The Jantar Mantars of Northern India

Noguchi as Photographer

January 8 - May 31, 2015

 “My educational process has always been sort of his ambitions to design playgrounds and proto-
earthworks, was captured by Berenice Abbott and
backward. It’s the opposite of the way that people
F.S. Lincoln. As he developed from an emerging artist
generally learn. You know, for instance, people learn into an artist’s artist and then became one of the
preeminent American sculptors of his generation in
language by studying grammar and so forth but I
the 1940s, his work and studio life were chronicled
never did. I speak French fairly fluently and so do by Rudolph Burckhardt, André Kertész, Ezra Stoller,
Arnold Newman, and Eliot Elisofon. Noguchi often
I speak Japanese but I couldn’t write a sentence in
acted as his own agent and promoter, and he used
either language. I just know the idea, so to speak. And the photographs taken by these superb artists
extensively for publicity and marketing. While he was
I think that’s how I look at things too. I mean, I know
sometimes photographed for national publications,
it by looking rather than through any knowledge.”1 Noguchi often paid photographers to record his
studio work and, later, his public commissions. In

T
1950, Noguchi was reunited with his younger half-
his exhibition marks the first brother, Michio Noguchi, a skilled photographer
installment of Noguchi as who effectively became the official documenter of
Photographer, a planned series that his career and personal life for nearly four decades.
will plumb the depths of The Noguchi By the 1980s, Noguchi’s stature as a living master
Museum’s extensive archive of the precipitated a friendly working relationship with other
artist’s photographs. For the first well-known photographers, such as Shigeo Anzai and
two decades of Isamu Noguchi’s a young Robert Mapplethorpe.
career, his work was documented by well-known
photographers. His transition from figurative to In 1949, Noguchi embarked on a period of travel for
abstract sculpture in the late 1920s and early 1930s, a proposed book on public spaces throughout the
the lean years when Noguchi balanced the portrait world, and he purchased a Leica to record what he
commissions that were his bread and butter with encountered. While the book was never completed,

Cover: Samrat
Yantra
(foreground) and
Misra Yantra
(background),
Delhi observatory,
1949

Fig. 1: Inside one

of the Jai Prakash
Yantras (armillary
spheres) Jaipur
observatory, 1960

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 Fig. 2: Great
Samrat Yantra
at Jaipur
observatory, 1960

Noguchi made the occasional print or slide from his

trove of negatives, and he occasionally loaned them
A Visit to India
out. He photographed mostly for his own use, with no Noguchi’s visits to Delhi and Jaipur in the autumn of
real intention of exhibiting his photographs publicly. 1949 were brief stops on a tour throughout India, as part
of an even grander tour of Europe and Asia. In a bid to
The photographs were a visual well that he could uproot himself from what he saw as a limited trajectory
return to. Many of the sites he visited—documented as a studio artist in New York, Noguchi obtained a grant
as air travel opened the world and collapsed from the Bollingen Foundation in 1948. He had been
boundaries—became important fodder in his wide- itching to secure public projects but had found little
ranging practice. This stockpile is a unique window success, remarking, “in the creation and existence of a
into the career of one of the most well-traveled artists sculpture, individual possession seems less significant
of his time, a one-man UNESCO who considered than public enjoyment.”3 He outlined an itinerary that
himself a citizen of the world. would allow him a one-year period of intense travel, the
result of which was to be a book on what he termed the
Noguchi as Photographer: The Jantar Mantars of Northern “environment of leisure”: how the built environment in
India documents Noguchi’s visits to two 18th-century public spaces (such as plazas, ceremonial sites, and
sites in Delhi and Jaipur. These sites, the largest of temples) shaped communities and fostered culture and
the five campuses constructed under the aegis of a how sculpture and architecture reflected man’s concept
Rajistani governor named between 1710 and 1728, are of himself in relation to religion and nature. In that first
part of a long lineage of venues built throughout Europe, year, he visited France, Italy, Greece, Egypt, India, the
the Mediterranean, and the Middle East for collecting Far East, and finally, Japan. Travelling light, a sculptor
astronomical data and measuring time.2 By Noguchi’s without a studio, he took up sketching and photography
era, the Jantar Mantars were thriving tourist curiosities. to capture what he saw, and these sources made up the
His photographs from visits in 1949 and 1960 are bulk of his notes for the intended book.
evidence of the obvious attraction they held for him, a
source for many of the ideas on sculpted space that he His visit to India had been long anticipated. In his
would elaborate on, particularly in his public projects in 1927 application to the John Simon Guggenheim
the second half of his career. Foundation, Noguchi had already demonstrated

