Nagasaki Prefectural Museum of Art

 

The Nagasaki Prefectural Museum of Art opened in 2005 on the waterfront of Nagasaki City.

It is located astride a channel whose walkways are public thourouhfares. The roof gardens are also public spaces.

It was designed by the renowned Japanese architect Kuma Kengo.

The permanent collection concentrates on art, in a wide variety of media, connected to Nagasaki since the Meiji Period.

The museum is also home to the Suma collection of hisorical and modern Spanish world collected by the former Envoy to Spain during WWII, Suma Yakichiro.

I did not go inside so I have no report on the art or the interior architecture.

Earlier on my walk around Kyushu I visited another Kuma Kengo building, the Kyushu Geibunkan.

The previous post in this series exploring Nagasaki was the nearby Nagasakiminato Ferry Terminal.

Nagasakiminato Ferry Terminal

 

The Nagasakiminato Terminal is located on the waterfront in Nagasaki.

From here are numerous ferry services, mostly out to the Goto Islands, but also tour boats out to Gunkanjima, the famous "Battleship Island".

The terminal opened in 1995 and was designed by Shin Takamatsu, a Shimane-born architect who has designed several other ferry terminals.

He described the structure as "a 100-meter-long horizontally-oriented oval cylinder with an inverse cone penetrating it."

I am quite fond of Takamatsu's work as we have a lot of his buildings in Shimane.

The ferry terminal is right next door to the Dragon Promenade with its distinctive orange globe.

The spacious interior space created by the "inverted cone" is kind of non functional, but great for my kind of photography.

The previous post on my day exploring Nagasaki on day 60 of my Kyushu Pilgrimage was the Kanko Maru, which I believe is still operating out of the terminal.

Dragon Promenade Nagasaki

 

Dragon Promenade is a kind of urban park on the roof of a utilitarian building on the quayside in downtown Nagasaki.

The building is a long, narrow, concrete box that operates as a warehouse, and above it is a strange structure with a huge orange sphere at one end.

The south side of the superstructure is dark green and composed of steel plate in a somewhat "stealth" kind of design like found on stealth ships and planes.

The whole structure is meant, I believe, to represent a dragon, specifically the dragon used in the Kunchi Festival here in Nagasaki. The orange sphere represents the head.

It has a wooden flooring like a boardwalk, and is semi covered. I believe events are sometimes held here, though whenever I have visited it was empty.

It has a somewhat dilapidated feel to it and I believe is now closed after dark.

It does, however, offer opportunities for the kind of architectural photos I like to take.

It was built in 1998 and architects Michael Rotondi and Clark Stevens are the architects.

I was here on day 60 of my first  Kyushu walk, a kind of a day off as I felt a day in the city would be more comfortable than walking in the rain down the coast.

The previous post was a Day 59 overview.

Hizen Hamashuku Thatched Roof Townscape

 

Hizen Hamashuku, now a part of Kashima City in Saga, lies along the Hama River. On the north bank of the river, along what was in the Edo Period a fairly main highway, is a historic preservation district, Sakagura Street, with many historic buildings and numerous sake breweries.

However, on the south bank of the river, a little closer to the mouth where it enters the Ariake Sea, is another small preservation district, known as a "thatched roof townscape".

Many of these preservation districts consist of preserved buildings of wealthy merchants or high-class samurai, but here was a more "working class" neighborhood with much smaller homes.

In a maze of narrow lanes lived carpenters, blacksmiths, sailors, fishermen, and merchants.

A cluster of three small homes that belonged to the Ikeda, Nakamura, and Nakajima families, have been renovated and offer a fairly unique opportunity to see some smaller, traditional buildings.

When i visited first in 2016 the houses were open and free to enter. When I went back a couple of years ago they were closed up.

There are several other thatched properties, some larger, and on my last visit I noticed lots of water hoses on top of tall posts, ready to water down the rooves in case of fire.

Unlike many of these preservation districts, there are no cafes, souvenir shops, etc, it is still just a funky, lower-class residential area, and therefore in many ways actually more authentic.

It is a short walk from the Sakakura Sake District and just a few minutes from Hizenhama JR railway station.

This was the last stop of my tour of Kashima on day 59 of my walk around Kyushu and from here I headed off down the coast.

The previous post in the series was the samurai residence nearby. Other Preservation Districts I've recently covered include Mima on Shikoku, and Tsuyama in Okayama.

Hizen Hamashuku Former Samurai Residence

 

Hidden among the maze of small alleys around Sakagura Street in Hizen Hamasuku, Kashima, is a well-preserved example of a former samurai home that is open to the public.

It is quite a substantial 2-storeyed structure with a thatched roof and is believed to have been built in the early 19th century.

It differs from most of the other samurai residences I have posted on, like the one in Matsue, or the one in Izushi, in that it is not within a samurai quarter of a castle town, but rather is set among residences of farmers.

Evidence from the interior arrangements suggests that this samurai family was engaged in silkworm production and farming, activities officially "beneath" those of the samurai class.

There was a certain amount of "class" turmoil by the 19th century as many impoverished samurai gave up their statues to become farmers or even merchants, and many rich merchants and farmers being given trappings of samurai statues like family names and permission to wear swords.

The thatched roof of this property is U-shaped, a local style known as Kudo-Zukuri. Like with many such sites in Japan off the main tourist track, entry is free.

The previous post was on the nearby Hizen Hamashuku Sakagura Street Preservation District.