About Moere Fun Club

The Moere Fan Club works to create a lively
and beautiful park and city.
There is a beautiful park in northeast Sapporo, encircled by an oxbow lake left by Toyohira River.A park designed by sculptor Isamu Noguchi... Moerenuma Park.
Ensuring that Moerenuma Park is, as Isamu Noguchi envisioned, “a space that enriches people’ s hearts
through the power of art and lives vividly in the daily lives of people” requires active and involved citizens
working together towards this vision.
The Moere Fan Club is a nonprofit organization made up of citizens and park enthusiasts coming together
to support Moerenuma Park. We are working to make it a park that is active and lively, one that the citizensof the city can be proud of, understand, and continue to love as a beautiful space well into the future.

A scene from “A Song Will Be Born from Moere:
Welcoming Mr. Shuntaro Tanikawa” , an event held in 2005.

What We Do

The Moere Fan Club is involved in mainly the following kinds of activities.
As a nonprofit organization that continues to advocate for an ideal Moerenuma Park, the Moere Fan
Club cooperates with citizens and other organizations to conduct a wide range of activities.

1. We organize exhibitions, hold concerts, and various lectures.

EXHIBITIONS

Isamu Noguchi Exhibitionat the Glass Pyramid

CONCERTS

Concert with Kyoko Kawamuraand Miyako Itchu

LECTURES

City Planning, Design, and Moeren
uma Park - A Lecture by Mr. Osamu Shinohara

Isamu Noguchi Birthday Concert

EVENTS

Grand Opening 5th Anniversary“Art Forum”

Cycling Tour from the Black Slide
Mantra to Moerenuma Park

2. We hold workshops and nurture the creativity of children.

WORKSHOP“A Song Born from Moere:
Welcoming Mr. Shuntaro Tanikawa”

Minoru Iijima’ s Amazing AirplaneWorkshop

A Fun Christmas For All in Moere

3. We protect the natural environment of Moerenuma Park and advocate for its future throughSYMPOSIUMS

Symposium: The Future ofMoerenuma Park

ENVIRONMENTAL ACTIVITIESBlack Slide Mantra Clean TeamRECOMMENDATIONS TO
THE GOVERNMENTMaking recommendations to the cityof Sapporo for city planning, andmanagement of council meetings

4. We develop and sell written materials and merchandise that promote the park to the world.

DEVELOPMENT AND SALE OFMERCHANDISEBOOK PUBLICATION

Publication of “Moere Bunko (MoereLibrary)” , a digest of ongoinglectures!

Publication “Access Moerenuma Park”
for the Toyako Summit in 2008

Development and sales of variousmerchandise

Moere Fan Club members receive priority access to activities as well as discounts
on books and merchandise and more.

Message from Isamu Noguchi

Messages Sculpted in the Earth

Moerenuma Park is a grand landscape boasting a total site area of
1,890,000 square meters (approximately 467 acres).
This place was once a final waste disposal site.
One late winter day, twenty-two years ago, a prominent artist set his foot on thelingering snow in this place.
What he saw then was a waterside scenery evocative of a primordial landscape.
Above his head was the dome of the sky,and under his feet the poor old Mother Earth sullied by human beings.
At his first sight of Moerenuma, it was reported that his eyes brightened and hiscuriosity was aroused.
The man’ s name is Isamu Noguchi.
Having traveled around the world in constant search of a frontier, he may haveconceivably discovered a place dear to his heart here.
Only nine months after his fateful encounter with this place, Isamu Noguchi wenthence, leaving his completed master plan behind.
His lifetime-grandest project conceived for a refuse dump in a northern city the“park designed to be a sculpture in its entirety and a garden of the universe” was finally greeted with its grand opening ceremony in July 2005, after 17 long years oftenacious, collaborative efforts by people with common interests and aspirations.
Today, Moerenuma Park is a very popular place visited by over 800,000 people,
both local citizens and tourists alike, annually.
Everybody visiting here relishes, after their own fashion, their time being
overwhelmed by the daunting scale, perceiving a message inscribed on the earth,or melding themselves into the landscape.
What then, will the park be like 10, 20 and 30 years from now?

I knew from the beginning that it would take thirty years for the garden to mature.
Humans can do only so much. All humans can do is plant a tree thinking it willgrow in a certain way.
It wasn’ t humans who finished the garden, Nature did that all by itself.
By Isamu Noguchi

The future of the park is actually put in the hands of all of us ingathering here.
It is the homework that Isamu Noguchi has left for us to do.

Moere Fan ClubMoerenuma Park Story

One day, in the winter, I had a vision.
I saw the earth as sculpture;
I got the feeling that the sculpture of the future might
be on the earth.

