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3-1994 Mu in Details of Japanese Contemporary Architecture: Can the Void Represent an Idea? Rumiko Handa University of Nebraska-Lincoln, [email protected]

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Handa, Rumiko, "Mu in Details of Japanese Contemporary Architecture: Can the Void Represent an Idea?" (1994). Architecture Program: Faculty Scholarly and Creative Activity. 46. https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/arch_facultyschol/46

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Mu in Details of Japanese Contemporary Architecture: Can the Void Represent an Idea?1

RUMIKO HANDA Texas Tech University

INTRODUCTION beholder. Studies by Joseph Rykwert, Marco Frascari, and Alberto Perez-G6mez remind us that the value of Various ideologies have guided the treatment of archi­ architecture is not limited to the organization and tectural details over the centuries. A selective survey composition of the whole, but that to the human per­ of history offers us a number of rationales for form of ception the pleasure of a observing a building often lies architectural details: Vitruvius tells us the story of in its details.8 For example, the three scholars' interest Caria to explain the anthropomorphic columns of in Carlo Lodoli arises from the possibility of reconcili­ temples.2 The Corinthian capital was intended to ation between ornament and structure as seen in the remind the viewers of a story of a maiden.3 For Alberti, form of windowsill in San Francesco della Vigna.9 even though he accepted that an object which was There is another aspect to the contemporary archi­ beautiful could not be improved, that "nothing may be tectural details, one that lies at the other end of the added, taken away, or altered, but for the worse," he spectrum. In structures built by contractors, details are believed that beauty could have accompaniment, that designed for the convenience and economy of con­ ornament could be" a form of auxiliary light and struction. At times, details are abandoned altogether. complement to beauty.'" Although the idea ofwhatarchitecturaldetai1sshould This architecture parlante, as we might call it, which be varies among the entries in our survey, a common associated the form of its details with the traditional thread runs through them: they all implicitly agree that symbolic connotations, lost its way in the age of reason. the form of an architectural detail represents a particu­ Details were stripped of their meanings.s For J.-N.-L. lar idea of what the detail should be, or, in the negative, Durand, who considered convenience and economy that when details are to be excluded or ignored for the primary concerns of architecture, the pleasure of either ideological or practical considerations, they have seeing decoration was unjustifiable. Decoration, he no particular form. said, was "the cause of foolish expenditure."6 Adolf This seems quite rationa~ even obvious. But in some Loos perceived in modem architecture the empty val­ contemporary Japanese an:hitecture there is anothercase ues of urban dwellers "uprooted" from the kind of altogether, of details tha~ paradoxically, embody an inten­ values that villagers hold as a matter of course.7 tion to represent but at the same time to present no form. Reflection on the shortcomings of empiricism has An examination of recent works by several influen­ brought yet another kind of detail design. So-called tial Japanese architects reveals a tendency to make the postmodemism reintroduced classical ornamentation. joint, in the phrase of the Japanese philosopher Kitaro Although the form reminds us of traditional ornamen­ Nishida, "a place of Nothingness."lo Since the joint is tation, the connotation that used to go hand-in-hand rendered invisible, at a glance it appears that the with such forms was never recaptured. In fact, the architect did not give it much consideration. However, postmodem architects played a game of form-making an analysis based on the close observation of the site that Durand would have criticized as chimera. The and drawings proves otherwise. In one instance, where architects make sure we know it is agame by distorting a wall and a floor are expected to meet the two look the form and size of classical details. detached: The joint is hidden from the Sight. In another In the past ten years, a school of thought, probably example a roof appears to float above columns that are triggered by works in phenomenology, recognized the in fact supporting it. importance and possibility of designing details that In "voiding," the ultimate goal of the architect is to somehow signify and are therefore significant to the make detail a void space that represents an idea. That THEORY AND CRITICISM SESSION II • SITED DETAilS 281 idea is mu, or nothingness, the philosophical and aes­ The architect does not care to make sure that the visitor theticvaluethatonefindsthroughouttheJapaneseway experiencing the interior recognizes the circle as a of life and in physical artifacts. What this means to circle, the cube as a cube. It is even preferable that one Japanese aesthetics may be judged from the follOWing does not but lets a mere fragment of geometry generate comment on Nishida's philosophy: "Japanese Bud­ the sensations. dhism emphasizes the point that its nothingness is alive Here the details come into play. They work to create with infinite content, that it does not negate life. the spatial sensation rather than to clarify the geometry. Nishida's philosophy is based on this positive Japanese Two examples of such details are found in the most philosophy of, life and comprehends Being as self­ complex part of the geometry, where the three forms - unfolding of formless, eternal nothingness."1l - circle, rectangle, and the diagonal line - meet at the THIS philosophical concern, brought to bear in bottom of the ramp. The first example is the skylight architecture, has shifted the role-allocation of detail (Fig. 1). The frames of glass, set on top of the concrete design in practice. In the past, after Japan adopted walls, are