TAKAMATSU (Kyodo) — A sports facility on Japan’s western island of Shikoku has won the top prize of this year’s Prix Versailles award in its category, being named “the world’s most beautiful arena,” the local government that runs it said Friday.
The prize for Kagawa Prefectural Arena, designed by award-winning architectural firm SANAA, marks the first time a facility in Japan has received the highest honor in the sports or arena category, according to the Kagawa government.
The multipurpose arena in Takamatsu city is located in an open space facing the Seto Inland Sea and consists of three gymnasiums that are “linked together under a single, softly undulating roof,” showing a unique landscape that brings together an “existing plaza, park and port, connecting the city and the sea.”
SANAA, the firm of architects Kazuyo Sejima and Ryue Nishizawa, won the 2010 Pritzker Architecture Prize, considered the Nobel Prize of their field.
Kagawa Gov. Toyohito Ikeda welcomed the award, telling reporters that he hopes the arena will “become a landmark” that would help the prefecture gain global recognition.
The world architecture and design awards, established in 2015, are announced annually at the headquarters of the U.N. Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization in Paris. They recognize the world’s most beautiful in eight sections including arenas, museums and hotels.
