With a Japanese father and an American mother, the renowned sculptor Isamu Noguchi desired to create a cenotaph in Hiroshima in memory of the A-bomb victims. But his design was rejected, allegedly because of his American nationality. Materials from the project in the current European retrospective of his work encourage us to consider the meaning of peace at this time of division and conflict. The program presents fresh perspectives on his struggles to serve as a bridge between his 2 homelands.

Noguchi's design for the cenotaph for the A-bomb victims, stored at Harvard University GSD
Plaster model of Noguchi's cenotaph for the A-bomb victims of Hiroshima, 1952
Cenotaph for the A-bomb Victims in Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park, designed by Japanese architect Tange Kenzo
Precious audio recordings of Noguchi speaking recently made available to the public by The Noguchi Museum in New York
Noguchi designed the parapets for the Peace Memorial Park bridges in Hiroshima
The Isamu Noguchi Garden Museum in Mure, Kagawa Prefecture, Japan, houses about 150 of his works

Transcript

00:02

A sculpture imbued with an aura of solidity...

00:07

Objets that blend into city life...

00:13

These works were created by an artist with a unique philosophy and sensitivity.

00:30

He was the sculptor Isamu Noguchi.

00:37

I think of sculpture as part of the enjoyment of living, my living that is.

00:45

If people enjoy what I make, in a sense, it's a vicarious, vicarious enjoyment of that which I have experienced.

00:57

With an American mother and a Japanese father, Noguchi grew up in two different homelands.

01:05

There was one unfinished work that remained on his mind throughout his life.

01:17

The cenotaph in Hiroshima is a place to offer up prayers for all the Atomic bomb victims.

01:23

It was designed by the renowned Japanese architect Tange Kenzo.

01:34

The initial plan, however, was to set up a memorial cenotaph designed by Noguchi.

01:46

But Noguchi's design was rejected shortly before construction began,

01:51

and it never came to fruition.

01:54

And these are drawings by Isamu Noguchi and if you see...

01:58

there...

01:59

indicating that he was the designer of the Cenotaph at the Hiroshima Peace Center.

02:07

What kind of message did Noguchi put into that unfinished cenotaph for the A-bomb victims?

02:14

Japan and America...

02:17

We will look at the life of an artist who wavered between his two homelands.

02:33

London, the U.K.

02:38

An exhibition held recently at the Barbican Centre,

02:41

the largest cultural facility of its kind in Europe, grabbed a lot of attention.

02:47

It was titled 'noguchi.'

02:54

It was the first touring retrospective of Noguchi's works in Europe for 20 years.

03:05

All kinds of materials had been used to produce the works on display, including metal and stone.

03:30

The venue was warmly enveloped by the "Akari" light sculptures inspired by traditional Japanese handicrafts.

03:47

In a space separated from the other works on display,

03:50

there was one sculpture that stood out in particular.

03:56

It was "Memorial to the Dead, Hiroshima,"

03:58

which Noguchi made in his later years.

04:07

On August 6, 1945, an American B-29 bomber dropped an atomic bomb on the Japanese city of Hiroshima.

04:16

The city was instantly reduced to rubble, and around 140,000 people died as a result in that year alone.

04:30

Noguchi held on to his desire to create a cenotaph to commemorate the victims of Hiroshima throughout his life.

04:40

As a reminder of what happened,

04:41

I thought it'd be really interesting if they'd had one in America and one in Hiroshima,

04:45

the same kind of twinned sculptures, you know...

04:47

It's extremely moving, and the fact that the names of the first nuclear victims were to be inscribed underneath it,

04:55

I think, would have made it a very important war memorial.

05:04

The Peace Memorial Park in Hiroshima.

05:10

The Cenotaph for the A-bomb Victims, where many people offer up prayers,

05:14

was designed by Tange Kenzo, a master of Japanese architecture.

05:23

Noguchi could not give up on his dream even after his own design for the cenotaph was rejected,

05:29

and he continued making models for the rest of his life.

05:35

The Isamu Noguchi Foundation and Garden Museum,

05:38

now known as The Noguchi Museum, in New York...

05:43

...was established and designed by Noguchi himself on the site where he used to have his studio.

05:53

It displays many of his works and the materials stored here include film footage of Noguchi and voice recordings.

06:04

Why did the sculptor continue his eager desire to create a cenotaph for the A-bomb victims in Hiroshima?