located in such a way that they are not visible Western Modem architecture and building industry, to the viewer from the bottom of the space. H the frames construction company often times provided standard were near the interior surface of the walls, they would details, whose forms were based on the convenience of have been visible. Here I perceived a deliberate intent construction and the facility of users. By engaging itself of the architect to make the joint between the wall and in the task of designing details, a new generation of the glass such that it appears as much as possible to be Japanese architects, led by those such as Tadao Ando, nonexistent. Yano's answer confirmed myspecu1ation: Toyo Ito, and Yoshio Taniguchi, has elevated detail design to a significant portion of architect's task. As a From the viewpoint of space-making, wherever consequence, design intent lies not only in the totality Ando uses glass, he actually wishes that nothing of the building, but also in the forms of details. were there. However, functionally, glass is neces­ This research analyzes three recently completed sary to protect the interior from the climate. He museums in Japan by these architects: the Forest of has tried here to set the frames so that they are not Tombs MuseUm, by Ando; Yatsushiro Municipal Mu­ seen, and therefore, the glass also is perceived as seum, by Ito; and Domon Ken Memorial Museum, by close as not existing.13 Taniguchi. While one finds a diversity in aesthetic The second example is in the joints between the walls judgment among the three architects, one also finds a of three geometrical shapes on plan: circle, rectilinear, common philosophical point. and the diagonal (Fig. 2). The emphasis on unexpected spatial experiences over the expression of geometry MEANING OF GEOMETRY: TADAO ANDO'S forced the architect to avoid placing any formal ele- FOREST OF TOMBS MUSEUM As one becomes familiar with Ando's work, one recog­ nizes in it the persistent recurrence of pure geometry. The Forest of Tombs Museum is no exception. The roof plan consists of a large circle, a set of two squares marking the width of the complex, and a diagonal line through the composition. However, a visitor who expects the simple geometry is confronted by a much more complicated spatial experience once in the build­ ing. Masataka Yano, the chief of staff at Ando's office describes the architect's intention: Tadao Ando intends to set up the unexpected for the viewer. He certainly uses pure geometry, and the building's exterior appearance is basically the composition of such geometrical forms. How­ ever, the ultimate goal of using geometry lies in generating complex sequences of spaces. At each spatial sequence, he then can surprise the uncon­ scious expectation of the people who e~rience our building. Each time the person fates the experience that is against the expectation, a strong impression is generated and the spirit of the Fig. 1. Tadao Ando, Forest of Tombs Museum, space with person is aroused.l~ skylight (photo: author). 282 82ND ACSA ANNUAL MEETING • MONTREAL, QUEBEC • 1994 ments at the comers of these walls. If the circular form The designed invisibility of glass and frames in the was to be revealed, then any cut in the wall on the grid skylight is meant to force the visitor to notice the line would have emphasized the shape. Richard Meier presence of the universe beyond. IS The nonexistence of might have connected the walls on two different axes special details made the comers of walls draw attention by a number of beams to attract the attention. How­ to themselves. Such nonexistent or invisible details, ever, in Ando's museum two walls meet at both comers like the dog in the night, catch the attention of the alert without any additional forms. Yano responded to my observer and urge her to contemplate nothingness. inquiry as following: WEIGHTLESSNESS OF MATERIALS: TOYO In some other examples, Ando has placed open­ ITO'S YATSUSHIRO MUNICIPAL MUSEUM ings at the comer between a circle and rectangle. If that treatment has emphasized the circle, that is A number of details in the Yatsushiro Municipal Mu­ a result, not an intent. The primary reason would seum, designed by Toyo Ito, prove surprising. In the be to introduce daylight to the· space, and the locations where the load above is transferred to the comer was the right place. In case of Forest of supporting elements below Western architecture tends Tombs, the daylight comes in from the skylight, to swallow joints, typically in the capitals and bases of and he did not feel the need of opening in the wall columns. The joints found in this museum offer a just to clarify the geometry.14 radically different solution. Yatsushiro Municipal Museum is composed of two In other words, the architect, without adding a special floors: the entrance floor is on the second floor level, form by details, was creating a dark comer in the space. and approached through an artificial hill created as a Helped by the contrast with the abundance of light buffer between it and the traditionalJapanese buildings from above, these comers present themselves strongly across the street. This upper space is covered by to perception as deep and mysterious places, places, in shallow vaults made of flat steel bars combined to form fact, of nothingness. triangular webs. The lower floor, the main exhibit area, having only limited daylight from small windows and skylights, gives a sense of underwater darkness. The roof presented the major design task in this project. The conceptual models show Ito's initial intent to make the roof look as light as he could. "If possible, I would have a roof made of cloth," Ito said.16 A sketch shows the roof composed of a number of thin material shaped like cloth waving in the wind (Fig. 3). After a feasibility study, the architect decided to have a num­ ber of vaulted metal roofs. The vaults are shallow, requiring tension cables to hold them. In consultation with his structural engineer, Ito concluded that by welding flat steel bars to form the frame of the vaults he could create the thinnest roof possible.