A view of the entire park from a high altitude gives an illusion of the huge Nazca Lines
cropping up in modern Sapporo. Moerenuma Park was the last and largest landscapesculpture of Isamu Noguchi. At a press conference in Sapporo, he once said, “Moerenuma
Park is not merely a park dotted with sculptures, but the park in its entirety is a grandsculpture.” The vision of “sculpture of the earth’ s surface” , which Noguchi had conceived
during his youth through an artistic revelation and cherished for a long time thereafter, wasposthumously brought to fruition as a work of environmental art boasting a gross area of
about 1,890,000 square meters through the committed and tenacious efforts of both hispartners and the city of Sapporo.

Moerenuma Park Story

Now this is something interesting.

It was in March 1988 that Noguchi first set his foot on the Moere Marsh district. What he saw
then was a desolate land with scurrying remnants of refuse. Despite the sight of the bleak
scenery, he paced about the site in the snow and shouted happily, “This place is crying outfor form. And it is my mission to do just that.” What did he mean by “his mission to do” ? But
now we know that he must have been compelled by some forces beyond his control toregenerate the refuse dump, a negative legacy of urban life and turn it into something
beautiful, thereby contributing to improving the amenity of life. Moerenuma Park is living
proof of Noguchi’ s conviction that “art can serve the purpose of enriching people’ s lives” .

Moerenuma Park Story

I think my madness in wanting to make gardens andso forth lies in this usefulness...
the need to feel that there is someplace on the earth
which an artist can affect....

“Because this is such a flat land, it would be all the more relevant for me to create a mountainhere” remarked Noguchi. Mt. Moere thus created, and Play Mountain, the inspired vision ofwhich he had gestated for 55 years, constitute the topographical signature of Moerenuma
Park. As one approaches the park from the central area of Sapporo, the two landmarks
invitingly tower over the rows of houses. Everyone visiting the park would feel compulsive
about climbing them. It is not until standing on top of either of the alluring mounds that theentire view of the park as a grand earth sculpture becomes available to us earthboundhumans.

Moerenuma Park Story

Today, under the influence of science,the concepts of time and space have come to occupy
an important place in the world.
Perhaps, my interest in them has always been at theroot of my search for true sculpture.

Tetra Mound, a lofty structure situated at the foot of Play Mountain, makes a strong
impression upon those approaching from the western side. It is one of many “mountain”
motifs found in Moerenuma Park.
The gently-curved green hemisphere in the bosom of a powerful stainless steel triangularpyramid wafts an air of soothing softness like that of planet Earth. Some people interpret it as
symbolizing Isamu Noguchi lovingly wrapping his arms around mother Leonie. It would beinteresting to look at this piece of work in the context of the artist’ s life. Also, you might wantto get close to it, touch it, or view it from a distance without resting content with a fixed sightline. With every change of perspective, yet a new shape would come into your view.

Moerenuma Park Story

Everything was sculpture.
Any material, any idea without hindrance born inspace, I consider sculpture.

Water changing its shape as it spurts up, tumbles down, and swirls about was an undeniable
aspect of sculpture to Noguchi, which he dubbed “water sculpture.” Moerenuma Park isprovided with three water-based facilities: Moere Beach, which was so planned as “to allow
children to wade into” ; Aqua Plaza, which is seen as an extension of Noguchi’ s early
garden work, California Scenario; and Sea Fountain, in which he pursued the object ofsimulating a “rippling sea.” It took numerous rounds of rigorous calculation to determine theforce of water acting on the relevant structures, as well as repeated process of trial and error,
before Noguchi’ s original concepts of water sculpture could be brought into tangible forms
as we see today.

Moerenuma Park Story

Actually, the older it is, the more archaic andprimitive, the better I like it. I don't know why,but perhaps it's simply because the repeateddistillation of art brings you back to the primordial...

To encourage the park’ s wintertime utilization, Isamu Noguchi had kept emphasizing theneed for a nucleus facility since the early days of planning, which later came off as GlassPyramid. This is a space where people can enjoy the spread of the sky and the dancing
sunlight through a wall of transparent glass. The building interior is finished primarily withwhite brickwork walls and masonry work using granite stone from Aji-cho, Kagawa
prefecture, similar materials used for the Isamu Noguchi Garden Museum in Mure-cho. The
second floor of the pyramid section is devoted to a stair-like sunken concourse. Thus, a tourof the building would bring you into intimate contact with the essence of Isamu Noguchi’ sworld of art.

Moerenuma Park Story

For me playgrounds are way of creating the world...
It’s a way of creating an ideal world—on a smaller scale...
It’s a topology I’m interested in—land in which one canrun around, three feet high.

