Matsuyama Hemp Garden by Klaus Ventura from uruguay

To conceive this project we start with a brainstorming on how could we posiciónate a city at a global scale and came to the conclusion that must be something remarkable with a strong concept. After a strong search of the city, the flowers, the culture and history we found that hemp was deep inside the Japanese society in the samurai era and was heavily banned after the World War 2. So we came with the idea of making an statement: a piece of art to help remember the importance of the plant in the history. We design a crystal leaf coming out from de ground in resemble of the fragility of the plant in the present but that wasn’t enough. We needed to represent how much distorted the image of hemp is and how we must think out of the box, so that’s what we did. We design an underground box with a big transparent piece of water roof, and in the middle we design a view point right in the bottom of the leaf to go outside the box. That is the main concept of the building as pice of art. At the same time it’s a beautiful space to do an underground contemporary art museum and a display of ancient hemp applications. At the same time in the surface it’s an incredible square to do several cultural activities such as concerts, festivals and fairs to promote the city among all ages. That’s what MHG is.