece of iconic architecture. Except there's nothing much to excite from the inside. The exhibition spaces were mediocre and the rooftop restaurant seems like a helipad they added on post-occupation.

Hector and I had the pleasure of seeing Alphonse Mucha(1860-1939)'s collection of commercial and personal works. We saw a lot of his posters especially ones for theatre productions in France. He loved Byzantine icons and had a beautiful knack of weaving together frame, text and image into the works. Here's a bit more on Mucha. And here's a good description of the Suntory Museum's architecture.