Time Corridors — A Dialogue with Hiroshi Sugimoto [Reflection]

On Naoshima, an island cradled by the quiet waters of the Seto Inland Sea, this museum is more than a container for art. It is a poem of philosophy written in concrete, light, and air. Sugimoto once said, “My theme is time.” In this space, that idea becomes a tangible vessel.

Designed by Tadao Ando within the Benesse House Museum, the building retains his signature exposed concrete and sense of intimate scale. Light moves subtly across the surfaces, almost unnoticed. As you walk the corridors, it follows you—continuous and quiet. While observing Sugimoto’s photographs, sculptures, and designs, you begin to sense time unfolding in parallel.

Along one corridor hangs a panoramic photograph of a forest. It is softly blurred, suspended between clarity and memory, possessing a restraint that feels unmistakably Eastern. The transitions between interior and exterior, architecture and landscape, echo Sugimoto’s lifelong study of time: its immensity, its flow, and its quiet persistence.



For over thirty years, Sugimoto has photographed the sea. To him, the ocean is the origin of consciousness. He wrote of this realization: “A sharp horizon and a cloudless sky—my consciousness was born there. From that line, my thoughts traveled back to the origins of human awareness.”


Beyond the museum stands a transparent teahouse, Kanshu-an, or "The House to Hear the Birds." Inspired by Sen no Rikyū’s philosophy of harmony, respect, purity, and tranquility, the structure is both open and enclosed. It rests lightly in the garden, a glass box breathing within nature.

This was the part that moved me most.

The airiness of the space, the dialogue between weathered wood and modern glass, and the shimmer of water beneath the walkway allow one to feel the pulse of nature and the vastness of time at once.


Sugimoto believes the tea ceremony gathers what Western art often separates—painting, sculpture, music, and architecture—into a single, complete experience. Standing before the teahouse, I understood that we are not merely hearing birdsong. We are hearing a resonance that travels across time, a shared tremor of beauty carried through human memory.

In that moment, time was no longer abstract. It was present.



Photography courtesy of Wang Xiaoyan © Licensed