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Fig. 3: View of glimpses of a philosophy that extended beyond the India, but ultimately he managed to secure only one,
Ram Yantra, making and exhibition of stand-alone sculpture. for a portrait bust of Nehru. Noguchi’s visit preceded
Altitude/ Azimuth
instrument, Delhi,
He requested support for three years of travel, the first waves of international interest in India, which
observatory, 1949 intending to study stone and wood carving in Paris exploded in the ’50s as the Cold War powers vied for
for a year before spending the next two exploring an alliance with the burgeoning economic force. By
Asia, specifically, India. He was granted a one-year 1958, Nehru’s government, as well as a few wealthy
stipend, and his plans were further altered by his Indian families, sought out Western modernists
apprenticeship with Constantin Brancusi in Paris in as sympathetic advisers—and in some cases,
1928. Before the stipend expired (his application for collaborators—in its attempts at decolonization. The
a renewal was declined), Noguchi nevertheless made French architect Le Corbusier, American architect
good on his desire to learn more about Asia, spending Louis Kahn, and designers Charles and Ray Eames,
a few weeks combing the British Museum’s holdings among others, undertook projects in India within a
on Asian art during a visit to London. few years of Noguchi’s visit.4

Noguchi arrived in India in September 1949, just Evidence of Noguchi’s initial stay in India consists
over two years after the country’s independence. In primarily of his photographs and, to a lesser extent,
the mid-1940s, he had been involved with the India a sheaf of notes from his travels and a few letters
League of America in New York, a pro-independence to Bergstein that survive in The Noguchi Museum
group through which he met a number of Indians, Archive. While he complained about its squalor,
including the Pandit sisters (relatives of Pandit Noguchi found India to be an ideal model for the
Jawaharlal Nehru, the eventual first Prime Minister of study of his concept of leisure. In notes recounting a
independent India) and his friend Gautam Sarabhai’s stay at the ashram of Sri Aurobindo in Pondicherry,
family, whose Ahmadabad-based Calico Mills he wrote, “The spirit of India is against change—the
modernized India’s textile industry. While travelling in new is not a quality but a defect. Tradition defines the
India, Noguchi took advantage of a network of hosts precepts of all life, it sets the cannons [sic] of beauty,
through the Sarabhai family, as well as the classical the rhythm and meaning of every gesture within it is
Indian choreographer Uday Shankar in Madras. In peace—here tradition is alive.”5
letters to his accountant, Bernie Bergstein, Noguchi
revealed his hope of finding commissions while in

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Fig. 4: View of
Ram Yantra from The Jantar Mantars of translated as “instruments and formulae” and “magic
sign”) observatory at Delhi from 1718 to 1724, Jai
the steps of the
Samrat Yantra, Northern India Singh built a grander version at his newly established
Jantar Mantar Having already traveled throughout southern India, capital at Jaipur in 1728.8
observatory,
Delhi, 1949
Ceylon, and Sri Lanka, and to such ancient sites as
Ajanta, Ellora, and Kailasa, Noguchi made his way The campus at Jaipur was designed and built by the
Fig. 5: Plaster north in December 1949. He used Delhi as a base Raja Guru Jagganath and Guru Vidyadhar, the latter of
studies for Play
Equipment,
and explored at least two of the five campuses whom was also the designer of the greater city plan
mid-1960s. constructed by the Raja Sawai Jai Singh II of Amber, of Jaipur. Jaipur remains one of the few rectilinear
those in Delhi and Jaipur.6 As a governor in Agra and city plans in India—another of Jai Singh’s interests
Malwa, Jai Singh, a Hindu, had successfully navigated was architecture—and the observatory was plotted
a seemingly continuous succession of Islamic Mogul in an expansive courtyard adjacent to Jai Singh’s
and then Persian rulers in the region, somehow palace at the city center. Jaipur’s Jantar Mantar’s
holding on to his governorship and establishing Jaipur layout followed sacred precepts of the ancient Hindi
as his capital in 1728.7 Jai Singh was deeply immersed architectural manuals that stressed the need for
in the study of astronomy, and his library purportedly the first stones of its foundations to be laid east to
included rare books from European and Middle west; this arrangement was supposed to ensure
Eastern astronomers, including two who had already that its architecture was completed in harmony
built measuring equipment on an architectural with the cosmos. Certain instruments of Jai Singh’s
scale: the 15th-century Persian sultan Ulugh Beg observatory have been demonstrated to follow the
and his Gurkhani Zij, in modern-day Uzbekistan; and same principles.9
the 16th-century European nobleman Tycho Brahe
and his castle observatory, Uraniburg, in Denmark. Within a few decades of the construction of the
Like Beg, who endeavored to correct inaccuracies observatories, however, it became clear that some of
in previous studies by Ptolemy, Jai Singh aimed the instruments were flawed and could not produce
to collect astronomical data in order to produce accurate readings. While the Delhi campus was
long-range calendars for his kingdom. Many of his built in arid terrain outside the then city limits, by
region’s religions placed significance on solstices the 19th century, it shared a central flaw with the
and equinoxes, relying on pancangs (Hindu calendars Jaipur observatory: many of its instruments relied on
that listed processions and festivals). Having seeing the visible horizon, which by then had been
experimented with smaller instruments in wood and obstructed. Second, the architectural scale of the
brass, which he found to be impractical, fragile, and instruments, believed by the Jai Singh to improve
too small to afford adequate calibration, Jai Singh accuracy, was in fact a liability, since the foundations
envisioned permanent structures made of limestone, of the structures tended to shift over time. The Delhi
brick, plaster, and mortar on a massive scale. observatory in particular had structural problems,
After constructing his first Jantar Mantar (variously with a drainage issue leading to a collection of water

