At some point in the future, the new Sumida Hokusai Museum in Tokyo will be considered with great affection by a lot of people. Like Tokyo Tower and Starck¡¯s Asahi Beer Hall ¡ª which have had their fair share of criticism but are now an inextricable part of what makes Tokyo one of the world¡¯s kookiest cities ¡ª the asymmetric jumble of silvery blocks designed by celebrated architect Kazuyo Sejima will one day be taken into people¡¯s hearts ¡ª probably.
We¡¯re not there yet though. The most blackly comic criticism of the museum I¡¯ve come across is, ¡°We had to suffer the Kanto Earthquake, the bombing of World War II, and now this.¡± Another priceless pique was, ¡°What about that terrible spiral staircase!¡± (it only goes between two floors of the building, otherwise people have to cram into two fairly small elevators to move up and down the low-storey building. It also looks puny).
There¡¯s no getting round the brashness of the museum¡¯s design, which appears to have come straight out of the 1990s. The official rubric says the building was planned to blend in with the locality, which is startlingly delusory: It was designed to be flashy, and bask in the attention of being the new kid on the block. It does this very well.
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