Kadare Cultural Centre | Chiaki Arai Urban & Architecture Design

Kadare Cultural Centre

This massive, slightly brutalist multipurpose building called the Kadare Cultural Centre in Yurihonjo City, Japan, is a product of Japanese practice,  Chiaki Arai Urban & Architecture Design. A street previously divided the site for the project, forcing the project to be broken up into undesired autonomous volumes.

photography by © Taisuke Ogawa

The architect’s solution was to unify the building and replace the road with a pedestrian street named Wai-Wai Street, which runs indoors north to south, through the building. This street features shopping and culinary attractions and serves as a gathering, launching-off point for visitors to the cultural centre.

photography by © Taisuke Ogawa

Around the above mentioned street, the building’s program features a library, community centre, planetarium, and a multipurpose theatre. Spaces throughout the building are organically ordered and inconsistent- in a way emulating the way that mangrove trees grow.”]

Designed after several workshops with the public, the interiors take into account aesthetics, the human scale, and usability for specific functions. Windows punch through the facade in a similar fashion to the way spaces are oriented- irregular of a pattern yet located exactly where they are needed.

Project Info
Architects: Chiaki Arai Urban and Architecture Design
Location:  Akita, Japan
Area: 11750.0 sqm
Year: 2011
Photographs: Taisuke Ogawa
Design Team: Chiaki Arai, Ryoichi Yoshizaki, Masanori Asai, Miroku Arai, Toshihiro Yano
Supervision: Chiaki Arai, Ryoichi Yoshizaki, Masanori Asai
Structural Engineer: Arup
Engineer and Air-condition: P.T. Morimura & associates, LTD.
Acoustical Consultant: Nagata Acoustics
Theater Consultant: Theater Workshop
Interior: Chiaki Arai, Ryoichi Yoshizaki, Masanori Asai
Landscape: Chiaki Arai, Ryoichi Yoshizaki, Masanori Asai
Contractor: Toda corporation
Landscape Construction: Muraoka Construction Inc, / Osada Construction Co., LTD.
Type: Cultural Center