It’s hard to believe it has been four years since my last trip to Japan. During university, I visited so often that I’d seen nearly every renowned and hidden gem of architecture—yet somehow, Sugimoto Hiroshi’s Enoura Observatory had eluded me.

The Enoura Observatory is no singular building but a sprawling modern garden on a cliffside overlooking Sagami Bay, nestled in an expanse of orange groves whose citrus fragrance mingles with the sea air in late summer.

Ascending through dense foliage, the landscape suddenly opens, revealing an endless view of sea and sky. The horizon here, a motif in Sugimoto’s famed *Seascapes* series, divides ocean from heaven, an unchanging line through which he explores the constancy of time.

Time’s passage is the core of Sugimoto’s work, woven throughout the observatory’s design. The 100-metre Sea Gallery aligns with the summer solstice sunrise, welcoming the season’s first light, while a weathered steel tunnel points to the winter solstice sunrise, its far end illuminated by the sun only once each year. At the tunnel’s end, an outdoor theatre, suspended over the sea on optical glass, frames the ocean and sky as its living backdrop.

Stones in the garden, some dating back to the Asuka period, were once parts of ancient temples, bridges, and roads. They hold countless histories and will bear silent witness for millennia more. The Enoura Observatory is unforgettable—a profound dialogue between architecture, nature, and time.