Moerenuma Park
| Moerenuma Park | |
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| Location | Higashi-ku, Sapporo, Hokkaido, Japan |
| Coordinates | 43°07′26″N 141°25′48″E / 43.124°N 141.430°E |
| Area | 188.8ha |
| Created | 2005 |
| Visitors | 831,350 (2006) |
| Parking | 1500 vehicles |
Moerenuma Park (モエレ沼公園 Moerenuma Kōen?) is a municipal park located in Higashi-ku, Sapporo, Japan. The park has some playground equipment, outdoor sports fields, and objects which are designed by Isamu Noguchi, a Japanese American artist. Visitors can enter the park and use the parking lot for free. Construction of the park was begun in 1988, and opened in 2005. The park won a number of awards including the Good Design Award in 2002.
Prior to the construction of Moerenuma Park, the place has been used as a garbage reclaimed ground since 1979. Under the Sapporo Circular Greenbelt Concept, a city planning which aims at developing the urban areas of Sapporo with greenbelts and parks, the construction of the Park began in 1982. Sapporo has offered Isamu Noguchi to design the park.
Noguchi's first visit to Sapporo was in March 1988, when the place was still used as a reclaimed ground in part. Impressed with the landscape and the northern skyline, Isamu Noguchi contracted the offer from Sapporo government, and made the master plan of the park, which includes the concept of "park that is considered to be one complete sculpture". On December 30 in the same year, however, right after making a miniature model of the planned park, Isamu Noguchi died of heart failure in New York City, and the park was constructed with his master plan from 1989. In 1990, land reclamation of garbage in the place was totally closed. It had 71.2 ha, and 2,736,000 tons of garbage has been carried to the place until 1990. In 1997, Moerenuma Park made a park twinning agreement with the Bayfront Park in Miami, United States. The park won the Good Design Award in 2002, 11th Sapporo Urban Scenery Award in 2003, and Hokkaidō Red Brick Architectural Award in 2004. The park has partly been opened during the construction, and on July 1, 2005, the entire construction was completed, although the park was initially planned to complete in 2004.
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