Fig. 2. Tadao Ando, Forest of Tombs Museum, the joint between the rectilinear and the diagonal, creating the comer of nothingness (photo: author). Fig. 3. Toyo Ito, Yatsushiro Municipal Museum, sketch. THEORY AND CRITICISM SESSION" • SITED DETAILS 283

The joints between the roof and the supporting columns also serve as the support for tension cables that prevent the shallow vaults from flattening (Figs. 4 and 5). Although a number of elements are concen­ trated at this small part of the building, the diameter of this joint is smaller than the columns. The columns are already as small as possible. The weight of the roof is distributed to two steel-pipe columns, allowing each to be smaller than it would be if a single column had -

Fig. 6. Toyo Ito, Yatsushiro Municipal Museum, joint be­ tween roof and column (photo: author).

supported the same weight. In order to further shrink the diameter of the columns, Ito injected concrete into the steel pipes. Even so, the joint is markedly smaller than the columns. When a joint serves to transfer the weight of roof to "I j column, one naturally expects the joint to be larger than

Fig. 4. Toyollo, YatsushiroMunicipal Muse~,detailsketch. the column. The decision to make it smaller must have taken great will, cOncentrated by an overwhelming design consideration. The result is apparent. Because the narrow joint violates expectation, the viewer's attention is drawn to it. Above it, the roof appears to float in the air (Fig. 6). The steel bars and stain1ess sheets have been robbed of their weight by this detail. I suspect that, if it were pOSSible, Ito would have left an actual space between the roof and the columns. As it is, he has succeeded in making the roof look like cloth by introducing the idea of nothingness into the details. This was not a fluke solution to a design problem. The same design idea may be found in other details of this museum such as the joints between the roof and the mullions and the joints between the roof and the water drain (Fig. 7). By this consistent method, Ito endowed Fig. 5. Toyo Ito, Yatsushiro Municipal Museum, detail his work with a shimmering weightlessness at every drawing~ tum. It is, in its way, a perfect nothingness. 284 82ND ACSA ANNUAL MEETING • MONTREAL, QUEBEC • 1994

Fig. 7. Toyo Ito, Yatsushiro Municipal Museum, top of water drain (photo: author).

HIDDEN JOINTS: YOSHIO TANIGUCHI'S DOMON KEN MUSEUM The memorial room of this small museum, a cubic space facing a body of water, offers museum goers an opportunity to contemplate the work and spirit of Domon Ken, a Japanese photographer who sought the essence of Japanese life through his camera. The wall of this chamber has two different finishes: the top half being covered with a yellowish beige fabric, the bottom half with wood panels. Instead of revealing the joint of these two finishes, the architect created a hollow recess between the two so that the joints are hidden from sight. Fig. 8. Yoshio Taniguchi, Domon Ken Museum, memorial All the observer can see is the leading edge of the wood room (photo: author). panel, and rising up from behind it, the cloth-covered wall. On one side, opposite the opening to the pond, the depth is extended, and lighting fixtures are set in the recess,illuminating the cloth finish above (Figs. 8 and 9). The effect is spiritual. Although almost completely cubic, the space provides an uplifting inspiration. be­ ing unable to see the joint between wooden panel and the cloth above, one cannot help feeling an unlimited continuation of the space toward the ceiling. Because the cloth-finished wall originates in the mysterious nothingness of space behind the wooden panel, it holds the possibility of continuing to infinity. The joint between the textured concrete wall of the exhibit space and the wooden flooring also bears ex­ amination. A designer who values convenience of construction and use might well join the wall and the floor with baseboard. Baseboard will nicely conceal any imprecision at the comers, and without a base­ board the bottom of the wall will soon become dirty. Precise construction and thorough maintenance cost more. Nevertheless, Taniguchi chose the effect that the absence not only of baseboard but indeed of any appar­ ent joint at all can achieve. "For simplicity of expres­ Fig. 9. Yoshio Taniguchi, Domon Ken Museum, memorial sion, we should make a great effort in construction, and room, section. THEORY AND CRITICISM SESSION II • SITED DETAILS 285

