Kengo Kuma Recreates Studio Ghibli’s ‘Kiki’s Delivery Service’ Town For Museum
Image via Studio Ghibli
With all its natural gems, technological whimsies and architectural delights, Japan is the one destination you’d expect to come straight out of a fairytale. Its sense of wonder is characterized by the works of Hayao Miyazaki’s Studio Ghibli and Kiki’s Delivery Service author Eiko Kadono, who now has a museum after her.
And who better to bring their stories to life than Kengo Kuma, the contemporary architect known for his experimental, nature-based remixes of traditional Japanese architecture? Kuma was tasked to conjure up the new Eiko Kadono Museum of Children’s Literature, and noting the global influence that the Kiki’s Delivery Service novel and film adaptation have created, he decided to design the building after the fictional town it is set in, ‘Koriko’.
Kiki’s Delivery Service follows Kiki, a young trainee witch who moves to a new town at the socially acceptable age—at least in the witch community—of 13 with her black cat, Jiji. To earn her keep, she assists a pregnant bakery owner by launching a broomstick delivery service for the business.
To bring the town of Koriko to life, Kuma envisioned a white flower-shaped structure with the 85-year-old Hans Christian Andersen Author Award winner’s favorite tone, strawberry pink, on its interiors. He explained that “flowers warm people’s hearts.”
As reported by It’s Nice That, the quaint townscape will be beamed on the museum’s walls through projection mapping. Further, visitors will get acquainted with the life work of Kadono in a recreated room of her studio, where they’ll find her back catalog of books.
Kadono appreciates the dreamlike interpretations, believing they honor her wish for the museum to “make memories” in a traditional and unhurried way.
“Memories can give us energy as we live through our lives,” she detailed in a statement via It’s Nice That. “I thought that children nowadays are used to being given things and have less opportunities to find things on their own and enjoy them. I hope they read books here and discover the joy of reading and the amplitude of words.”
The Eiko Kadono Museum of Children’s Literature, set to open in Edogawa Ward—where the author spent her early 20s—is expected to be ready in July 2023. The architect is hopeful “the roofs would look great on this hill.”
In the meantime, take a look at the newly-released renders from this wonderful project.
Kengo Kuma’s strawberry interpretation of ‘Koriko’.Image via Studio Ghibli
The original ‘Koriko’ townscape by Studio Ghibli. Image via Studio Ghibli / IMDb
[via It’s Nice That, images via various sources]
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