06:12

Based on these materials, we will trace Isamu Noguchi's life.

06:16

All I thought about was,

06:19

before my memory goes completely blank, you know,

06:23

I should put down as much as possible, that is all.

06:26

Once upon a time, there was a young boy...

06:35

Isamu Noguchi was born in Los Angeles in 1904.

06:42

His father, Noguchi Yonejiro, was a Japanese poet studying in the United States,

06:48

and his mother, Léonie Gilmour, was an American literary scholar who helped him with translations.

06:54

Our family really has no cohesion.

06:58

I should hardly say "our family" because I did not belong to his family.

07:07

When Noguchi was born, his father had already returned to Japan.

07:13

Isamu was still an infant when his mother headed with him to Tokyo.

07:20

There, they discovered that his father had married a Japanese woman.

07:24

But even so, Léonie and Isamu did not return to the U.S. but continued to live in Japan.

07:36

Léonie wanted her son to grow up in Japanese culture,

07:40

but as a young boy he had to face a harsh situation.

07:44

In Chigasaki, growing up in the countryside...

07:48

various, you know, "Omatsuri," various incidents at the school.

07:53

For instance, yelling "Batakusai! Batakusai!" at foreigners.

07:59

And myself being treated in an odd way, to my discomfort, by children.

08:07

After all, I was something of a freak, without any doubt.

08:14

Suffering discrimination as a foreigner, he couldn't adjust himself to Japanese school life.

08:21

Despite that, he found useful hints for his later career as a sculptor.

08:25

He was fascinated by the carpenters' handiwork when his mother had their house built.

08:32

Then she had me apprenticed to a carpenter, a cabinet-maker in Chigasaki.

08:38

And I kept at this for quite a while and helped with the joinery and also the carving of a kind of panels,

08:47

which are put over Japanese sliding doors.

08:53

Isamu was really thrilled when he saw the majestic sight of Mt. Fuji from the completed house.

09:01

From the second floor, there was a round window through which one could see Fuji-san,

09:06

and that was my big experience which started me off into consciousness and a part of my life ever since.

09:16

Although strongly inspired by Japanese culture,

09:19

Isamu was unable to integrate into Japanese daily life and he returned to the US at the age of 13.

09:27

He went to a high school in Indiana in the Midwest.

09:30

However, there were few people of Asian descent there,

09:33

and once again he was treated like an outsider.

09:37

In Rolling Prairie, they ganged up on me.

09:41

They were gonna beat me up.

09:45

And I remembered enough "Jujutsu," so I threw one over my head.

09:50

And then they became very quiet.

09:53

After graduating from high school, Noguchi moved to New York,

09:57

and it was there, at the age of 22, he discovered the world of art.

10:04

He was shocked by the sculptures of Constantin Brâncuşi,

10:08

the Romanian-born master of contemporary sculpture.

10:14

Rather than realistically reproducing a figure or form,

10:18

Brâncuşi pursued abstract sculptures that gave form to concepts such as "flight," flying lightly through space.

10:33

Noguchi followed Brâncuşi to Paris and became his pupil.

10:43

These are works by Noguchi from his Paris period.

10:46

Their abstract designs reflect the strong influence of Brâncuşi.

10:57

However, he left Brâncuşi after just six months.

11:05

I had a kind of a, you know, a revolt against abstractions because I felt I was perhaps not ready for it,

11:19

that I really didn't have, you know, enough experience of my own to warrant.

11:24

There's an opportunity that young people have when they start doing abstractions without having a base of some,

11:31

you know, experience in the world or experience of art to justify.

11:39

There's a thinness.

11:39

There's a kind of a very... One comes to the limit very quickly.

11:43

Noguchi started travelling the world in search of his own unique expression.

11:51

After travelling through China, the destination he finally reached was Japan.

11:57

At that time he was rather concerned about landing in Japan for the first time in 13 years.

12:06

In 1931, I came without really intending to come here,

12:12

because I had a letter from my father saying,

12:14

"Don't come using the name Noguchi."

12:19

Ignoring his father's wish not to reveal he had a son with an American mother,

12:23

he dared to use the name Noguchi.

12:28

He finally reunited with his father, who had aged and grown frail.

12:36

I became not unsympathetic to my father,

12:39

although I had been terribly critical of him because I did not really know him at all.

12:44

He had denied me and my mother.

12:48

Noguchi's interest shifted to Japanese culture rather than his father.