economy of construction becomes secondary," cept of being as a self-unfolding of formless nothing­ Taniguchi remarked.17 In this design, the textured ness. In short, an infinite meaning lies in the void. concrete, a surface which usually conveys the sense of solidity and weight, does not touch the ground. In­ stead, the very bottom of the wall is recessed, and in the recess, strips of brass and resilient foam join the flat NOTES concrete of the wall's interior with the wood flooring. In order to achieve this detail, the construction must 1 This research was made possible partially by the grants have involved a great effort. It required a precise edge from Northeast Asia Council, Gloria Lyerla Memorial Fund of Texas Tech University library, and the Research where the recess starts. A worker then had to reach into Enhancement Fund of CoUege of Architecture, Texas the recess to insert the strips of brass and foam. Tech University. As in the other works, Taniguchi's museum displays 2 Vitruvius, De re Aedificatoria, translated by Frank Granger a consistent use of the theme of nothingness. Another (Cambridge: Harvard University Press,1983 (first printed example is the comer of exterior surface. Instead of 1931», Bk.I Ch.I. 3 Joseph Rykwert, "Function and Representation" in Neces­ creating a right- angled comer by joining the two slabs sity of Artifice (New York: Rizzoli, 1982). of granite, the architect directed the stone cutter to 4 Leon Battista Alberti, On the Art of Building in Ten Books, indent the end of the slab. The two slabs form a comer translated by Joseph Rykwert (Cambridge: The MIT Press, devoid of rectilinear form. 1988), Bk. VI, Ch. 2. 5 George Hersey, Lost Meanings of Classial1 Architecture: Speculations on Ornament from Vitruvius to Venturi (Cam­ CONCLUSION bridge: The MIT Press, 1992), p. 1. 6 Alberto Perez-G6mez, Architecture and the Crisis ofMiJdern In this century the various wandering strands of Japa­ Science. p. 301. nese philosophy were braided together by the influen­ 7 Adolf Loos, "Ornament and Crime" in Urlich Conrads, tial philosopher Kitaro Nishida. Chief among the ed., Michael Bullock, trans., Programs and Manifestoes on 2Oth-century Architecture (Cambridge: The MITPress, 1970). concepts he elaborated was that of Nothingness, which 8 For an effort to give the Significant back to the perception to him was above all a religious concept. "That which of lived body, see Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Prinuu:y of envelops even the intelligible Universal, and which Perception. serves as 'place' for our true Self, may be called the 9 Perez-G6mez, pp. 255-7; Frascari, dissertation; Rykwert, 'place of absolute Nothingness."'18 This concept, so The Necessity Of Artifice. 10 Kitaro Nishida, Intelligibility and the Philosophy of Nothing­ difficult to grasp in the abstract language of philoso­ ness. Trans. by Robert Schinzinger (Honolulu: East-West phy, has been realized in vivid, striking ways by a new Center Press, 1958), p. 134. generation of Japanese architects. Any sensitive, alert 11 Ibid., from the introduction by Robert Schinzinger, p. 47. . observer who enters the works described above cannot 12 Interview with Masataka Yano, at Tadao Ando's office in fail to notice what is missing: the glass in the skylight, Osaka, Japan, July 17, 1993. 13 Interview with Masataka Yano, at Tadao Ando's office in the capital on the column, the bottom of the wall, and Osaka, Japan, July 17, 1993. so on. Although the details are designed in such a way 14 Interview with Masataka Yano, at Tadao Ando's office in that they are virtually invisible, they speak to the Osaka, Japan, July 17, 1993. viewer of the building. In fact, the nonexistence of form 15 This idea is explained by Ando for another project reveals to the viewer. These startling, deliberate inser­ Sumiyoshi no Nagaya, a small row house in Osaka, Japan. 16 Interview with Toyo Ito, at his office in Tokyo, July 1993. tions of nothingness into built space naturally invite 17 Interview with Yoshio Taniguchi, at Taniguchi's office in contemplation of the void. In this way, the observer is Tokyo, July 1993. drawn, wittingly or unwittingly, into Nishida's con- 18 Kitaro Nishida, p. 134.