The Simose Art Museum is delighted to announce its recognition in the prestigious "Prix Versailles 2024: The World’s Most Beautiful Museums." The Prix Versailles, an annual accolade presented at UNESCO since 2015, celebrates outstanding contemporary architectural achievements globally.
Excerpt from the official release
"Back in 2002, for Expo.02 in Murten, Switzerland, the architect Jean Nouvel, 2008 winner of the Pritzker Architecture Prize, first imagined a temporary monolith weighing nearly 4,000 tonnes yet appearing to buoyantly float on the surface of the lake. A space odyssey! What was dreamt up by the one was later magnified by another, Shigeru Ban, 2014 Pritzker Prize winner, at the Simose Art Museum, in the form of eight mobile galleries with walls made of coloured glass that light up at night over the water of a reflecting pool. This symbolic scenery amplifies the physical scenery of the Seto Inland Sea with a nod to the beauty of the Se-touchi Islands. The structure blends with the garden of seasonal plants and flowers which served as motifs for the French artist and designer Emile Gallé (1846-1904), whose work makes up a significant portion of the museum’s collections. Despite the concept’s hefty ambitions, visitors are greeted by a canopy on a welcoming scale."
WORLD’S MOST BEAUTIFUL MUSEUMS LIST 2024
A4 Art Museum (Chengdu, China)
Grand Egyptian Museum (Giza, Egypt)
Smritivan Earthquake Museum (Bhuj, India)
Simose Art Museum (Hiroshima, Japan)
Paleis Het Loo (Apeldoorn, Netherlands)
Oman Across Ages Museum (Manah, Oman)
Polish History Museum (Warsaw, Poland)
For more details about Prix Versailles 2024 and Simose Art Museum, visit Prix Versailles 2024, or GEN DE ART issue 16.
Photos by Simose Art Museum