Isamu Noguchi aspiringly challenged the creation of ‘playable sculptures’ , saying, “The valueof a city lies in how much safe space it can secure for the children to play.” The playequipment in triangular, cubic and hemicylindrical shapes created by Noguchi’ s formative
sense is conducive to freewheeling thinking of children and sends their body and mind intovibrant flight. Designing play equipment may well have been Noguchi’ s attempt to re-live hisvanished childhood. Moerenuma Park represents a congregation of play sculptures fatheredby the playful spirits of a great artist.

Moerenuma Park Story

It is my desire to view nature through nature's eyes,
and to ignore man as an object for special veneration.

Moere Pond is a flood-induced cutoff body of water that remained after the Toyohira River
carved a new channel. The name of the pond came from ‘MOIRE-PETSU’ meaning a “river ofslow current” in the language of the indigenous Ainu people. The waterfront is host to
pruinashoot willow, river club rush, and cattail or bulrush (ofthegenusTypha), while clumps ofChinese water chestnut and water milfoil are found in the shallower parts of the pond. Also
migratory wildfowl can be spotted during their seasons. With such natural things included,
the open space overall was viewed by Isamu Noguchi as a medium of sculpture. His creative
activity would dawn with a spiritual communion with mother earth and an act of listening in to
the voice of nature.

Moerenuma Park Story

Data Sheets■ Design and Supervision■ Sea Fountain

Master Planner：

Total volume of water：

Isamu Noguchi

1,800 metric tons

Design Supervisors：

Maximum height of water jet：Isamu Noguchi Foundation

25 meters

Shoji Sadao

Main pumps：

Takashi Sasaki

180Kw × 2; 100Kw × 2

Executive Architects：

Jet nozzles：

ARCHITECT 5

High-speed jet nozzle ( φ165mm) × 1,

Jun ‘ichi Kawamura

Wave-shaping nozzles ( φ 200mm) × 4,

Hidetsugu Horikoshi

Mist nozzles ( φ 50mm) × 64,

Takeo Matsuoka

Pop-up arch nozzles × 16

Landscape Architects：

Fountain lighting：

Kitaba Landscape Planning

LED illuminating lamps × 120

Koji Saito

Finishing Works：
Fountain basin:Lining with a mixture of coralline■ Size and Scalerubble and resin;

Site area：

lining with a mixture of gravel and resin

1,888,000 ㎡ (approx. 467 acres)Central cone：
Granite stone pitching■ Glass PyramidCentral fountain bowl：

Building area：

Epoxy resin water-resistant fi nish

3,864 ㎡
Total fl oor area：
5,322 ㎡
Finishing Works：
Exterior walls: Low-E insulating pairglass supported by DPG;
vibration-fi nish stainless steel panels,
black color
Floors：Jet burner-fi nished Chinese white granite stone;
solid Canadian maple
Interior walls：
Stone masonry using granite quarried fromAji-cho,
Kagawa pref.; bare concrete; glass cloth + acrylic
emulsion paintMoerenuma Park Story

Data Sheets■ Landscaping● Play Mountain● Forest of Cherry Trees

Plants：Plants：Cool season grasses (for lawns)

Ezo Yamazakura ( Prunus sargentii); Colorado

Finish：Blue Spruce

Granite rocks quarried in Mure-cho, Kagawa( Picea pungens);

prefecture;

Japanese Rowan ( Sorbus commixta)

shot-blast fl agstone

Finish：Shot-blast paving stones● Tetra Mound

Plants：● Amphitheater

Japanese Elm

Plants：( Ulmus davidiana var. japonica)

Ezo Spruce ( Picea glehnii); cool season

Ground Finish：grasses (for lawns)

Pebbles embedded in washed-down concrete;

Retaining Wall Finish：granite stone pavement

Granite stone quarried in Mure-cho, Kagawa

Structure：

prefecture

Steel construction with vibration-fi nish
stainless steel covering● Mt. Moere

Plants：● Aqua Plaza

Cool season grasses (for lawns)

Plants：Pavement：

Japanese Elm

Cubic granite fl agstones and concrete( Ulmus davidiana var. japonica)
Finish：● Concourse

Cubic granite fl agstones for the canal

Plants：bed;granite stone quarried in

Katsura tree

Sobetsu, Hokkaido for the fountain basin; lining( Cercidiphyllum japonicum)with a mixture ofPavement：

coralline rubble and resin

Asphalt; shot-blast paving stones

Structure：

Structure：

Reinforced concrete structure with bareReinforced concrete

concrete fi nish
● Glass Pyramid (south side approach)● Moere Beach

Plants：Finish：Japanese Elm

Lining with a mixture of coralline rubble and( Ulmus davidiana var. japonica)

resin

Pavement：

Structure：

Urethane resin lining

Reinforced concrete structure