TANSEISHA Co., Ltd.

Tanseisha is an interior design studio that conceptualises retail and hospitality spaces, as well as cultural realms, including museums, exhibitions, event venues and more. Established in 1946, the studio supports the entire planning and creative process – from research and planning to design, construction and operation.

Interview with TANSEISHA Co., Ltd.

Red Dot: You were entrusted with the exhibition design for the new Rikuzentakata City Museum after the original building was completely destroyed by the great earthquake of 2011. How did you approach this project?
TANSEISHA Co., Ltd.: The cultural assets and exhibition materials were local treasures, and their destruction meant the loss of history and memories. Showing the salvaged materials in a novel exhibition format breathes new life into these treasures, imbuing them with new meaning as testimonies to Rikuzentakata. This thinking led to the essential concept of the project – a promise to the future. It also expressed what was in the hearts and minds of everyone involved in the exhibition project.

You use the concepts of “living museum” and “living exhibit”. What does this mean exactly?
Although the museum is open, many areas of Rikuzentakata are still recovering, and restoration work continues for approximately 460,000 damaged museum exhibits. This “live” situation is the impetus for the “living museum” concept driven by an internationally unprecedented salvage project. Restored items are also shown as “living exhibits” that create new value in this dynamic context.

The museum also incorporates the former Sea Shell Museum, so the “shell” became a key symbol of the new site. How is it represented? 
Firstly, we designed a spiral corridor in the exhibition space based on the shape of the shell to create a single viewing path along the curve. Otherwise, unusable oyster shells were desalted, crushed and mixed into the plastering to turn them into a design element on the spiral wall. Local resources were used throughout the exhibition space to emphasise its local character.