New Pavilion Designed By Architect Gyo Obata Opens January 23 At Japanese American National Museum In Los Angeles

The Japanese American National Museum, the premiere institution dedicated to sharing the Japanese American experience, opened its new Pavilion under the theme, “Celebrating the American Experience”, with special ceremonies, performances, workshops, and a gala dinner that drew 35,000 people over four days in Los Angeles’ Little Tokyo Historic District. Part of a $45-million expansion and development project, the 85,000-square-foot building enables the Museum to broaden its exhibition programming and public resources, and serves as an integral component of the revitalization of historic downtown Los Angeles.

A special dedication ceremony was held on Friday morning, January 22, in the Museum’s Courtyard Plaza with Los Angeles Mayor Richard Riordan and Nobutaka Machimura, Vice Minister of Parliamentary for Foreign Affairs from Japan, as keynote speakers. The opening was bolstered the performances of Japanese Festival Sounds, the Crenshaw High School Gospel Choir, and artist/Buddhist priest Hirokazu Kosaka, who unveiled 1,300 rolls of ribbon on the face of the Pavilion’s Central Hall Wall of Glass. A gala dinner was held on-site in a tented structure with over 1,300 guests in attendance. The dinner featured a video message from First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton and a keynote speech from Michael Heyman, Secretary of the Smithsonian.

To commemorate the opening of the Pavilion, the Museum organized a special “Welcome Weekend” beginning with its Public Opening Ceremony on Saturday morning, January 23, in the Courtyard Plaza. Speaker of the California Assembly Antonio Villaraigosa, Los Angeles City Councilwoman Rita Walters, and Museum Executive Director and President Irene Hirano all spoke after a performance of 100 taiko players in the street in front of the Museum. This ceremony was followed by a luncheon that attracted over 800 people.

In the afternoon, the jazz-fusion band Hiroshima performed a free concert in the Courtyard Plaza that attracted thousands of people. The concert was part of the multicultural “Welcome Weekend” in which the Museum’s partners and neighbors provided hands-on workshops, performances, and family activities in both the new Pavilion and the Historic Building. Among the many participating groups were the California African American Museum, the Getty Center, the Museum of Contemporary Art, the Korean American Museum, Inner City Arts, the Skirball Museum, the Latino Museum, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, East West Players, the Japanese American Cultural and Community Center, and the Watts Towers Art Center.

Two exhibitions were unveiled that same day. Common Ground: The Heart of Community looks at the more than 100 years of Japanese American history with artifacts, home movies, historical photographs, and even an art installation. The exhibition is bolstered by the presence of a fragment of an authentic barracks building that unconstitutionally housed Japanese Americans during World War II in a U.S. concentration camp in Wyoming. The other exhibition, Bruce and Norman Yonemoto: Memory, Matter and Modern Romance, combines a mid-career survey of the two video-installation artists with a new piece entitled Silicon Valley located in the Historic Building. The Yonemoto brothers were called by the Los Angeles Times “the most important American artists of Japanese ancestry working in Los Angeles.”

The Pavilion provides three times as much exhibition space for the Museum and includes a new 3,000-square-foot National Resource Center. The National Resource Center utilizes advanced audiovisual equipment, thousands of books and periodicals and an interactive database with images and text that illustrate the Museum’s diverse collection.

“The Japanese American National Museum has built a reputation as an important resource and destination for fostering widespread interest in America’s ethnic and cultural diversity,” said Yoshihiro Uchida, Chairman of the Museum’s Board of Trustees. “The completion of the new Pavilion now allows us to concentrate more fully on the exhibitions and activities that define the Museum’s mission, and it enables us to expand our impact across the globe.”

“I want to thank the community of volunteers, staff, donors, and friends that have made this remarkable dream come true,” said Irene Hirano, President and Executive Director of the Japanese American National Museum. “We have come a long way in educating, enlightening, and building bridges with those of all ethnicities, and we have more exciting plans for the future. As our Museum grows, the surrounding neighborhood is flourishing, and the new Pavilion is the cornerstone of a major cultural plaza and public garden planned for downtown Los Angeles.”

Architecture and Garden

The Pavilion at the Japanese American National Museum is designed by renowned architect Gyo Obata, best known for the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum. Honored with the Award of Design Excellence by the Los Angeles Board of Cultural Affairs Commissioners, the contemporary stone, steel, and glass structure bridges East and West aesthetic traditions. The new Pavilion and the Museum’s original building-a landmark former Buddhist temple-are united by a granite and flagstone-paved courtyard and a garden designed by landscape architect Robert Murase. The stone and water garden features a 90-foot wall of water and reflecting pool.

Knitted into the urban fabric of downtown Los Angeles, the sandstone, granite, steel, and glass Pavilion is located on the corner of Central Avenue and First Street, diagonally across from Little Tokyo’s distinctive fire tower. The building links the past and present: its signature curved yellow granite wall creates a dialogue with the historic facade of the original Museum building, and its red sandstone and marble exterior directly responds to the original structure’s red tile.

“As a Japanese American well-acquainted with the cultural landscape of this country, I feel I have a particular understanding of the Museum’s vision,” said Gyo Obata. “In celebrating the American experience, the new Pavilion represents one culture coming from Japan and melding to the culture of the United States. It also is my hope that this new building will become a focal point of downtown L.A.”

The Pavilion’s interior incorporates the old and the new, and includes traditional naturally lighted galleries, as well as larger galleries for contemporary works and installations. Other interior features include a sweeping grand stairway, cherry wood paneling, a convenient centrally located collection space, and expanded areas for educational programs, library facilities, and offices.

The Museum’s new garden integrates Japanese and American aesthetics, incorporating stones and water with American plantings to provide a place for rest and contemplation. The soothing sound of running water serves to draw visitors into the courtyard, and also masks the noise from the street. The garden’s stepped flagstone terrace, paved with random-cut stones, links the lobby with the Museum’s new Terasaki Garden Café.

“The garden represents Japanese tradition within an American context,” explained landscape architect Robert Murase. “Japanese Americans have always experienced this kind of dualism. Rather than a fusion of cultures, it is an expansion of our heritage.”

Collection, Exhibitions, and Programming

The Museum’s collection of more than 30,000 objects includes artifacts, paintings, works on paper, photography, film and video documentation, ephemera, textiles, and recorded oral histories. These objects trace family and religious life, social activities, artistic expression, and commerce throughout Japanese American history, including the immigration period from 1885 to 1924, the World War II concentration camp experience, the post-war community, and political activism.

Highlights include compelling works documenting the mass incarceration of Japanese Americans during World War II, remnants of an original barracks building from one of the camps; congressional papers that culminated in the passage of the Civil Liberties Act of 1998; and archives of the Buddhist Churches of America, which describe the early history of Japanese immigration and settlement in the United States.

The Japanese American National Museum is centrally located in the Little Tokyo Historic District of downtown Los Angeles at 369 East First Street. Admission is $6 for adults, $5 for seniors 62 and over, $3 for students with ID, and free for Museum members and children under five. Special group rates and rentals are available. Admission is free Thursdays from 5 to 8 p.m. and all day on the third Thursday of each month. For reservations and membership information, call 213.625.0414 or visit the Museum website at www.janm.org.

The Japanese American National Museum and its new Pavilion are open to the public Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.; and Thursday from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. The Museum is closed on Mondays and Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year&rsqu;s Day. For more information, call 213.625.0414.