Frank la Rivière, Architects

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Demolition works are carried out by the previous owner of the site JR Bus, in order to clear the site for the construction of Nebuta House while the snow is still piled up.

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The passenger ferry the Hakoda Maru lays in the snow covered bay and shows its age. This ferry was used to connect Aomori with Hokkaido and was well use before flight connections and the train tunnel connecting Hakodate and Aomori became in use. Recently it was decided to restore the ship as part of the regeneration program undertaken of Aomori city.

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The site on 090224. The demolition work is still on going.

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The contractor has been selected and on the construction contract has been signed with Kajima-Fujimoto-Kurahashi JV (decided on 2008-11-13)on the 19th of December Contract.

http://www.kajima.co.jp/
http://www.fujimotok.com/index.html
http://www.kurahashi-co.jp/index.html

The contractors for the MEP works have also been decided on 2008-11-28)

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The tender procedures have started. The city published the project with this image. We hope that some of the super contractors such as Kajima and Takenaka will do a bid.
((image courtesy molo design Canada and the City of Aomori))
For further images:http://www.molodesign.com/projects/aomori_nebuta_house

NHA Nebuta House Aomori OIGINS OF THE NEBUTA FESTIVAL

The origin and development of Nebuta

There are many theories about the origin of the Nebuta Festival. One is that it is said to have originated after the subjugation of rebels in this district by “General TAMURAMARO” in the early 800’s. He had his army create large creatures, called “Nebuta”, for frighten the enemy.

Another theory is that the Nebuta Festival was a development of the “TANABATA” festival in China. One of the customs during this festival was “TORO” floating. A “toro” is a wooden frame box wrapped with Japanese paper. The Japanese light a candle inside the “TORO” and put it out to float onto the river or into the sea. The purpose behind this is to purify oneself and send the evil spirits out to sea. “TORO” floating is still one of the most impressive and beautiful sights during the summer nights of the Japanese festivals. On the final night, “toro” floating is accompanied by a large display of colorful fireworks. This is said to be the origin of the Nebuta Festival. Gradually these floats grew in size, as did the festivities, until they are the large size they are now.

Today the Nebuta floats are made of a wood base, carefully covered with this same Japanese paper, beautifully colored, and lighted from the inner part with hundreds of light bulbs. In early August the colorful floats are pulled through the streets accompanied by people dancing in native Nebuta costumes, playing tunes on flutes and drums.

Many Aomori citizens are involved in the building of these beautiful floats. The Nebuta designers create their designs, patterned after historical people or themes. Development of themes takes place immediately after the previous year’s festivities come to a close. Consequently, it takes the entire year, first in the development, then in the construction of the Nebuta float.

One of the reasons for the popularity of the Nebuta festival is the free participation of many Aomori citizens. The sounds of the Nebuta drums and bamboo flutes inspire people to prepare costumes and begin practice of the Nebuta dances. As the beginning of the parade is signaled, “HANETO”(dancers) join hand-in-hand, and begin their journey through the streets of Aomori. These dancers, colorfully arrayed in Nebuta garb.

Scource:
http://www.nebuta.or.jp/english/index_e.htm
http://www.nebuta.or.jp/index.htm

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We went for our first meeting with the Aomori City Team to Aomori. At night we were treated on a first hand experience with the nebuta festival. Actually for me this was already the third time. We both enjoyed the yatai like food served on the roof top of a building strategically located along the route as well as the view of the floats passing by and the widly dancing festival goers. But all didn’t stay that calm. Suddenly we were dressed up in yukata and straw slippers, ready to go! Lasera sera sera sera!

NHA Nebuta House Aomori START OF THE PROJECT

On May 6th 2007 I received an e-mail concerning a very interesting project in the North of Japan; The Nebuta House project for the city of Aomori. The message was send through by Dana Buntrock a good friend of mine who is an associate professor at the Department of Architecture, University of California, Berkeley. This is how I first was introduced to Stephanie Forsythe and Todd McAllen of molo design ltd Canada.
Todd & Stephanie form together a design studio based in Vancouver, Canada.
After winning the international competition called Aomori Northern Style Housing Competition judged by Tadao Ando and Jean Nouvel, Todd & Stephanie were asked to work out proposals for this building after it had become apparent that the sample function for this model housing project had diminished. The Nebuta House project, on the harbor front of Aomori City just in front of Aomori station, evolved from these preliminary studies.

The function of the building for which they had just finished the sketch design was centered on the culture connected to the Nebuta Festival for which Aomori City is famous. This cultural building will house a large exhibition space with the capacity to display 5 Nebuta floats and exhibition corner with the history of the festival, work spaces for the Nebuta artists, music rehearsal spaces and a theater space in such a way that this will all be part of a dynamic display of the Nebuta festival mood through out the year. The actual festival takes place in the first week of August each year.

The construction of the project is to coincide with the opening of the new Shinkansen line connecting Aomori to the fast train network and is meant to reinvigorate the declining city center. For that purpose the city has developed a regeneration plan for the harbor and center area and has successfully applied for subsidies from the government.
The Nebuta House project fits in this planning strategy.
Images of the housing competition can be found at URL: http://www.forsythe-macallen.com/images/Aomori/pages/Aomori.htmConcept images of the Aomori Nebuta House project http://www.molodesign.com/en/projects.html

At this very moment there was a need to come to a new engineering and architectural team that could work the Sketch Design up to a Basic design and do the Design Development Phase of the project. The structural engineers and MEP engineers were decided already. The new engineering team would consist of Kanebako Structural Engineering Office (URL: http://www.kanebako-se.co.jp ) for structural and P.T. Morimura for mechanical and electrical engineering (URL PTM: http://www.ptmtokyo.co.jp/ ).

They were still looking for an architectural team.
In response I proposed to set up an architectural team consisting of my own company FRA inc. together with Nakata Yasuo of dd/t Arch (URL: http://www.d-dt.co.jp & BLOG: http://nakata-ddt.seesaa.net/ ). Nakata san has worked for some 13 years in Maki Fumihiko’s office and one of the major projects he has worked on is the Asahi Television Building next to the Roppongi Hills in Tokyo. For both Nakata san and myself we were interested in taking on a larger scale project after having worked on smaller project recently and in particular a public works project with an interesting program and design. This proposal was accepted shortly afterwards both by Todd & Stephanie as well as the City of Aomori.

Image: one of the Nebuta floats of 1995