12:52

He visited Kyoto, Japan's ancient capital.

12:58

He was shocked by Japanese gardens,

13:01

and felt the great artistry of "karesansui" dry gardens,

13:05

in which a landscape with water is expressed only with stones, without using any water at all.

13:12

When I saw natural stones
laid out in a Japanese garden,

13:17

I thought, "Oh, this is a sculpture!"

13:21

Stones are the oldest and yet newest
forms of nature that humans need most.

13:31

Noguchi was influenced by the elements of stones as materials and the "public nature" of gardens...

13:40

Having found the direction he felt he should aim at, Noguchi returned to New York.

13:45

He started working on public art as his belief in incorporating sculpture into daily life grew stronger.

14:01

In the late 1930s, Japan's invasion of China accelerated,

14:06

which led to a deterioration of the US-Japan relationship.

14:09

And then...

14:12

Hello, NBC.

14:14

Hello, NBC... There's severe bombing of Pearl Harbor by enemy planes, undoubtedly Japanese.

14:23

On December 7, 1941, Japan made a surprise attack on Pearl Harbor in Hawaii.

14:30

The two countries of Noguchi's parents were suddenly at war with each other.

14:36

...I was going to San Diego.

14:38

I turned on the radio.

14:39

And there was Upton Close announcing the bombardment of Pearl Harbor.

14:43

So I turned around and went back to San Francisco, to Los Angeles.

14:49

And I became very concerned about the nisei.

14:53

A large number of Japanese immigrants were living on the West Coast at that time,

14:57

as well as "nisei," second-generation Japanese-Americans who had been born and raised in the US.

15:03

After the outbreak of the war, around 120,000 people of Japanese descent

15:08

were placed in internment camps on the grounds that they were "enemy aliens."

15:15

As Noguchi was living on the East Coast, he was spared relocation.

15:23

However...

15:25

There was nobody to represent the nisei.

15:28

I was an older nisei.

15:29

All of them were younger than I.

15:32

And that's a reason I felt a certain kind of responsibility.

15:36

I felt, "Well, somebody has to do something."

15:40

As a course of action, Noguchi voluntarily chose to enter one of the internment camps.

15:49

He went to the Poston Internment Camp in Arizona, a place surrounded by desert.

15:55

Conditions there were very harsh.

15:58

He sent a letter to his friend, photographer Man Ray.

16:06

This is the weirdest, most unreal situation, like in a dream.

16:11

I wish I were out.

16:14

Our pre-occupations are the intense dry heat, the afternoon dust storms, the food 35¢ a day.

16:25

Even in such a severe situation, Noguchi made proposals for building a park,

16:30

recreational facilities and a cemetery at the camp.

16:35

His intention was to improve the poor conditions for Japanese-Americans.

16:38

However, all his proposals were rejected by the US authorities.

16:47

Furthermore, Noguchi had to face the prejudice of the Japanese-Americans.

16:55

In the camp, the situation there is complicated by somebody like me,

17:02

who could be considered a spy or an outsider or something else.

17:07

I'm not exactly... I don't belong there.

17:10

I haven't got the same history.

17:11

I haven't got the same background and so forth.

17:16

There was a lot of resentment, you know.

17:20

Thanks to a petition from fellow artists and others,

17:23

Noguchi left the camp after six months and returned to New York.

17:28

Three years later, he was subjected to another shock.

17:37

August 6, 1945.

17:41

Noguchi read a newspaper article about an atomic bomb being dropped on Hiroshima.

17:51

I am so conscious of my own personal relation to the atom having happened,

18:00

because I just didn't want to bother with art which was all going to be destroyed anyway, you see.

18:10

Dakin Hart is a senior curator at the Noguchi Museum in New York.

18:16

He says that the war and the atomic bombing had a strong impact on Noguchi's thoughts on art.

18:23

What the atomic era represented, or the way that Noguchi understood it,

18:28

was that this is a moment where our fundamental power relationship with nature totally changed.

18:34

We went from being subject to nature's whims to having the ability to literally destroy the planet

18:43

and literally destroy our world and all life on Earth.

18:49

In his autobiography, Noguchi described Hiroshima as follows.

18:57

I found time to take a trip to Hiroshima, to which I was drawn,

19:01

as many Americans are, by a sense of guilt.

19:04

I wished somehow to add my own gesture of expiation.

19:13

In 1950, Noguchi finally visited Hiroshima.

