Moerenuma Park, Modern sculpture park in Higashi-ku, Sapporo, Japan

Moerenuma Park is a municipal park in Higashi-ku, Sapporo, built on 71.2 hectares of reclaimed landfill within a 188-hectare site that includes the Moere marsh. Its design by Isamu Noguchi treats the whole park as one sculpture, with the 62-metre Mt. Moere, the glass pyramid Hidamari, the 48-metre Sea Fountain, and the 150-metre Aqua Plaza canal. A pale path winds up the grass-covered Mt. Moere from a paved plaza.

The park was built on a former waste disposal site and opened in 2005 as the final project of Japanese-American sculptor Isamu Noguchi before his death. The transformation from landfill to art landscape took over two decades of planning and construction.

The name Moerenuma derives from the Ainu "Moyre pet", meaning a slowly flowing river, not a swamp. The park's glass pyramid was nicknamed Hidamari, "sunny spot", chosen in 2002 from 2,340 public applications. The Sea Fountain runs 40-minute and 15-minute programs three or four times daily, its central jet reaching 25 metres.

The park opens daily from 7 in the morning until 10 at night, while the glass pyramid is accessible from 9 until 6 in the evening. Wide open spaces allow visits in any weather, though sturdy shoes help when climbing the man-made hills.

In winter the man-made mountains and open spaces transform into snow activity zones where visitors can practice snowshoeing and cross-country skiing. The geometric shapes appear even sharper under a blanket of snow and create an entirely different spatial experience.