“Sun of the City” is a project that creates functioning sundials by using existing structures in urban space. This seventh work is installed under the Motomachi viaduct in central Kobe, a site where multiple layers of time overlap: the postwar black market, the Great Hanshin Earthquake, and recent redevelopment. Roads, railway tracks, power lines, elevated structures, and high rise buildings intersect here, and movements at different speeds—cars, trains, pedestrians, as well as shifting shadow and light—constantly pass around the wall.
A shop sign left behind by a closed storefront serves as the gnomon, allowing time to be read by its shadow. The form and position of the wall and the sign were measured, and the dial was designed by correlating these measurements with the site’s latitude and longitude. Even after the shop has closed, the sign’s shadow marks the hours and turns attention back to the livelihoods that once operated here.
In recent years, the shopping arcade beneath the viaduct has been cleared for redevelopment, leaving all storefronts vacant. Meanwhile, the outer wall facing the street, where the sundial is drawn, has gradually filled with graffiti by local street artists. The viaduct is scheduled to be demolished after March 2026, and the sundial is expected to disappear with it. A key challenge of this work is how a temporary piece bound to a disappearing structure can be recorded and carried forward, while keeping the time it holds.
Wall size: about 500 × 1250 cm
Organizer: MOTOKOLOGY Executive Committee
Support: JR West Real Estate & Development Company, West Japan Marketing Communications Inc., Artist in Residence KOBE
Production support: Haioku LLC, NAKA Recycling Co., Ltd., and all production supporters