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 at the base of its Samrat Yantra (resulting in a few “mystic sculptures that define space…. You might
British Romantic-era prints of the site that cast it call them useless architecture or useful sculpture.
in terms of a European folly). Evidently, Jai Singh They imply a use—much sculpture does that. Whether
sent envoys to Europe in the 1720s to learn what or not they were intended so, Jai Singh’s works have
advances in astronomical equipment had been made turned out to be an expression of wanting to be one
there—telescopic lenses were already standard—and with the universe. They contain an appreciation of
yet he persisted with his own plans. The architectural measured time and the shortness of life and the
scale of Singh’s observatories, as well as the functional vastness of the universe.”11
redundancy between instruments on the same campus,
came to be understood by visiting astronomers as a The structures that Jai Singh and his architects
demonstration of the governor’s power more than a conceived were a distillation of careful study, although
function of observational accuracy. only a visitor with specialized knowledge would have
understood the incremental advance of time revealed in
the instruments. These tools, built with the human form

Fig. 6: Isamu While Singh’s intention for the Jantar Mantars was as their basic measure, related the motions of planets
Noguchi,
A World I Did Not
for the objective observation of visual phenomena and cosmic bodies to human and terrestrial scale. That
Make, 1952, terra and the daily tabulation of incremental data, later India’s architectural tradition was based on principles of
cotta travelers certainly looked upon the sites through spatial proportion between architecture and nature was
Fig. 7: Jaipur
the prism of the Western folly. A British tour book seemingly not lost on Noguchi.12 Through his friendship
observatory, describes the campus at Jaipur as filled with “curious with the “comprehensive anticipatory design strategist”
India, 1949 and fantastic instruments” and notes that it had fallen R. Buckminster Fuller, Noguchi was aware of concepts
into disrepair a century earlier and had only recently of the fundamental structures underlying nature. Early
been restored.10 By the 20th century, Le Corbusier was on, Noguchi assisted in visualizing organic forms for
familiar with the Delhi Jantar Mantar and its forms Fuller, who continually interpreted and transposed them
were said to influence his designs at Chandigarh and into his design principles, such as the tetrahedron,
the Sarabhai family compound he built in Ahmedabad which in turn were adapted into architectural forms.13
in 1952 (which featured a concrete slide). Noguchi Noguchi could appreciate the engineering of the
encountered Jaipur and Delhi as curiosities as well, astronomical instruments at Jaipur and Delhi as a
but his appreciation had an additional layer, colored complementary impulse: Rather than taking cues
by his Bollingen mission. He later described the Jantar from microscopic building blocks observed in nature,
Mantars as: the instruments were a visualization tool of the far-