19:17

There he met Tange Kenzo, an architect who was the focus of much attention at the time.

19:24

It was a meeting that would change his life.

19:29

Tange had won the design competition for the Peace Memorial Park in Hiroshima.

19:33

He was very enthusiastic about the project.

19:39

A letter expressed his thoughts on meeting Noguchi.

19:45

I recently met with Mr. Isamu Noguchi.

19:49

We had a great chat over pictures of the Peace Hall model.

19:53

We hit it off well.

19:57

At that time, he made a proposal to Noguchi.

20:05

Tange asked him to design the parapets for the bridges at each side of the Peace Memorial Park.

20:18

This was exactly the kind of work Noguchi,

20:20

with his roots in Japan and America, wanted to do in postwar Japan.

20:28

During his visit to Hiroshima, with his camera he captured images of the city devastated by the bombing.

20:42

He also captured the dynamism of the survivors.

20:51

He incorporated all he felt into his design for the bridge parapets.

21:00

The two bridges are still appreciated by Hiroshima residents.

21:09

To underline the motif of "Life,"

21:11

Noguchi named the parapet of one bridge "Tsukuru," meaning "to build."

21:18

His inspiration for the name was Hiroshima's reconstruction process.

21:24

The parapet on the other bridge was named "Yuku," meaning "to depart," with Death as the theme.

21:31

"The concept of Departure is, in other words, 'Farewell to Life'."

21:36

"Hiroshima has become a memorial to tragedy, and I believe we ought to say farewell to the trauma Hiroshima experienced."

21:46

As a result of the high evaluation given to the parapets,

21:50

Tange made Noguchi another excellent offer.

21:58

It was to design the cenotaph for the A-bomb victims, which was still pending.

22:12

"I was asked, and I agreed to contribute my share for nothing - "

22:16

"a matter of simple altruism, I thought, on my part in which were mixed thoughts of wanting as a citizen of the outside world"

22:24

"to participate in symbolic expiation of our mutual guilt"

22:35

The Harvard Graduate School of Design in Boston.

22:42

Among its materials related to Tange Kenzo,

22:45

a collection of Noguchi's drawings for the cenotaph was found.

22:49

It was released on the School's website for the first time in 2021.

22:54

So these are drawings from the Kenzo Tange Archive, which came to the GSD.

23:00

And these are drawings by Isamu Noguchi and if you see... there...

23:05

indicating that he was the designer of the Cenotaph at the Hiroshima Peace Center.

23:15

The drawings were signed by Noguchi.

23:18

Multiple copies were drawn, dating from December 14, 1951 to January of the following year.

23:32

The shape is a strongly rounded arch.

23:36

In addition to the above ground area, there is an underground room.

23:44

Noguchi specified that the material was to be black granite with a matte finish,

23:49

and the legs were to be made of bare concrete.

23:59

The Museum of Modern Art, Kamakura & Hayama in Japan.

24:06

Preserved here is a plaster model of the cenotaph Noguchi made in 1952.

24:15

Overlapping the original drawing, we can see the shapes perfectly match.

24:20

Noguchi's idea was that the part shown in pale gray was underground.

24:25

In the room between the legs would be placed a name list of all the bomb victims to pray for the repose of their souls.

24:33

The space was inspired by the image of a woman's womb.

24:37

It was imbued with his wish that offspring would be born to replace those who had passed away.

24:48

The basic motif of the shape was the "haniwa" unglazed clay vessels in the shape of a doll or a building

24:55

that were made in Japan from the 3rd century and housed in ancient tombs.

25:04

"A challenging subject."

25:06

"I thought of sculpture as a concentration of energies."

25:10

"My symbolism derived from the prehistoric roofs of 'Haniwa',"

25:15

"like the protective abode of infancy, or even equating this with birth and death,"

25:21

"the arch of peace with the dome of destruction."

25:27

The arch is a form that evokes memories
of the rainbow in us.

25:34

So this arch built from the basement
to the sky incorporates

25:42

not just a sorrowful elegy, but something
positive or powerful toward the future.

25:52

I think that was the idea.

25:58

I really feel his desire was to reconnect
people's souls and the world

26:03

in some kind of harmony.

26:10

Ando Tadao, the distinguished Japanese architect,

26:13

interacted with Noguchi in his later years.

26:16

He highly evaluated the cenotaph as a work of art.

26:25

Actually, only about one-fifth
of it is visible above ground.

