Wow Place #353: Chichu Museum, Naoshima Island, Japan
To my surprise, there have been over 100 James Bond Villains over the course of 25 or so 007 movies. Some of them I’d call “Bond Thugs” as they were more hired assassins than actual evil masterminds. I’m talking Odd Job from Goldfinger, Donald “Red” Grant in From Russia with Love, and Jaws from The Spy Who Loved Me/Moonraker.
No, true Bond Villains are the guys who call the shots, hold grudges, or simply aspire to taking over the world. I’m referring, of course, to rogues like Dr. No, Goldfinger, Raoul Silva, Francisco Scaramanga or my all-time favorite: Ernst Stavro Blofeld (he of the bald head and the white pet cat).
What do they all have in common? An epic Bond-Villain LAIR! You know, those spare, imposing, tricked-out palace/castles, perched on a cliff, submerged under the ocean or ensconced inside a mountain.
Myself, if I were a Bond Villain, I’d want to hide out in the Chichu Museum on Japan’s Naoshima island.
This is a complex just made for maniacal plotting!
The museum building, designed by world-renowned architect Tadao Ando, is mostly located underground, allowing it to integrate seamlessly with its surroundings and leave the landscape virtually untouched. From a drone’s-eye-view above, all you would see of the structure are a series of squares, triangles and rectangles, deeply cut into a grassy hillside.
Just perfect for your geometrically-shaped missiles and lasers!
Ando’s go-to building material, inevitably, is cement! Lots and lots of spare, modernistic cement. Says one description: “The cement becomes a medium for light modulation, as daylight is choreographed through narrow openings and voids, shifting as the sun moves across the sky. The intersection of walls and passageways creates moments of compression and release, inviting introspection and slowing the visitor’s pace.” (https://archeyes.com/chichu-art-museum-by-tadao-ando-light-and-space/)
Interestingly, despite being underground, the Chichu Museum employs no artificial lighting. In other words, the artwork is lit solely by natural light, filtered down from a variety of light wells, skylights and apertures. Think stark, modernistic courtyards, gardens and corridors, intermittently opened to the bright, blue sky above.
Like I said, a Bond Villain lair!
Perhaps the only truly villainous feature of the Chichu Museum is that, for your $16 admission fee, you only get to see the works of 3 artists: Claude Monet, James Turrell and Walter De Maria. Turrell gets two rooms—the others only one. The idea is that, as much as the artwork, it’s the architecture that’s worth the price of admission.
As for the art, I can say that all it’s very nice. One should never pass up a chance to see Monet water lilies. Turrell’s work is more optical illusion than anything else, but cool. And a special word should be said about De Maria’s installation: “Time/Timeless/No Time”. Imagine a vast marble room with a great marble staircase. Golden porticoes speckle the wall. And on a landing amidst the stairs: a giant, shiny-black orb, somewhere between an overgrown Magic 8-Ball and that rolling ball from the first Indiana Jones movie.
This is a room of mystery and majesty. A room for a king. Or perhaps, Ernst Stavro Blofeld and his cat.
(I often wonder what makes a villain become a villain. Surely, they were children once. They probably had a teddy bear, or a blankie (or a sled named Rosebud). No one aspires to grow up and become a villain, and yet we most certainly do have villains in the world. I’m guessing the unifying theme for all villains, evildoers, malefactors, fiends and baddies is a mountain-sized sense of grievance. In short, the world never appreciated them the way they had yearned for. It never recognized their greatness. Or worse, someone (like Bond, James Bond) took their fame and status away from them. And now the world will pay!
Is there a more powerful emotional catalyst in the human experience than the feeling of “It’s not fair!” We’ve become a world of victims and blamers, of patsies, suckers and fall guys. Our plight is always someone else’s fault! Before you start building your own villain’s lair, ask yourself: “Is someone else really responsible for my disappointments? Did I have NO other choices along the way? And does revenge and retribution really solve anything?” Think about what’s motivating your grievance before you go buying yourself a white villain’s cat.)