Phenomenology in Modern Japanese Architecture

Phenomenology in Modern Japanese Architecture Neuroresponses to Art and Architecture

Riad Wehbi Spring 2020 The Illinois School of Architecture

“Breathing Light” by James Turrell

“By examining the perception of art as an interpretation of sensory experiences, scientific analysis can, in principle, describe how the brain perceives and responds to a work of art, and give us insights into how this experience transcends our everyday perception of the world around us.� (6,7)

Reductionism in Art and Brain Science Eric R. Kandel

In collaboration with Professor David Chasco

Purpose The goal of this study is to view modern Japanese architecture from the perspective of neurology and phenomenology. Different architectural elements trigger various nueroresponses in the brain that impact the human experience. The intent is to analyze works of architecture from the perspective of the user and how these architects evoke emotional responses to their projects The brain reacts differently to space, form, texture, light, nature, and many other emotion provoking architectural elements. Each of these architecture elements each of the senses differently.

As architects, we operate on assumptions on how certain design moves can impact the users experience, however, this study will attempt to get inside the brain to understand how our brain reacts to space.

With this framework we will be able to analyze and investigate specific works of architecture through a unique lens. This shift in perspective allows us to view architecture from a point-of-view that rarely gets tapped into and could bring to life a complete sensorial aspect to design.

Space focuses on visual perception. Architecture can alter depths and frame elements to impact the human experience.

Form explains how our brain reacts differently to certain geometries and spatial qualities.

Light creates architecture. It can be used to highlight architectural elements and bring life to space.

Textures are our skin and eyes’ way of reading physical and tactile qualities of an object.

Nature in tandem with architecture creats a harmonious can create sublime human experiences.

The works of architecture to be studied under this phenomenological lense poetically employ these experiential elements in tandem with each other to gain a holistic sensorial experience, however, each work will focus only on a singular aspect.

Kinryuzan Temple at Asakusa by Utagawa Hiroshige

Contents Space

Buddha by Tadao Ando

Mt. Fuji World Heritage Center by Shigeru Ban Chapel on the Water by Tadao Ando

Form

Teshima Art Museum by Ryue Nishizawa

Light

Benesse House Museum by Tadao Ando

30-35 36-37

Church of Light by Tadao Ando Church in Hiroo by Tadao Ando

44-49 50-55

Texture

Yokoo House by Yuko Nagayama & Associates Water Temple by Tadao Ando

Nature

Light Cave by MAD Architects

10-15 16-21 22-27

Chichu Art Museum by Tadao Ando

58-63 64-69

72-77 78-83

Space “Within the experiential continuum of enmeshed space. we understand distinct objects, distinct fields, as a ‘whole.’

Our experience of a city can only be, however, perspectival, fragmented, incomplete. This experience--unlike a static image--consists of partial views through urban settings...”

(48) -Steven Holl in Questions of Perception: Phenomenology of Architecture

Les Archives Du Coeur Installation in Benesse Art Museum

Buddha Tadao Ando Sapporro, Japan

“The aim of this project was to build a prayer hall that would enhance the attractiveness of a stone Buddha sculpted 15 years ago. Our idea was to cover the Buddha below the head with a hill of lavender plants. We called the idea the ‘head-out Buddha’. Embedded under the hill are a 40-metre approach tunnel and a rotunda embracing the statue.

The design intention was to create a vivid spatial sequence, beginning with the long approach through the tunnel in order to heighten anticipation of the statue, which is invisible from the outside. When the hall is reached, visitors look up at the Buddha, whose head is encircled by a halo of sky at the end of the tunnel.”

-Tadao Ando

The user begins the journey being teased by Ando. The user briefly sees the head of the Buddha. By doing this he sparks the user’s curiosity. He then takes it away almost immediately by maneuvering the user around a rectilinear reflection pool and blocks the view with walls.

