( CNN ) Walking through the 400-acre Moerenuma Park on the outskirts of Sapporo can be a curious experience . Two perfectly geometric hills rise from the pancake-flat landscape , trees planted in rows form a circular copse , while a glass and steel pyramid looms nearby and three huge stainless steel columns point out of the ground like the antenna of a giant subterranean satellite dish . Seen from above the layout is less recognizable as a park and more akin to the ancient line drawings in the Peruvian Nazca desert . And all this built on top of a former sewage works . As far as municipal parks go , it might be one of the world 's most understated yet intriguing -- a fusion of classic Japanese principles of quiet , natural beauty with 20th-century modernist art . It was the final act of Japanese-American sculptor Isuma Noguchi whose career spanned seven decades -- much of it spent fusing art , architecture and public spaces . But Noguchi did not live to see the park built . More than sculpture . Noguchi drew up plans for the park in November 1988 , but died , aged 84 , just one month later . It then took 17 years to complete his final project . `` It was thrilling to finally see all the ideas that had n't been realized during his life , '' says Jenny Dixon , curator of the Isamu Noguchi Museum in New York , who was at the park 's opening ceremony in 2005 . Some of the concepts used in the park go back to some of Noguchi 's ideas from the 1930s . Noguchi 's training with celebrated Romanian sculptor Constantin Brancusi in the 1920s helped fix his desire to be a sculptor , but it was n't until the 1940s that he found critical acclaim and larger commissions . Far from being solely an abstract sculptor , Noguchi designed playgrounds and gardens , turned his hand to industrial design ( creating what 's now regarded as a classic table top and lamp ) and even designed sets and costumes for celebrated 20th-century dancer and choreographer Martha Graham . `` This was very much at a time when the canon was either you 're a painter or you 're a sculptor and only that . He very much wanted to prove that wrong , '' says Dixon . As well as moving across media he straddled two cultures . With an Irish-American mother and Japanese father , he spent much of his life promoting artist exchange between the two countries , often at times when relations between them were tense or downright hostile . Wartime disruptions . When Japanese-Americans were sent to internment camps in the United States during the Second World War , he volunteered to live in one in Arizona . Showing solidarity with those forcibly moved there , he tried to design camp equipment to make them better places to live . However it proved easier getting in than out , and after seven months he moved back to New York . After the war he was one of the first American artists to visit and engage with Japanese architects and artists , which led to an invitation to design the railings for the Peace Bridges in Hiroshima in 1951 . Later he went on to collaborate with Kenzo Tange , the architect who left a huge impression on the skylines of Japanese cities in the 1960s and 70s . ' I do not hide ' Like other planned Japanese gardens , Moerenuma Park changes with the seasons . In winter it 's buried under deep Hokkaido snow , where skiers hurtle down 62-meter-tall Mount Moere or ski cross-country throughout the grounds . Cherry trees blossom in spring and in summer the whitewashed concrete `` music shell '' provide a stage for concerts and organized events . Another example of Noguchi 's emphasis on fusing the natural world with the manufactured lies inside the pyramid with a summertime cooling system that uses snow stored underground during the winter months . On his respect for nature and his own modern ethos Noguchi said : `` The art of stone in a Japanese garden is that of placement . Its ideal does not deviate from that of nature ... But I am also a sculptor of the West . I place my mark and do not hide . '' Despite his work appearing in 17 cities across the United States and around the world , Dixon believes Noguchi is appreciated more in Japan than in the United States , citing hundreds of thousands of visitors to an exhibition of his work just 10 years ago in Yokohama . `` I think in Japan he 's seen much more as a hero , '' she says . Moerenuma Park , Moerenuma-koen 1-1 , Higashi-ku , Sapporo , Hokkaido , Japan ; daily 7 a.m.-10 p.m. ( entrance closed at 9 p.m . )
Moerenuma Park on the outskirts of Sapporo was the final act of Japanese-American sculptor Isuma Noguchi . Fusing art , nature and industrial design , Noguchi 's park took 17 years to complete . He volunteered to live in an internment camp during WWII to design better equipment for the people in the camp .