Tadao Ando: There

Tadao Ando is one of my favorite present day architects. My love began with a visit to the Pulitzer Foundation for the Arts in St. Louis, Missouri, his first public building in the United States. Though my trip to Japan was short and unplanned, I did seek out a few of his projects in his native country. Architecture Week has called his buildings "a continuous play of light on concrete" and he is noted for his attention for materiality, particularly concrete.

21-21 Design Site, Tokyo, 2007.

Exterior view of sunken, 2 story gallery space.

Passage in the middle of the building frames the view of the modern Midtown Development to the West.

Roof and wall in one: drainage channels built into smooth metal roof.
View of gallery and gift shop areas, where the wall and the roof are one in the same.

Curtain wall reflection against Ando's signature concrete wall.

Times Gallery, 1991, Kyoto, Japan. High-end shops and salons arranged artfully on a compact city lot.

View from main entry, city waterway to the left and businesses on the right.
View from Main Street. (Click on photo for credit)
Covered public walkway.

Japanese Architecture Banter-Modern Kyoto

This designer banterer started the new year with a short trip to Japan. In the coming weeks I will be posting some of the architectural highlights from my trip.

The architecture schools I attended concentrated mostly on the architectural history of Europe, the Middle East and Egypt. However, I have always been interested in Japanese architecture, from its influence on my favorite architect of the "big 3", Frank Lloyd Wright; as the home of one of my favorite modern day architects, Tadao Ando; the clean efficiency of such elements as the shoji screen, the Japanese garden and the Shinto-inspired use of water and rocks; and the compact, random, delightful way in which houses are crammed together.

While Kyoto is known as the home of traditional Japanese architecture, it is truly a city of ancient and modern. Some modern highlights:

Entrance to Oike Koto Building in Kyoto. For photo credit click here.

Oike Koto Building. For photo credit click here.

From visual observation, it is evident that the building codes are very different in Japan. Fire protection is king in the United States, and while I would very much appreciate this were I or my belongings stuck in a burning building, more lax codes in terms of fire allow for much more interesting conditions. One clever way that the Japanese provide for fire safety is by marking the operable windows with an upside down triangle, for easy visual inspection by the fire department.

The triangle marks the bottom right hand window as operable for the fire department.

Many of the traditional wood residences have wood screens or translucent sliding shoji screens. These not only provide privacy in a country where houses are very close together, but also control light and temperature. Smart, modern buildings also take advantage of this idea. The modern building shown below has a clear double curtain wall that is transparent during the day, with almost opaque screens that close at night.