Jun 23,2022
The town of Taki in the Taki district is situated almost in the middle of Mie prefecture. The characters in the town’s name mean large quantity and lifeforce respectively, so the town, with a population of around 14,000, is said to be a place that nurtures the lifeforce of many people. Blending in with the town’s neighboring mountains is a large hotel and retail complex called VISON, which is centered on Japan’s rich culinary culture.
The forested area, which if left unattended would have fallen into ruin and lost much of its ability to absorb carbon dioxide, has been developed in harmony with nature. The project aims are to properly nurture the mountain area, create value for the local community, and enrich the lives of residents. Visitors walking around, observing, touching, and tasting the local culture brings life to the town.
Marking a clear departure from other commercial complexes focused on modern experiential value, VISON, which means beautiful village, quietly connects the present with the future along a continuous thread from the past.
The VISON complex covers a broad 1.19-square-kilometer area. Its shops and restaurants are arranged like detached houses or old row houses, following the curve of the mountain to form a village. Many of the site’s buildings make abundant use of locally produced timber. Following the tradition of how the Ise Jingu shrine is periodically rebuilt with new timber, VISON’s plan is to maintain these buildings by replacing their wooden structures every few decades. This concept is radically different from typical commercial projects that are based on fixed-term land leases and assume a relatively short service life.
In the same way that local people have cleared mountainous areas and built homes that they then pass on from generation to generation, VISON aims to be a sustainable location that will be passed on by the people who work here and visit here.
Enza Ayaka, a public relations manager at VISON Taki Co., Ltd.
“Our thinking is that the periodic rebuilding will support the local forestry industry and create new employment opportunities,” explains Enza Ayaka, who is in charge of public relations at VISON Taki Co., Ltd., the operator of VISON. She says the company hopes that visitors to VISON, in the central part of Mie, will stimulate tourism throughout the prefecture.
“At the present time, the majority of visitors to Mie’s main attraction, Ise Jingu, only come for the day and few make the trip to nearby Ise-Shima or Toba. We hope that VISON can serve as a tourism base, producing a flow of travelers who explore other places in Mie.”
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VISON comprises multiple areas each with its own concept and theme.
Tachibana Tetsuya, representative director of VISON Taki Co., Ltd., personally negotiated the opening of each store in each area, and quite a few were only settled after years of discussions. VISON only accepted companies and brands that share its philosophy of sustainable management, and the complex is notable for having no national chains.
“We insisted that store and area signage be small so that the natural scenery stands out. All power and utility lines are run underground to ensure the original vistas are not disturbed and visitors can enjoy the atmosphere of an old-fashioned village where people live in harmony with nature.”
Let’s take a tour of some of the main areas that make up the VISON village.
The WA-VISION area consists of ateliers and specialty stores hosting makers of traditional and indispensable Japanese ingredients such as kombu kelp, miso, mirin rice wine, dashi soup stock, saké, vinegar, and soy sauce. Visitors can enjoy eating and shopping as well as learn hands-on about the benefits of Japanese cuisine through workshops like making original dashi soup stock or making miso.
Each shop is styled like an impressive warehouse representing all the facets of fermentation culture — miso, vinegar, mirin, katsuobushi dried bonito flakes, kombu, soy sauce …
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The Atelier VISON is an area where you can learn about and purchase all kinds of cooking utensils. It includes a ceramics workshop and a gallery shop, centered around the KATACHI museum and museum shop.
Produced by Uchida Koichi, a ceramicist and modeler, the KATACHI museum and museum shop features some of the largest earthen walls in Japan, which were made by artisans who also work as plasterers at Ise Jingu and other prominent shrines and temples. Although the region has a rainy climate, the building was constructed without eavestroughs, based on the idea that rainwater seeping into the wall materials and changing them over the years is itself a type of art. The sight of rain dribbling from the roof has its own charm.
Implements for the Imagination at the KATACHI Museum, Curated by Uchida Koichi
SWEETS VILLAGE was produced by pastry chef Tsujiguchi Hironobu and consists of a patisserie café and bakery. The greenhouse beside the patisserie café is shared with the Strawberry House and Cacao House where domestic cacao is cultivated.
