Nature Aquarium Gallery

Niigata, Japan

June, 2009

In June 2009, AquaTouch representatives paid a most rewarding visit to the Nature Aquarium Gallery in Niigata prefecture, Japan. The gallery is located at approximately the same latitude as San Francisco, approximately 200 miles northwest of Tokyo and shares a building with the Aqua Design Amano (ADA) headquarters and of course, Mr. Takashi Amano’s offices.

The Nature Aquarium gallery, established in July 2003, is open to the public on weekends and is in fact an art gallery.  The gallery provides visitors the opportunity to view and contemplate approximately 40 aquariums and find inspiration for their personal planted aquariums.  Please take a look at the pictures here and make note of the simple wooden benches allowing visitor to “get in touch” with specific aquariums and to take time in appreciating them.

Throughout the gallery, Mr. Amano has demonstrated his incredible expertise and eye for creating beautiful, natural environments within the confines of an aquarium.  He has drawn much of his inspiration for aquariums from rivers all over the world, mountains and the nearby Sea of Japan.

The gallery’s aquariums have a wide range of size and maturity and are maintained in incredible condition by a staff of four people. As new products become available and new materials such as wood are identified, older aquariums are updated. For example, make note of the wood in the photograph below.

Mr. Nozomi Hayakawa, export manager for ADA guided AquaTouch representatives around the Gallery and we are most appreciative for his time and interest. He asked many questions about the expanding ADA market in the United States and specifically in the middle desert southwest.