Art bunker: buried in a hillside, this museum is a tantalising journey into different aspects of art.

Tadao Ando's involvement with Naoshima Island dates back to the late 1980s, when he first designed a museum for contemporary art, conceived as a series of typically ascetic containers partially submerged underground so as to impinge as lightly as possible on the landscape. Though there is an industrial and commercial zone on the northern part of the island, its southern tip is given over to the Seto Inland Sea National Park. This latest building, the Chichu Art Museum, extends the notion of subterranean excavation even further; here the entire volume is set underground to preserve the surrounding salt pans. Even though Ando is well known for his formal and material reticence, this sets new standards. The building literally becomes part of the topography, registering as a series of sunken courtyards set in a lush green hill overlooking the sea. Bunkered down in the landscape, the starkness and introversion of the concrete courtyards do little to suggest the presence of an art museum; rather they call to mind the brooding archaeological relics of military defence or a long lost civilisation.

The building houses a permanent collection of works by Impressionist master Claude Monet and contemporary artists Walter De Maria and James Turrell. Though the collection is small, the works range across a broad spectrum from oil paintings and sculptures to the study of natural light. In each instance Ando creates specific spaces and environments that respond to the different qualities of the work. In the case of Turrell and De Maria, he collaborated directly with the artists to achieve particular experiential effects.

The museum comprises a torso of galleries linked to a smaller head of entrance court and offices. Each is organised around a sunken courtyard (triangular and square respectively) and the two parts are linked by a long, processional, trench-like walkway. The physical compression of the trench culminates in the release of the galleries that nudge and cluster around the triangular courtyard. Perhaps the most dramatic of these is James Turrell's space, with three enclaves for viewing and experiencing the mutable radiance of the sky. Walter De Maria's sculptures, some embellished with gold leaf, are arrayed on a cascading grand staircase aligned east to west so that the character of the space changes under different light conditions. Finally, Monet's paintings are contained within a more conventional gallery, but hung in specially designed glass cases that repel the humid ocean atmosphere and the alkalinity of the concrete walls.

The concrete forms a neutral backdrop to the contemplation of art, but when animated by changing light the material assumes a different intensity. Yet Ando's concrete is nothing special--usually a standard specification, with the emphasis placed on supervision and the technical capabilities of the construction team. And while the walls are of a remarkably high standard, they are not without blemishes, often bearing the traces of successive pours. Just as the raku potter relies on the unpredictable nature of the kiln to create serendipitous designs and textures, Ando actually relishes the unexpected flaws and changes in character that can result from the pour.

Like the Japanese landscape artist Hokusai, whose bridges often lead away into the mists and the unknown, Ando's buildings invite the viewer on a series of tantalising internal journeys. Monastic in its rigour and plainness, the new museum embodies a mastery of light and materials that seeks to reconnect with the elementality of art and nature.

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