<em>Městské muzeum s observatoří v Tamana</em> translates to <strong>City Museum with Observatory in Tamana</strong>

The port town of Tamana, located in the delta of the Kikuchi River in Kumamoto Prefecture, was merged in 2005 with three other towns to form one city, which now has approximately 70,530 inhabitants. A significant change for the entire area was the connection to the Kyushu Shinkansen main line running from Fukuoka to Kagoshima, which greatly facilitated and sped up the connection between Kyushu Island and Osaka and Tokyo. The entire line was fully operational in 2011, and in the same year, a new Shinkansen station, Shin-Tamana, was opened at the very edge of the city. Tamana is only about 5 km from Kumamoto along the coast, while a sparsely populated mountainous area, Sannodake, separates them inland; on the outskirts of this area, about 3 km from Shin-Tamana station, lies Momoda Park. The Momoda sports and recreation park is situated on a hill behind the city, overlooking the Kikuchi River, and offers a comprehensive array of various types of sports facilities and relaxation areas. The hilltop is crowned by a very expressive concrete sculptural structure – a small museum with an observatory designed by Masaharu Takasaki. Fantastic structures – rockets, not just from Takasaki – are widely distributed throughout Kyushu Island. Innovative architectural structures being created here are often associated with the overall spirit of the island's culture. Historically, Kyushu was a place through which new foreign influences entered Japan. In the 4th century, it was Chinese and Korean culture, including Buddhism and character writing, and in the 16th century, Christianity, firearms, and Western medicine spread to Japan through the ports of Nagasaki and Kumamoto. As a gateway and contact point between Japan and the surrounding world, this region has received, absorbed, and blended a variety of diverse information and materials into a complex culture fostering a generously liberal spiritual climate. In this environment, the fascinating observatory structure was created, about which the author writes on his website:

“Three places are given – 'Ground place' for communication among people, 'cloud place' for encounters with the natural environment, and 'Star place' at the top of the structure for observing the sky; at their center is 'Zero cosmology,' symbolizing the cosmos. I created these forms of 'Lotus flowers,' which are a sign of happiness, and three 'Arrows,' representing the development of the area as an environmentalized living body of architecture.”

At the forefront of the structure is a concrete box on pillars, within which is a cosmic egg, forming the core, surrounded again by a concrete arm resembling the mounting of a globe. Attached at the back of the box are viewing terraces in two levels, sharply cut in shape, accessible by stairs and a ramp.
From the first terrace, one entered the now-empty small spaces of the museum, occupying a quarter of the box's floor area, leading to the space of the cosmic egg itself. This magical space is accessed through a small round opening, reminiscent of the entrance to a tea house. The spheroid is divided in half by a floor with eight small glazed circular openings and an octagon marking the geometric center of the body. At this point, the space offers an impressive acoustic effect of amplification and concentration of vibrations.
The lower half of the spheroid is empty and can be viewed from the ground through a circular opening at the lower pole of the body. Precisely beneath this opening, a rock peak rises from the pavement, symbolically connecting the cosmos with the Earth. It also connects with the sky, through which the spheroid opens with a glazed circular opening at its upper pole. A second terrace leading to the upper part of the body provides a wonderful view of the city, river, port, and surrounding hills, as well as an ideal spot for star observation. Takasaki's construction truly offers a mystical experience – staying in the cosmic egg, in a sort of amplifier of cosmic vibrations, can be likened to visiting a shrine. It is a place created for humans to contemplate their place in the universe, a place where time stops and the individual enters into unity with the cosmos.