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 reaching cyclical patterns of movement observed in The 1949 photos are evidence of Noguchi’s first
the sun, moon, and planets. For Noguchi, the varying tentative steps as a photographer: While some are
geometric and hemispheric forms betrayed some artfully composed, others are either out of focus
essence of their function. or catch the odd finger overlapping his lens. Over
time, his photos grew more accomplished as his
More than any other sites that he documented, the understanding of the technical constraints of his gear
observatories at Jaipur and Delhi seem to have provided and lighting conditions improved. Regardless of what
Noguchi with a surrogate experience for the sculpted Noguchi felt about the quality of his photographs of
spaces that he had envisioned since the 1930s. Looking the observatories, others saw something of value in
at the Jantar Mantars through a camera lens allowed them, partly because Noguchi was doing fieldwork for
him to frame a number of viewpoints within each locale those he knew back in New York. His first published
and to observe the visual counterpoint between the photographs appeared in a high-quality journal,
rectilinear structures, their setting in an open court, Portfolio: Annual of the Graphic Arts in 1951. Put
and the surrounding urban environment. Noguchi together by the influential art director for Harper’s
experienced the Jantar Mantars from two vantage Bazaar, Alexey Brodavitch, Portfolio juxtaposed
points: surface level and above. From the ground, he Noguchi’s photographs of Delhi and Jaipur with
captured the Samrat Yantra at Delhi as an imposing features on Alexander Calder and the pictograms
ramp leading to uninterrupted sky; from the porch at the of American hobos. Noguchi’s contribution seems
top of its stairs, he photographed figures milling among to have been included in part to satisfy the exotic
the structures in a way that lends a truer sense of travelogue quotient that was a staple of postwar
scale. Given his self-imposed mission on the Bollingen media. He was also approached by the editors at Yale
grant, it was important for Noguchi to capture people University’s architectural journal, Perspecta, in 1958
actually inhabiting these spaces, in order to assess their about reprinting the photos that had appeared in
continued cultural resonance. In comparison, a shot Portfolio. However, the feature on the Jantar Mantars
Fig. 8: Isamu from the top of the Great Samrat Yantra at Jaipur, one wouldn’t see publication until 1960. In it, Noguchi’s
Noguchi, Garden devoid of any figures, shows the campus inadvertently shots illustrated a more informed reading of the
of the Future, IBM
headquarters,
robbed of the scale that Jai Singh intended, and the Jantar Mantars, which expressly picked apart claims
Armonk, NY photograph seems to be concerned only with how the of the instruments’ accuracy. It was in Perspecta’s
architecture was arrayed like sculpture (Fig 2). This contributor profiles that ‘photographer’ was added
Fig. 9: Jai Prakash
(foreground),
picture conveys what Noguchi thought of installed to Noguchi’s professional résumé. Kahn, a professor
Rashivalaya sculpture in an axonometric sense. He was already at Yale and eventual collaborator with Noguchi on
(background) in the habit of making small models of his theater set an ambitious plan for Riverside Park in New York
at the Jaipur
observatory,
elements to gauge their relationship to the whole. He (1961–1965), would probably have seen Noguchi’s
India, 1949 would later photograph some of his own sculptures and photographs in Perspecta.
maquettes in similar microcosmic views (Fig. 5).

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 Influence on Noguchi proximity as a way of defining areas of incised
patterning (another recurring hallmark of his
It is no overstatement to say that Noguchi’s
1960s spaces), offering a glimpse of the range and
experiences at the observatories at Jaipur and Delhi
repetition of forms that would populate his work in
made a strong impression on him. In them, he found
the future.
a catalog of forms that, while connected to the
ancient monuments he’d seen throughout India, were
still alien, with little evidence of any inherited style The Jantar Mantars also became a recurring formal
or shared iconography. Over the next two decades, source in his collaborations with Gordon Bunshaft, a
as he fulfilled his ambition to create sculpted public principal at the architectural firm Skidmore, Owings
spaces, Noguchi routinely synthesized multiple & Merrill (SOM). Known to liberally cherry-pick
formal sources into his spaces in an allusive way from different sources when conceiving his building
(though he just as routinely downplayed the extent designs, even borrowing complete aesthetic schemes

Fig 10:
Mishra Yantra
instrument, at
the Jantar Mantar of their importance on his final product). Recurring and materials, Bunshaft was well-travelled, having
observatory, and repeated forms became his tool for creating a made a tour similar to Noguchi’s throughout Europe
Delhi, India, 1949 shorthand for monuments and architecture and for as a MIT student in the mid-1930s. Bunshaft and
Fig 11: Isamu organizing them within compressed areas. The Jantar Noguchi had already worked together by the time
Noguchi Slide Mantars are a direct model for this approach. In A the architect and his wife, Nina, travelled to India
Mantra plaster World I Did Not Make (1952) (Fig. 6), for example, in November 1960, where Noguchi joined them as
study, early
1960s references to the sloped forms at the observatories, their tour guide in Jaipur. A handful of photographs
the Samrat Yantra or perhaps the Valaya Yantra document their visit, with the Bunshafts posing in one
(zodiac) instruments, dot the microcosmic landscape. of the bowls of Jai Prakash Yantra and, presumably,
Noguchi created the circular ceramic slab during trading places to photograph Noguchi.
his stay in Japan in the early 1950s, when he
reacquainted himself with the Japanese stroll garden, Construction had already begun on Bunshaft’s design
absorbing its central notion of a gradually unfolding for the Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library
space revealed through ambulation. Whereas the at Yale University in New Haven earlier in 1960,
12 Valaya Yantras at Jaipur were arrayed according and Noguchi was then tapped to create a recessed
to the orientation of their respective constellations, sculptural space viewable from the plaza in front
in A World I Did Not Make Noguchi used their close of the building on street level. The Sunken Garden

