Norihiko Dan – born in 1956 in the Kanagawa Prefecture in Japan – is the designer of the beautiful Munetsugu Hall, completed in 2007 in Naka Ward, Nagoya, Japan. It is a privately-funded concert hall that continues the age-old but almost-dead tradition of wealthy arts patrons initiating and financing the creation of art spaces. Fluid, white wall shapes are the distinctive feature of Munetsugu Hall’s main performance space. The walls bring to mind artistic sweep marks left by a gigantic builder who in his boredom doodled in his mortar tray with a massive trowel and then let the shapes solidify.
Norihiko Dan has won several architecture awards in Japan and Taiwan including the Distinguished Architect Award of the Japanese Institute of Architecture and the ARCADIA Award Gold Medal in 2007. His work has been part of exhibitions in Japan, Taiwan, USA, Canada, Germany, Austria, Italy and the UK. In addition to being a respected architect and educator, Norihiko Dan is also an architecture historian and writes novels and screenplays.
Munetsugu Hall’s generous benefactor is Tokuji Munetsugu who with his wife Naomi made a fortune in the restaurants business. Their company Ichibanya Co. Ltd. (based in Aichi, Japan) operates more than 1,000 curry and pasta restaurants under the names Curry House CoCo Ichibanya and Pasta de Coco. Munetsugu spent two billion yen to build the 310-seat concert hall. He has also set up a nonprofit organization to support welfare, sports and arts activities. – Tuija Seipell
Recent posts
-
June 24, 2022
Can Brut villa, Ibiza, Spain
Can Brut is a family villa on the island of Ibiza located on an 85,000 square-metre cove plot overlooking Spain’s Balearic Sea. The plot overlooks...
-
June 20, 2022
Canyon House, Los Angeles, California, USA
When Rustic Canyon house was completed in May 2018, one of the residence’s redeeming qualities already then was the surrounding nature. As the 4,100 square-foot...
-
June 13, 2022
Beach Café, Busan, South Korea
Known as the Miami of South Korea, Busan is famous for its beaches and mountains. When the design team at Seoul-based Matter Better Interior Design...
-
May 31, 2022
At The Window/Table – Diana Sosnowska
‘Woman Smoking at The Window’ by UK photographer Diana Sosnowska is a carefully staged photographic self-portrait taken in the artist’s former apartment in Edinburgh, Scotland,...
-
May 30, 2022
Prime Seafood Palace, Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Toronto-based restaurateur Matty Matheson is known for many things but subtlety is not one of them. He swears, huffs and waves his hands, and his...
-
May 18, 2022
Barn-Inspired Residence, Hudson Valley, New York State, US
Magic can result when architect and client have known each other for two decades and when both are willing to take the time to consider...
-
May 17, 2022
Private Reading Room, Xuhui District, Shanghai, China
A vast book collection and a trusting friendship between designers and their client helped turn cramped ground-floor rooms into a sun-filled, tranquil private reading room....
-
April 27, 2022
Casa Aire Mountain Retreat, Medellín, Colombia
“It’s not a place to show off, it’s a place for my soul to rest,” says 37-year-old Colombian reggaeton superstar, José Álvaro Osorio Balvín known...
-
April 26, 2022
Beach House Overhaul, East Hampton, New York, USA
The shingle-clad East Hampton beach house, located on the coveted Further Lane, has an illustrious celebrity-amplified past as do so many in the area. It...
-
April 15, 2022
Canyon House Restoration, Brentwood Park, Los Angeles, California, U.S
In interiors, we are not fans of subdued and prissy nor decorative and antique-filled. When we saw the first images of the Californian Canyon house...
-
April 14, 2022
Weekend Music Playlist 37
-
April 6, 2022
The Library, Showroom For luxury Car Collection, Wan Chai, Hong Kong
Owning any kind of car today is questionable. Owning a whole collection of luxury cars even more so. But there is no denying that the...