emmanuelle moureaux visualizes the next 100 years in 100 colors for 'mirai' in tokyo

known for her large-scale installations, emmanuelle moureaux has brought her recognizable use of the color spectrum to a new wellbeing district in tokyo, japan. marking the french architect and designer’s first public work, the recently unveiled sculpture – titled ‘mirai’ – forms part of moureaux’s ongoing ‘100 colors’ installation series. 

all images by daisuke shima

the title of the sculpture gives a clue to the concept behind it, as ‘mirai’ translates to ‘the future’ in japanese. using 100 different shades of colors, moureaux visualizes the next 100 years to come. charting the future from 2020 to 2119, each year is given its own distinguishing hue: from pale purple to fiery orange. 

standing at 4 meters in height, the structure of the sculpture provides a big enough gap in between the years to allow small children to interact with the piece. furthermore, when looking inside the body of the sculpture, passersby will notice that the colorful future is in fact supported structurally by the past, which is represented by white numbers. ‘mirai’ is on display in green springs at the tachikawa stage garden entrance plaza.

‘100 years condensed in mirai
to welcome a lot of dreams
the city will change as people change
2020 will become the past
dreams overlapping with years
creating an infinity of colors
dreams condensed in condensed 100 years
smile and imagine
colorful future’
– emmanuelle moureaux

project info:

project name: mirai

location: green springs, tachikawa stage garden entrance plaza, tachikawa, tokyo, japan

artist: emmanuelle moureaux

year: 2020

size: 4m (height) x 1.9m (width) x 1.6m (depth)

material: stainless steel, paint

photographer: daisuke shima