Location: Chiba, Japan.

Architect: Nikken Sekkei.

The Hoki Museum is a private museum to exhibit and preserves paintings and wines that Mr Hoki has collected. The main theme of Hoki’s collection is realistic oil paintings miraculously painted in detail with meticulous technique, so the “gallery” is most suited for these works and should be selected as an archetype of this museum space. The architecture is nothing more than a gallery, but also less than a gallery.

Inside galleries, people can not only access each painting in the traditional sequential move but also take a random-access way. This museum was designed to exhibit the collection at its best condition, while also responding to Mr Hoki’s request that the architecture also has to constitute a part of his collection. Galleries extrude longitudinally along the site, measuring up to 100 meters long, and visitors can enjoy natural light and scenery outside. They are stacked to balance between houses around the site, and the upper gallery is cantilevered and flies toward the forest. 60cm high horizontal slit between the galleries works as a route of winds that makes twigs of trees inside the courtyard flap.