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is surrounded on all sides by a reading room and of the various formulas Noguchi used to symbolize
library offices but remains physically inaccessible man’s continuing interpretation of the laws of nature.
to the viewer, aligning it most readily with Japanese The center’s archivists pointed out that Newtonian
Zen gardens as meant for contemplation but not physics could not be used to calculate Mercury’s
interaction. Its conceptual underpinnings match perihelion (its closest approach to the sun), which
Bunshaft’s windowless building, a virtually self- had been made possible only through Einstein’s
contained shell of white Danby marble that allows theory.14 This nod to the limits of purely observational
light to filter within. Responding to their shared astronomy, in close proximity to forms resembling
impressions of the observatory in Jaipur, Noguchi the Jai Prakash at Jaipur, seems to reaffirm Noguchi’s
designed an abstract, gridded surface (later shared central conceit: the steady progress of science and
with his Chase Manhattan garden) punctuated by technology.
three raised elements—a truncated pyramid, a white
sun, and what he termed “the cube of chance”— Concurrent with the SOM commissions, Noguchi
suggesting manmade structures and their relation pursued playground concepts throughout the
to the cosmos. These elements are activated at 1960s. Climbing was perhaps the most common
various times of day by a cast shadow. The form of element shared between Noguchi’s various play
the cube, the most fundamental form of proportion environments—from the stepped pyramid of Play
in architecture, stretched across every surface Mountain (1933) to its descendent, the step pads
of Bunshaft’s design, and its presence arguably in his Riverside Playground designs (1960–1965),
references the implied order of the cosmos shared to the more conventional playground equipment at
between Euclidean geometry and the Hindu building Playscapes at Piedmont Park in Atlanta (1975–1976).
tradition. “I like to think of playgrounds as a primer of shapes
and functions; simple, mysterious and evocative: thus
A few years on, Noguchi again collaborated with educational. The child’s world would be a beginning
SOM and Bunshaft on a pair of courtyards at the world, fresh and clear.”15
headquarters of IBM in Armonk, New York. In the two
courtyard spaces he was allotted, Noguchi balanced Noguchi likely viewed his visit to Jai Singh’s
a mock ancient garden composed of submerged observatories, with their repetitions of staircases and
rock and water elements in the South Court with arcing quadrants, through the lens of several failed
a Garden of the Future in the North, illustrating attempts at creating playgrounds in New York in the
man’s application of technology (Fig. 8). Alongside a 1930s and ’40s. Likewise, according to the critic
bronze double-helix statue, a black granite pyramid, Dore Ashton, Noguchi’s travels to pyramids in Mexico
and a white, wedged sundial form, Noguchi paired in the 1930s had already made evident to him the
a red concave pool beside a black convex mound, symbolic and experiential aspects of ascendance,
proportioned to subtly resemble the Jai Prakash further reinforced later in the Bollingen trip at sites
Yantra that he and the Bunshafts visited at Jaipur like Borabadur in Java and in Egypt in 1949.16 The
(Fig. 9). On the convex dome, Noguchi incised a link between man-made structures and the sacred
number of mathematical formulas and references to mountains that dot world mythologies, from Mount
atomic science, scattered around what appears to be Fuji in Japan (which he had known from his childhood)
Ursa Minor (the constellation that includes the north to Mount Kailash, seat of Vishnu in Nepal, would likely
celestial pole) in the central position. In his research have been extended to the repetition of staircases
for the commission, Noguchi consulted the Thomas throughout the observatories in Delhi and Jaipur.
J. Watson Research Center in Yorktown Heights,
New York, and its archivists suggested symbols that In the mid-1960s, Noguchi produced miniature plaster
pointed to current (more accurate) developments models for a play concept he called Slide Mantra. Each
in astronomy incorporating advanced physics. is a solid form, a miniaturized mountain, and marks his
Einstein’s theory of relativity—part of Noguchi’s first attempt to recast conventional playground equipment
public commission, the frieze History: Mexico at the in his own visual vocabulary. The name he chose is a
Mercado Abelardo Rodriguez in Mexico City in 1936, sly nod to the common appellation “yantra” (meaning
by way of a succinct explanation via a telegram from instrument or diagram) for each of the instruments
Fuller—is enshrined on the nearby sundial form as one at the observatories. In place of yantra’s use as a

