Japanese Immigration Memorial in Belo Horizonte, Minas Gerais, Brazil

April 02, 2011 Category: Cultural, Public Buildings

The Japanese Immigration Memorial designed by Gustavo Penna and Associates is located in Belo Horizonte, Minas Gerais, Brazil. The Monument-Museum to friendship and its metaphors celebrates, in the open, the friendship between Japan and the state of Minas Gerais and what this relation was able to build in a concrete and in an immaterial way. The project is a bridge over a lake. Metaphorically speaking the bridge connects territories, times, ideas and ideals.

The lake is like the ocean that separates the countries, and somehow, it is also the one that represents the challenges, the achievements, of past times. The journey starts from the symbolic Japan of cherry trees to Minas of white ipe trees. In order to honor Japan and Minas, curved walls were also placed, side by side, in an allusion to both flags: the red circle and triangle. via

Japanese Immigration Memorial design by Gustavo Penna and Associates