26:31

The rest is underground.

26:37

From Noguchi, I learned the importance
of roots.

26:45

Life is determined by the size and depth
of what lies behind, not by what you see.

26:56

He lived in the relationships between
the US and the West,

27:01

and between the US and Japan.

27:04

Once war broke out, he was very distressed
by the factors of Americans and Japanese,

27:10

and then whether or not he should
produce the monument.

27:18

Tange took the plunge and thought that
Noguchi was the only choice for this.

27:25

It was a daring act!

27:31

But Noguchi's plan suddenly came to an end.

27:38

This newspaper from the time reported that Noguchi's proposal had been rejected all of a sudden

27:43

by the Hiroshima Peace Memorial City Construction Special Committee.

27:51

"Isamu Noguchi's
pride was hurt."

28:03

The drawing on file at Harvard University dated January 25th, 1952 carries Noguchi's name,

28:11

but the one dated May 6th does not have his name and the design was changed to Tange's.

28:22

Both designs have an arch shape, but it's clear that they are different.

28:32

Why didn't they use your plan,
the model you made?

28:35

Because I suppose I am an American.
I don't know, don't ask me. I cannot tell you.

28:43

"What struck then I can never tell."

28:45

"Tange san was as bewildered as I."

28:48

"All he could tell me in the beginning was that it was perhaps because I was an American."

28:54

"My one really disagreeable experience in Japan."

29:03

No clear reason has ever been disclosed for that sudden rejection of a specific plan in progress.

29:12

All decisions regarding the Peace Memorial Park were made by the Hiroshima Peace Memorial City Construction Special Committee.

29:24

One of the members, KISHIDA Hideto,

29:26

who was a leading figure in the Japanese architectural world,

29:29

recalled Noguchi's design in one of his books.

29:36

It was a powerful and fresh work of art for a hall or monument of this kind.

29:42

I could fully appreciate its quality.

29:47

After appreciating Noguchi's work, he then added...

29:54

Remember that it was America that dropped the atomic bomb and that Mr. Noguchi is an American.

30:02

In discussing the Noguchi proposal, I argued vigorously,

30:06

"The comfort hall, which will be the core of this important memorial facility, must at all costs be made by Japanese hands."

30:14

"What need is there to have an American sculptor do it?"

30:21

Noguchi directly asked Kishida why his proposal hadn't been accepted,

30:25

but the answer he received was unsatisfactory.

30:31

As a person of Japanese and American blood,

30:34

Noguchi had devoted his energy to a cenotaph for the A-bomb victims of Hiroshima.

30:39

But it all ended as an illusion.

30:43

I was even willing to redesign it if it was inappropriate,

30:47

but it's totally strange that my proposal would be rejected because I'm a foreigner.

30:53

I wanted to build something for the world to be built in Hiroshima,

30:57

so I put my heart and soul into it, without charging a design fee, of course.

31:05

The cenotaph for the dead designed by Tange was set up in the Peace Memorial Park.

31:10

Ever since then, it has been the centerpiece of the annual commemorative ceremony.

31:21

Meanwhile, in Japanese art circles, attention was growing towards Noguchi as a world-class artist.

31:32

His large solo exhibition in Kamakura in September 1952 had a great impact on the Japanese art world.

31:47

Noguchi was very excited about the
prospect of presenting his work in Japan.

31:56

All those around him had high
expectations, and he really wanted to do it.

32:03

He embodied modernism, and was a
kind of symbol of postwar reconstruction.

32:12

At the solo exhibition, Noguchi was seen carrying in a work.

32:20

Titled "Kokeshis (Japanese Wooden Dolls),"

32:23

that work was said to depict his happiness with Japanese actress Shirley Yamaguchi, his wife at that time.

32:35

He also had a base in Kamakura,

32:37

and was stimulated by his interaction with a major figure in the Japanese art world, Kitaoji Rosanjin.

32:46

It was a period when his bonding with Japan was getting stronger.

32:55

Mure in Kagawa Prefecture on Shikoku Island.

33:00

Around this area, high quality granite has traditionally been quarried.

33:11

It was here that Noguchi encountered the ideal person in his search for a stone specialist.

33:17

It was the stonemason Izumi Masatoshi, who would become his life-long creative supporter.

33:26

Masuda Mihoko, Izumi's daughter and now the curator of the Isamu Noguchi Garden Museum Japan, has heard about that time.

