The display conjures a creative young mind’s half-glimpsed notions and sudden enthusiasms: models of a flying dinosaur and a red biplane hang from the ceiling thick books about birds and fish and the history of aviation occupy the bookshelves. The room is supposed to be a study inherited from the imaginary boy’s grandfather, and the mise en scène captures an idealized, slightly antique coziness a glass jar of colored pencils sits atop a wooden desk, and worn tapestry pillows rest on a library chair. One typical exhibit, “Where a Film Begins,” depicts a room in which a young boy dreams up an idea for a movie. When I visited the museum this summer, it struck me as one of the few kid-oriented attractions I know that take seriously the notion of children as natural aesthetes-in part because it portrays for them a creative life that they might plausibly lead as adults. The museum showcases not only the visual splendor of Miyazaki’s films but also what inspires them: among other things, a sense of wonder about the natural world a fascination with flight a curiosity about miniature or hidden realms. A reproduction of the cat-shaped bus in Miyazaki’s “My Neighbor Totoro” (1988), which is large enough for children to climb on, has glowing golden eyes, and fur both soft and bristly, like a caterpillar’s. Though the museum is intended for children, who might be supposed not to care so much for beauty per se, it is, in nearly every detail, beautiful.
PORCO ROSSO PLANE PRINT ON BOOK PAGE MOVIE
The museum was partly funded by his movie studio-after which it is named-and is now a hugely popular, self-sustaining attraction. He is, in short, an auteur of children’s entertainment, perhaps the world’s first. He not only draws characters and storyboards for the films he directs he also writes the rich, strange screenplays, which blend Japanese mythology with modern psychological realism. With few exceptions, we seldom know the names of directors of children’s films, but if you have seen a Miyazaki film you know his name. Miyazaki’s zeal for craft and beauty has set a new standard for animated films. Situated in a park on the outskirts of Tokyo, the Ghibli Museum is dedicated to the work of Hayao Miyazaki, the most beloved director in Japan today, and-especially since his film “Spirited Away” won the Oscar for best animated film, in 2002-perhaps the most admired animation director in the world. In the entryway, a fresco on the ceiling depicts a sky of Fra Angelico blue and a smiling sun wreathed in fruits and vegetables. Wrought-iron railings contain balls of colored glass, and leaded-glass lanterns are attached to the walls by wrought-iron vines. In the central hall, beneath a high ceiling, a web of balconies and bridges suggests a dream vision of a nineteenth-century factory.
PORCO ROSSO PLANE PRINT ON BOOK PAGE WINDOWS
The floors are dark polished wood stained-glass windows cast candy-colored light on whitewashed walls a spiral stairway climbs-inside what looks like a giant Victorian birdcage-to a rooftop garden of wild grasses, over which a hammered-metal robot soldier stands guard. Inside, the museum looks like a child’s fantasy of Old Europe submitted to a rigorous Arts and Crafts sensibility. From the outside, the museum resembles an oversized adobe house, with slightly melted edges its exterior walls are painted in saltwater-taffy shades of pink, green, and yellow.
The building that houses the Ghibli Museum would be unusual anywhere, but in greater Tokyo, where architectural exuberance usually takes an angular, modernist form-black glass cubes, busy geometries of neon-it is particularly so.
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