"Mourning Lost Homes" Project

2011

The ‘Lost Homes Project’ was created after the great earthquake and tsunami in Japan in 2011. The architect and professor Osamu Tsukihashi and his students wanted to help the communities that lost their villages and towns to the Tsunami. To create a place of memory Osamu Tsukihashi and his students build white paper models of the affected communities at 1:500 scale. After constructing the basic models, they were brought to the respective locations where townspeople and the students would paint the model and fill it with details and memories of the community before the Tsunami. This collective arts and crafts experience is designed to help the residents mourn, commemorate, come together, and talk about their former communities lost to the Tsunami. In some cases, the models also played a role in the rebuilding process. In addition, the model forms a place of remembrance, not only for those affected but also for younger generations and people who were not personally affected by the disaster.