丰田市博物馆丨日本丨坂茂建筑事务所

Toyota City Museum by Shigeru Ban is an ode to sustainable timber architecture

Shigeru Ban’s Toyota City Museum is made from locally sourced cedar wood. The new cultural venue is Japan’s first architecture to achieve the Net Zero Energy Building Ready certification.

. The Japanese city of Toyota is best known for its extensive automotive factories. Yet it is also blessed with luxurious nature and a rich cultural heritage, which is now celebrated in the new

Toyota City Museum

, designed by

Shigeru Ban Architects

.

The Pritzker Prize-winning architect used wooden architecture crafted from locally sourced cedar wood to

minimise CO2 emissions

. A distinctive 90-metre-long roof supported by tapered, asterisk-shaped columns

extends beyond a floor-to-ceiling

glazed facade

to create a sheltered outdoor porch.

Shigeru Ban drew inspiration from Toyota City’s emblem—two overlapping V-shaped arrows—and integrated symbolic elements into its architectural features. The underside of the roof features a skylight that casts an emblem-like shadow during the summer solstice, providing a visual connection to the city’s identity.

A screen of tall, evergreen white oak trees separates the museum from the adjacent Museum of Art, a modernist glass and metal masterpiece completed by Yoshio Taniguchi in 1995. The city’s plan initially didn’t allow for a connection between the two cultural venues, placing it on a disconnected plot. Shigeru Ban seized the opportunity to combine them, creating one museum zone.

By positioning the new museum parallel to the other and echoing its facade and proportions, the Japanese architect made both cultural venues more accessible to visitors, fostering a synergistic relationship

.” Shigeru Ban told Archipanic.

A rounded room wrapped with a curved ramp is at the museum’s core. Here, the permanent collection and artefacts originally planned for storage are displayed on a large glass-covered display rack in the middle of the exhibition space.

The new Toyota City Museum is

Japan’s first architecture to achieve the Net Zero Energy Building Ready certification. In addition to its environmental initiatives, it is also designed to be resilient.

Indeed, the museum was designed to transform into a disaster relief centre. In the event of a calamity, a disaster headquarters can be established in the museum.

Toyota City Museum by Shigeru Ban: all photos are by Hiroyuki Hirai, courtesy of Shigeru Ban Architects.