Innovative businesses like these unique to VISON are expected to flourish.
The Marché VISON farmer’s market is supervised by Teshima Ryuji, a one-star Michelin chef. Like its namesake in France, the market is bustling with shoppers every day, going through the closely packed rows of fresh Mie delicacies from land and sea.
San Sebastián Street is lined with shops modeled after the Spanish city of San Sebastián, with which the town of Taki signed a Gourmet Certificate of Friendship. Other stores here sell brand-name fashions as well as camping goods. The area is always lively with people soaking up the ambience of the Basque city while shopping.
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The HONZO AREA facilities reflect the traditional honzo study and discipline of the medicinal benefits of various plants and minerals. There are three main facilities: the HONZO Laboratory, a joint research and communication hub between Mie University and Rohto Pharmaceutical; a medicinal herb garden; and a spa where guests can enjoy medicinal herb baths based on VISON’s own Honzo 72 micro-seasons, an ancient Chinese method of dividing the year. The area is filled with the power of chi, which harnesses nature’s energy to reawaken and sharpen the senses dulled by daily life.
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VISON offers three types of accommodation: hotel rooms with private terraces built into the slope to give outstanding views; private villas designed to blend in with the natural vegetation; and a hatago-style inn where you can be close to the action on San Sebastián Street.
The many environmentally friendly amenities include Italian organic hair and body care brands as well as toothbrushes, hairbrushes, razors, and other items made from straw and packaged in paper. The soft, warm textures of these products are closely aligned with VISON’s commitment to live in harmony with the natural environment.
A welcome tea service is available to refresh you after walks around the complex, including kabusecha [mild green tea] and Japanese black tea grown in Mie Prefecture.
VISON’s 9,000-square-meter sustainable organic farm shares space with NOUNIYELL, a restaurant run under the supervision of Okuda Masayuki, a pioneer in the Grow Local, Eat Local movement. The meals served to you as you take in the mountain ridges that spread out before your eyes feature plenty of vegetables from the farm and vegetables local to Mie. The FARM is a space that reminds you that humans are part of nature’s cycle and that brings to heart the mantra that “to eat is to live”.
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In the year since its opening in 2021, new bonds have formed among the residents of VISON.
“Store owners and artisans are working together to create VISON’s original collaborative products. The mutual recognition of good works and their transformation into even more wonderful products is the embodiment of the VISON concept: a place where we take on challenges that have never been attempted before and foster them with care.”
From the left: Sumiya Bunjiro Brewery, the brewer of Sanshu Mikawa Mirin rice wine located in WA-VISON sells an original VISON ponzu vinegar made with soy sauce from Ise Shoyu Honpo, a direct retailer of a soy sauce brewery, and vinegar from the MIKURA Vinegary. Sumiya Bunjiro Brewery has also teamed up with saké brewery Fukuwagura; collaborated with 18th Jinshomaru, which deals in deep-sea seafood, to create pickled prawn shiokara; and worked with HONZO Laboratory RINNE to create a mirin-flavored granola.
Traditional Japanese cuisine and ingredients and the memories of how people truly lived and the wonder of the power that nature provides — precious things that might otherwise disappear — can all be experienced at VISON. VISON has started carving out a solid history as a new village in Mie, a distinct departure from the commercial facilities that appear and then disappear with the dizzying speed of our modern times.
VISON is a resort-type commercial facility and industry-government-academia venture developed in collaboration with Mie prefecture, the town of Taki, and a local university. The project brought together the expertise of the Mie Hometown Creation Project, a joint venture between four companies: Aqua Ignis Corporation, Aeon Town Co., Ltd., First Brothers Co., Ltd., and Rohto Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd. Located on a massive site the size of 24 Tokyo Domes (approximately 1.19 square kilometers), VISON is a large-scale complex with specialty food-themed commercial establishments.
https://vison.jp/en/
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