pace tokyo by sou fujimoto opens in azabudai hills, revealing an all-white ethereal design

pace welcomes its new tokyo space at Azabudai Hills

Pace Gallery opens its Tokyo space designed by Japanese architect Sou Fujimoto. The three-story exhibition hub is part of the city’s Azabudai Hills development, taking over the lower floors of a building designed by British designer Thomas Heatherwick. With Tokyo, Pace now holds nine locations worldwide, including a European foothold in London and Geneva as well as Berlin, where the gallery established an office in 2023. An inaugural exhibition— which goes on view in September 2024 — will spotlight new paintings by Los Angeles-based artist Maysha Mohamedi in her first solo show in all of Asia. Mohamedi’s presentation will be followed by New York-based sculptor Arlene Shechet’s first-ever solo exhibition in Japan, opening at the gallery in November of this year. Ahead of the Fall program, a special summer preview of the gallery is now open to the public, running between July 6th and August 17th, 2024. 

image © Nacasa & Partners, all courtesy the gallery

unveiling a minimalist, all-white design by sou fujimoto

The interiors of Pace Tokyo —spanning three floors and approximately 511 square meters — emblematize Sou Fujimoto’s (see more here) practice which focuses on the symbiotic relationships between the human body, the natural world, and architectural design. The all-white and minimalist space gently curves at all corners and expands over three floors, with the first level centered on a staircase that seemingly floats in the middle of the room, lined on each side with a row of thin white railing. Bordering the opening above the staircase is a rectangular glass structure that reinforces Fujimoto’s ethereal aesthetic.

The glass lining highlights the natural lighting pooling down from the second floor, where an organically-shaped glazed railing delineates the entrance to this space. Combined, the first and second levels span 279 square meters of exhibition area. Completing the Pace Tokyo programmatic layout is a third floor by Sou Fujimoto, which provides room for an outdoor sculpture along with a private terrace, integrated within the building’s landscaped design concept, which evokes an image of rolling hills.

Pace Tokyo by Sou Fujimoto | image © Nacasa & Partners

the gallery’s summer and fall programs for 2024

This summer, Pace Tokyo is offering a special preview of its new space, during which the gallery will be installed with a salon-style, rotating display of artworks. Open to the public from July 6 to August 17, this preview will feature some 45 works by 20th century and contemporary artists—including Lynda Benglis, Jules de Balincourt, Tara Donovan, Jean Dubuffet, Adolph Gottlieb, Loie Hollowell, Alicja Kwade, Robert Nava, Louise Nevelson, Claes Oldenburg, and Adam Pendleton—to showcase the breadth of Pace’s program.

Meanwhile, Maysha Mohamedi’s solo show for the Fall program will spotlights new, never-before-exhibited paintings produced in 2023 and 2024. For these works, she drew inspiration from her personal diary chronicling her brief time working in Japan two decades ago. As for Arlene Shechet, her genre-defying ceramics and hybrid sculptures will take over the gallery, bringing together new and recent works that ride the edge between stillness and motion, much like that of the Japanese art and material culture that has long inspired the artist. Enactments of tilting, contorting, bending, and melting recur throughout her sculptures, which force us to sit with—and move around—their contradictions.

a summer preview is on view until August | image © Keizo Kioku

image © Keizo Kioku

all-white, minimalist design | image © Nacasa & Partners

Pace Tokyo is now open in Azabudai Hills | image © Keizo Kioku

Pace Tokyo exterior | image © Nacasa & Partners

Azabudai Hills | rendering © DBOX for Mori Building Co., Ltd

project info:

name: Pace Tokyo

location: Azabudai Hills, Tokyo Japan

architect: Sou Fujimoto | @sou_fujimoto

summer exhibition dates: July 6 – August 17, 2024

fall program date: September 2024 

artists on view: Maysha Mohamedi, Arlene Shechet