Moerenuma Park

The site was Sapporo's waste landfill. Isamu Noguchi was asked to design a park on it in 1988, produced the master plan the same year, and died a few months later; the city completed the work to his drawings over the following seventeen years, opening it fully in 2005. It is not a park containing sculpture - the whole 189 hectares is the sculpture, with the ground itself shaped: Mount Moere, a spiral-terraced hill of 62 metres built from the buried waste, the Play Mountain stepped in granite, a glass pyramid of steel and glass at the centre, a beach and a fountain that runs a forty-minute programme rising to a jet of twenty-five metres. Play equipment through the park was designed by Noguchi as abstract forms rather than as apparatus. In winter the hill is used for sledging and the whole thing goes white.

History

The site was used as a landfill from 1979, and by 1990, when dumping stopped, 2,736,000 tonnes of waste had been brought to 71.2 hectares of it. Isamu Noguchi first visited in March 1988 and drew up the master plan of a park conceived as one complete sculpture; he died on 30 December that year, just after making a model of it, and the park was built to his plan from 1989 (Wikipedia, Moerenuma Park).

What to look for

• A landfill reshaped - 189 hectares built over Sapporo's buried waste.
• Mount Moere - a 62-metre spiral-terraced hill made from the fill.
• The glass pyramid - a steel and glass structure at the centre of the plan.
• Noguchi play forms - abstract sculptural equipment rather than standard apparatus.

When to go

May to October; the fountain programme runs in the warm months. Half a day.

Practical notes

It is very large and walking it takes hours - bicycles are hired on site for a reason. The fountain runs only on a schedule and only in season. Winter closes much of it. Buses from the city are infrequent.

Nearby

Sapporo city centre is south-west; the beer museum is between them.