33:36

Noguchi told Izumi there were
three reasons for choosing him:

33:43

he didn't speak English, he hadn't
studied art, and he liked stones.

33:50

They drew out those parts they didn't
have themselves,

33:57

and by doing that they created the works.

34:03

Noguchi placed his trust in Izumi, who knew all about handling stone,

34:09

including identifying good quality pieces, and how to split and polish them.

34:18

I mean, in Japan, there are still people who know how to work with granite, and they can help me.

34:24

And I think that this sort of work is...

34:30

It's probably a sort of an ancient tradition, you know, which is gradually coming to an end.

34:44

Izumi prepared studio space for Noguchi as well as a house to live in,

34:48

and created an environment in which he could concentrate on his creative work.

34:58

My father was absolutely supportive
of Mr. Noguchi.

35:08

He would often say, "Mr. Noguchi is
the sun and I am the moon."

35:18

Noguchi's works would become clearly colored by the inspiration he received in Japan.

35:26

The garden at the UNESCO headquarters in Paris

35:28

was created with an arrangement of stones reminiscent of a Japanese karesansui dry landscape garden,

35:34

the space being artificial yet natural.

35:43

And for the courtyard of the IBM headquarters in New York,

35:50

Noguchi again adopted a design reflecting a Japanese garden.

36:00

When I was asked to do the garden for this world headquarters of IBM,

36:06

I wanted to really do a garden which had the...

36:13

you know, which broke with the past and pointed to the future.

36:18

Gardens should go on and on, of course,

36:20

and more representative of the times in which we live.

36:29

Architect Ando Tadao was greatly inspired by Noguchi when he was young.

36:33

They met around the time Noguchi was planning to hold an exhibition in Osaka, Japan.

36:41

Noguchi asked me where my recent work was.

36:46

I had built a commercial building in
the middle of Shinsaibashi in Osaka.

36:53

It went all the way down to
the third basement floor.

36:58

He got interested in that and started
saying he'd change his exhibition venue.

37:04

What? The venue had already been decided!
He said my place was more interesting.

37:11

A retrospective of his work was held
at that location.

37:18

That experience taught me you should
never give up what you want to do,

37:24

and you must keep the tension alive
until the very end.

37:31

Peter Carlson worked with Noguchi in the US around that time,

37:34

processing and assembling metal materials.

37:37

He was also impressed by Noguchi's passion for his work.

37:46

He lived for his work.

37:48

It was very high passion.

37:52

Very engaged in his work and very passionate.

37:59

I guess that would be "passionate" about his work,

38:01

but not expressing it like, "Oh, I'm so happy," he didn't, not like that, but just, he was.

38:07

He was very much his work and lived for that work.

38:13

Around 1980, when Noguchi was already over 75, his passion returned to his unfinished work.

38:22

That work was the cenotaph for the A-bomb victims of Hiroshima that had been rejected in 1952.

38:30

He was working on the model again.

38:41

The concrete cenotaph designed by Tange Kenzo had deteriorated over the past 30 years,

38:47

and plans for its reconstruction were being discussed.

38:50

So Noguchi again proposed to Tange that his own cenotaph be installed.

38:58

And the building that Tange did there 35 years ago,

39:04

I mean, after 30 years, it's not good, you see.

39:08

So they have to redo that.

39:10

They had to redo the memorial, which was not designed for stones.

39:15

Mine was, I did the original one for stones.

39:17

I said to Tange over the telephone,

39:19

"Why don't you use mine? Better for stone."

39:22

He was so mad.

39:24

Tange was furious at Noguchi's offer and apparently their relationship temporarily deteriorated.

39:36

Based on his plaster model, Noguchi created a quarter-scale cenotaph using Japanese basalt,

39:42

and he kept it at his studio in New York.

39:51

Immediately when I saw the marquet for that piece.

39:58

It had gravitas, it had this powerful message without even understanding what it was.

40:05

The use of the materials, the size of the pieces that make it up.

40:10

The understanding of how it relates to the site and all of that.

40:15

All of the components to the piece, just wow!

40:21

And I had thought, I think initially I thought it had been built and was installed.

40:28

Noguchi invested a large amount of money and time to produce the model.

40:34

Where and with what intention did he intend to place the cenotaph?

40:41

He, I think, came to the view that it would be most appropriate here somewhere in the United States

40:47

as a kind of form of expiation of national guilt,

40:52

and in a way actually to continue to inspire the sense of guilt that we should all feel

40:59

for having been responsible for the only use of atomic or nuclear weapons in the history, in their history.