8
 visualization of a higher concept, he substituted in Osaka, which seems to merge the optimism of his
“mantra” (meaning thought), alluding to its aid to playground projects with the spirit of the space age. In
meditation, often practiced as a rhythmic and circular notes he kept leading up to his initial proposal, Noguchi
utterance of energy. The first iteration of Slide Mantra, outlined the conceit of the project as “The World and
an asymmetrical parabolic incline that combines an Its Dream—a treatise on the Moon as a symbol of our
arcing staircase with a bifurcated set of slides, clearly changing aspirations, and on Nature as a new awareness
references the sculpted circular railings enclosing the of science….” The grounds of Noguchi’s pavilion are
winding stairs of the Misra Yantra at Delhi (Fig. 10 and a reimagining of the desolate surface of the moon as
Fig. 11). In another incarnation of Slide Mantra, the an artificial wonderland of brightly colored objects
railing defines the single elegant transition of a spiral (including a handful of stand-alone play sculptures,
from its (revealed) curving slide to the (concealed) stairs like Octetra, from his temporary installation of play

Fig 12: Isamu accessed through a portal in the back of the mound. equipment at Kodomo no Kuni, in Tottori Prefecture,
Noguchi with his
plaster model
Nearly two decades later, Noguchi had a 10½-foot-high Japan (ca. 1965–1966)). He paired these with the
for Skyviewing version of this Slide Mantra fabricated in white marble, elemental architecture of early civilizations: a massive
Sculpture, 1969. like the Jantar Mantars, for his exhibition at the 1986 pyramid and a sunken circular amphitheater. Structural
(Photo: Michio
Noguchi)
Venice Biennale. It is an instrument of measurement elements on the field include an “echo satellite model”
and motion scaled to the proportions (and worldview) and a “dish antenna,” with the empirical observational
Fig 13: Model for of a child astronomer. exercise of looking upward at the Jantar Mantar recast
Sky Gate, 1976-
1977. Plastic
as a more active informational exchange. The campus
tubing, paint. The “primer of shapes and functions” that informed sits under the watchful gaze of a giant gas-filled floating
(Photo: Kevin Noguchi’s vocabulary for play found a parallel in his orb, a metaphorical nod that brings the subjects of
Noble)
1968 model for a proposed U.S. pavilion for Expo ’70 astronomical observation closer still. Later, in his first

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Instruments
A handful of instruments appear at both the Jaipur and Delhi observatories, and those that The project that resonates most
are specific only to Jaipur or Delhi are noted in the descriptions below:
closely with his remark about the
Samrat Yantra: A legend on the instrument reads “for finding time, declination and hour “useless architecture or useful
angle of heavenly bodies.”20 It can be used for making readings in the equatorial and sculpture” of the Jantar Mantars is
horizontal coordinate systems. Essentially a sundial, its center staircase acts as a gnomon, his Sky Viewing Sculpture at Western
the hypotenuse that is situated on the local meridian line (north-south). The gnomon casts Washington University (1969) (Fig.
its shadow on the semicircular quadrants on either side of it, which are positioned as the
12). Commissioned to create a work
equator. The edge of the shadow lines up with graduated increments incised in the marble
describing hours, minutes, and fractions of 20 seconds. Inclined at an angle of 27 degrees, for its outdoor sculpture collection,
the gnomon can also be used to measure the declination of the sun during the day or the stars Noguchi fabricated a 17-foot-tall
at night. There are two versions of Samrat Yantra at Jaipur: The larger (Great or Brhat Samrat sheared cube, with three faces
Yantra) is 10 times the size of the smaller (Laghu Samrat Yantra), and because its graduations pierced by circular apertures, that
are subdivided even further, it is 10 times more accurate.
is tilted on three giant piers in the
Jai Prakash: Armillary sphere instruments, a pair of concave hemispherical bowls sunken into central campus square. Not quite a
a rectangular platform. The recessed bowls represent the celestial sphere above, with the canopy, the open structure directs
rim acting as the horizon. Readings are made from the cast shadow of a metal ring (acting as viewers to the sky. Noguchi later
the zenith) suspended by two cables stretched across the instrument’s rim and aligned north, claimed that he wanted to “tie
south, east, and west. The bowls are complementary, with one representing even hours and
the sculpture to an awareness of
the other standing for odd hours. The hemisphere of each bowl is made up of curving marble
slabs—alternating with gaps of the same measure—each representing one hour of measurement, outer space as an extension of its
crisscrossed with a geometric web of incised lines denoting the meridian, the equator, the tropics significance, much as one finds in
of Cancer and Capricorn, as well as circles marking azimuths, altitudes, and 12 zodiac circles. At ancient observatories.”17 Perhaps
night, an observer standing in the recessed cavity below the marble bowl peers out through a in looking upward through these
small ring in its center, sighting the desired star or constellation. The Jai Prakash measures local
portals, Noguchi also referenced
time, altitude, azimuth, and zenith distances among other functions.
mythologies that viewed the same
Rama Yantra: This pair of broken drum forms, with a fixed central pillar that functions like a hole in the tent roof, which allows
sundial, is used to measure the azimuth and the zenith of stars and the sun along the broken smoke to escape, as an extension
ring of 12 verticals radiating from the center. Again, the drums are complementary, each of the sky and a representation of a
accounting for 45 degrees of visibility. To observe azimuth and altitudes at night, an observer
star itself.
stands in the recessed space beneath the alternating surface of the flat segmented slabs
radiating from the central pillar and trains his eye across a marking incised on the flat surface
to catch sight of a specific star or constellation in alignment with the central column. While he was no doubt interested
in astronomy, Noguchi never went
Narivalaya Yantra: A pair of sundials, straightforward in function, each aligned to the plane so far as to attempt engineering the
of the equator. One corresponds to the southern hemisphere and is tilted downward to face
functional aim of the Jantar Mantars
the southern celestial pole, while the other corresponds to the northern hemisphere and tilts
upward to face the north celestial pole. into the sculptural elements in his
sites by, say, aligning them to the
Misra Yantra (Delhi only): Four instruments in one, although they duplicate functions of other specific coordinates of equinoxes or
instruments at the observatory. The four semicircles attached to the central staircase relate solstices. For instance, his sculptured
the sun’s position at noon in Zurich, Switzerland; Greenwich, England; and two unidentified
railings for the bridge at the Hiroshima
sites in East Asia.
Peace Park (1951–1952) are limited
Rasi Valaya Yantra (Jaipur only): A field of 12 instruments, similar to the small Samrat Yantra to references to the sun and moon
in appearance, each fixed in its orientation to a specific constellation in the zodiac. Based on as symbolic passages through
the elliptical coordinate system, they track a constellation’s latitude and longitude. cycles of destruction and rebirth.
In an unrealized proposal for the
Hiroshima Peace Park, the Monument
to the Dead (1952), which Noguchi
realized playground in the United States, Playscapes envisioned as a two-level memorial, one end of an
(1975–1976) in Piedmont Park in Atlanta, he included abstract, gridded plaza featured a 20-foot-high granite
numerous play elements that echo aspects of the Jantar cenotaph structure (“a concentration of energy”), with
Mantars. The ladders of the triple slide and the arced its hulking legs plunging into an underground crypt,
stairs leading to the Slide Column, the repetition of the which centered on a cantilevered granite box containing
wedge shape similar to the Samrat Yantra, and the paired the names of those killed in the bombing of Hiroshima.
bowls of the Jai Prakash are inverted from concave to A single entrance portal linking the two levels allowed
convex to become a single play mound. sunlight to illuminate the crypt and, at a specific time,