41:08

And in his lifetime, there were thoughts about building it in Washington, DC on the Mall.

41:13

There was a thought about building it at Los Alamos as a memorial to Robert Oppenheimer,

41:20

who's the, you know, in some ways, the godfather of the bomb and was the head of the Manhattan Project,

41:25

but then became a very strong anti-nuclear activist and a pacifist.

41:33

So he there's no question, you know, he he continued to be engaged with the symbol and the meaning of this symbol.

41:42

For Mr. Noguchi, making sculptures

41:48

meant an expression of his desire
for peace among mankind,

41:58

and I believe that he wanted
to create a cenotaph

42:07

in the hope that people around the world
would live in harmony.

42:18

Noguchi appealed to various institutions and organizations for the construction of a cenotaph.

42:24

One of his efforts that has survived is a letter of proposal sent to philanthropists.

42:31

Such a gesture of responsibility of the initial use of the Bomb will I believe be appreciated throughout the world.

42:40

My thought has been that placing the Memorial in America

42:44

would in itself serve as a significant protest against the Bomb.

42:48

I think of some place in New York or Los Angeles or even that spot in Hiroshima.

42:57

Noguchi was eager to realize the cenotaph for the A-bomb victims as a world peace monument.

43:04

But his mission remained unfulfilled.

43:08

He didn't speak a lot about it.

43:10

He had really wanted that piece to be executed in and fabricated and built at scale at full scale for this memorial.

43:22

I think it was probably a very big disappointment to him that it didn't happen.

43:30

Noguchi was concerned about this
monument right until his life ended.

43:39

When he returned to America, he was
a Japanese artist.

43:43

When he returned to Japan, he was
an American artist.

43:46

He spent his whole life with that tension,
so he was eager to make it somewhere.

43:54

Despite his feelings of disappointment, Noguchi started working on his own culmination.

44:03

At the time of the 1986 Venice Biennale,

44:06

he was selected to represent the United States at the age of 81.

44:11

But between his two homelands of Japan and America,

44:15

Noguchi had mixed feelings.

44:23

Noguchi's work presented as a representative of the US

44:26

was so full of Japanese elements that some visitors mistook the American Pavilion for the Japanese Pavilion.

44:34

Reviews of the exhibition were largely divided.

44:42

In the final years of Noguchi's life,

44:45

a movement to honor his longtime achievements got underway in both the United States and Japan.

44:52

In the US, he was awarded the National Medal of Arts.

44:59

In Japan, he was awarded the Kyoto Prize,

45:02

which is awarded to those who have made significant achievements in fields such as the arts.

45:07

And the Japanese government awarded him the Order of the Sacred Treasure, 3rd Class.

45:16

And on December 30th, 1988, Noguchi passed away in New York at the age of 84.

45:35

Noguchi's atelier in Mure, in Kagawa Prefecture in Japan,

45:39

now houses more than 150 of his works just the way he wanted as the Isamu Noguchi Garden Museum.

45:56

...working with stone is that it's a medium which is the same all the way through.

46:00

It's going to stay that way.

46:01

It's a crystalline material.

46:03

It's not subject to change.

46:07

And you know, that time doesn't affect it much.

46:10

And you are and you you end up with an object, which you can say is a sculpture.

46:21

On a small hill at the museum is Noguchi's last work.

46:30

It's placed so that it gazes far out to sea.

46:34

Inside it are Noguchi's ashes.

46:43

The Noguchi Museum in New York.

46:51

The work of art placed in a corner of the garden also carries some of Noguchi's ashes.

47:02

Many people still keep alive the never-ending passion

47:05

that Noguchi put into the design of his cenotaph for the A-bomb victims that was never completed.

47:15

A model of his cenotaph has been donated to the museum.

47:22

With his team, Japanese artist Okazaki Kenjiro completely reproduced Noguchi's design.

47:33

It was created with his desire to contribute to the eventual realization of the cenotaph's construction.

47:50

I think it would be wonderful to make it, I mean, it feels so timely.

47:59

And because again, for Noguchi, he's functioning at this deeper level.

48:03

So it's not really just about the atomic movement and the anti-atomic or the anti-nuclear movement.

48:10

It really again would be a symbol for all of those movements

48:18

that are about trying to get us to think more responsibly as citizens of humanity and of the planet.