10
direct a shaft of light on the box. The conceptual totality service of human ritual—Noguchi interpreted them as
of the proposal, which balanced the massive cenotaph objects that seem to split the difference between past
in the infinite space of plaza against the immateriality and future, the religious and the secular, sculpture and
of light within the introspective experience in the architecture.
crypt below, goes well beyond the simple designation
of “monument,” implying instead a measurement of Endnotes
mankind’s existence.
1 Isamu Noguchi, oral history interview by Paul Cummings,
November 7, 19743–December 26, 1973, http://www.aaa.si.edu/
His Sky Gate in Honolulu, Hawaii, (1976) probably marks collections/interviews/oral-history-interview-isamu-noguchi-11906
Noguchi’s closest approach to the functional aspect 2 The Raja Sawai Jai Singh II’s other, smaller Jantar Mantars were
of the observatory instruments (Fig. 13). Twice a year, located in Benares, Ujjain, and Mathura (the last was destroyed
in the span of about six weeks during the summer, Sky and is known only through descriptions). While Noguchi travelled
Gate enacts the phenomena called solar noon, which through Benares in 1949, there is no record that he found the
Jantar Mantar there.
the locals call Lahaina Noon, when the sun passes 3 “Towards a Reintegration of the Arts,” in Isamu Noguchi: Essays
directly overhead.18 While objects standing absolutely and Conversations, ed. Diane Apostolos-Cappadona and Bruce
straight (like buildings) appear to have no shadow, the Altshuler (New York: Harry N. Abrams, Inc., 1994), 26. Also in “A
shadow cast by Sky Gate’s swooping circular oculus Proposed Study of The Environment of Leisure,” manuscript, 1949.
aligns perfectly with the sun overhead and encloses a 4 The Sarahbai family in particular hosted the likes of Alexander
Calder, John Cage, and the composer David Tudor among others.
corresponding circular disc on the ground below. The 5 Travel notes by Isamu Noguchi, India folder 2/3, The Noguchi
occurrence is common throughout this tropic latitude Museum Archive, New York.
and, while possibly acknowledged by Noguchi in his 6 It is difficult to say with certainty which of the Jantar Mantars
design, is probably more circumstantial than explicitly he visited first, Delhi or Jaipur.
functional. Sky Gate is more consciously intended to 7 For a more detailed account, see Andreas Volwahsen, Cosmic
Architecture in India (Munich: Prestel Verlag, 2001) 31.
frame and define a section of the sky when experienced 8 Dates vary among scholars over time. There are some older
from below. accounts claiming that the Jantar Mantar site in Delhi was begun in
1710.
Around the time of Sky Gate’s unveiling, Noguchi 9 Volwahsen, Cosmic Architecture in India, 104–109.
made a curious remark that seems to link it to the 10 John Murray, A Handbook for Travelers in India, Burma and
Ceylon, 8th ed. (Calcutta: Thacker, Spink & Co., 1911), 140.
Bollingen trip that brought him to such sites as 11 Portfolio: The Annual of the Graphic Arts 3, (1951).
the Jantar Mantars: “In arts of the earliest time, 12 Among the expenses Noguchi tallied for Bergstein from his
they were consumed with religion—space, life and India trip was a two-volume Hindu design manual, Manasara Shilpa
death, relationship to astronomy and the place Shastra, which outlines proportions for carpentry. May 1950 letter
human beings have in this world and the afterlife. to Bernie Bergstein, The Noguchi Museum Archive.
13 The tetrahedron is based on a 60-degree angle, allowing for
The Stonehenge is an example. Gradually people’s modular forms.
horizons became restricted, although we have gone 14 H.H. Goldstein to Isamu Noguchi, 26 August 1964, Thomas J.
to the moon, for practical reasons.”19 Watson Research Center.
15 Isamu Noguchi, Isamu Noguchi: A Sculptor’s World (New York:
In the decades following his Bollingen trip, Noguchi Harper & Row Publishers, 1968), 161.
16 Dore Ashton, Noguchi East and West (Berkeley: University of
became an increasingly sought after and canny California Press, 1992), 87.
collaborator to architects and a designer of sculpted 17 Isamu Noguchi, The Isamu Noguchi Garden Museum (New York:
spaces, using each of these opportunities to mine Harry N. Abrams, Inc., 1987), 194.
symbolic motifs and forms from cultures in the distant 18 This has been mentioned to me by visiting Hawaiian residents
past and to interpret them for the contemporary. Many on two occasions.
19 Tomi Knaefler, “Sculptor for City Says ‘Sky Gate’ Will Relate to
of the conceptual programs for his spaces, what he ‘Totality,’” Honolulu Star-Bulletin, March 10, 1977.
called a “dramatic abstract,” seem to collapse time, 20 S. Snead, “Observatories Reveal the Imagination of India and
addressing modern technology and materials while the Mind of a Maharajah,” Industrial Design 8 (June 1960).
drawing parallels to familiar manmade forms of the
past, implying an overlay of meaning in the structures
of human existence. In the photographs from his
encounters with the astronomical instruments in Jaipur
and Delhi—visualization tools that were reversed-
engineered from celestial movement and put in the All photographs by Isamu Noguchi except as noted.

11
Published on the occasion of the exhibition Programs:
Noguchi as Photographer | Jantar Mantars of Center of Attention: 
Northern India Great Samrat Yantra at the Jaipur Observatory
January 8 – May 31, 2015 Saturday, February 21
Curated by Matthew Kirsch, Associate Curator 4:00pm
Visitors are invited to engage with the Museum’s
Publication copyright © 2015 collection through these hour-long conversations
The Isamu Noguchi Foundation and Garden Museum around a single work of art.
32-37 Vernon Blvd.
Long Island City, New York 11106 Noguchi Talks: Noguchi as Photographer with
Tel: 718-204-7088 Associate Curator Matthew Kirsch
Fax: 718-278-2348 Saturday, March 21
www.noguchi.org 1:00pm
Matthew Kirsch, Associate Curator and organizer
All rights reserved. No part of this brochure may be of Noguchi as Photographer: The Jantar Mantars of
reproduced in any form or by any means without Northern India, narrates a slide show of photographs
written permission of the publisher from Noguchi’s travels to sites he visited throughout
Europe and Asia in 1949-50.
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