Image: Dezeen Magazine

When the journey around the reflecting pool is complete the user is then taken into a tunnel where only the lower body of the Buddha is visible. This only increases the anticipation of the user even more as they slowly approach a mysterious figure which they are only catching glimpses of throughout their experiences. The Zeigarnik Effect is the tendency to experience intrusive thoughts about an objective that was once pursued and left incomplete. By playing with the users subconscious, Tadao uses the anticipation of the user to increase the serenity of the final stop of the journey: the coveted Buddha.

Image: Dezeen Magazine

This magical moment when the circles are connected in our subconscious triggers the emotional responses through this journey. Our brain is constantly active during that journey making multiple attempts at completing the image of the Buddha that Ando has been teasing the user with. This allows the user to stimulate their own imagination and therefore interjects their own personal and cultural bias into the process.

Eric Kandel describes this process in minimalist art painting as it “leaves room for the viewer to project their own impressions, memories, aspirations and feelings onto the canvas,� which is exactly what Ando does in this project.

Once met with the Buddha, the entirety of the statue is in view.

Japanese vernacular architecture is well-known for how they frame significant elements visually. Ando does this in a unique way by creating an oculus which frames the Buddha with a halo using the sky as a backdrop for this.

Image: Shigeo Ogawa

Mr. Fuji World Heritage Center Shigeru Ban

Fujinomiya, Japan

“Inside the building shaped like an inverted mountain is a spirally curved slope which leads gradually from the first floor up to the fifth. Viewing the exhibits as they ascend the slope, visitors can enjoy a virtual taste of the experience of climbing the mountain. When they reach the top (fifth) floor, there is an observation hall with a large picture window offering a breathtaking panoramic view of the real Mt. Fuji, which changes its expression from moment to moment.

Springwater from Mt. Fuji is drawn into the Center building and used as an air conditioning heat source, and is then channeled to the Reflecting Pool in front of the building, architecturally conveying the cycle of water on Mt. Fuji.�

-Shigeru Ban

Image: Hiroyuki Hirai

Japanese culture and traditions have looked to Mt. Fuji as a gravitating force as it has shaped its natural identity over the years. The icon has found itself. For the people of Japan who have been pulled in by this force to visit and trenched up the mighty mountain understand the magnitude of this sacred pilgrimage. It has seen great significance in art, film, philosophy, religion and many more aspects of Japanese culture and is undeniably the strongest force anchoring Japanese culture.

Knowing this, Shigeru Ban creates an architectural experience framing it as opposed to competing with it. The most iconic of the structures is presented first to the user. Shigeru Ban flips the iconic motif of Mt. Fuji reflecting upon Lake Kawaguchi in his work. This creates a brief--haiku-like-dialogue between the natural environment and the built environment that the user can contrast. The users experience is a story. Linguistic largely mediates a human’s experience, the impact of a narrative is crucial in this project.

The story begins.

Image: Hiroyuki Hirai

Painting: Hokusai’s 36 Views of Mt. Fuji, 1834

The story for the user begins with preconceived significance of Mt. Fuji prior to even visiting the project. It ends in a profound way. The story ends in a moment where time and space collapses and the user are introduced to a painting on a wall. The architecture is framing the sacred epicenter to which an entire lineage of generations gravitates around. In the natural environment, the sky frames while the lake reflects, and in this project the story ends with the walls framing and the floor reflects. Each architectural element playing as a character in the story of the user’s experience.

Painting: Hokusai’s 36 Views of Mt. Fuji

Image: Hiroyuki Hirai

Chapel on the Water Tadao Ando

Shimukappu, Japan

“Tadao Ando, a Japanese architect, he built a small church out of glass next to a lake in Shimukappu, Japan. He brought in light horizontally instead of from the top, and through the windows you can see the water outside the building and then there’s mountains beyond. Then instead of having the cross inside, he put in the middle of the water — it’s very beautiful. And you think although you’re in a very low and small space, actually you feel that the nature, the outside is an extension of this space. It’s very poetic.”

-Ma Yansong

Image: Ji Young Lee

Image: Ji Young Lee

The architecture is simply borrowing from the nature surrounding the building. When the user visits the site during the winter months, snow engulfs the building like a blanket. The blanket providing shelter for a warm campfire keeping the users inside the building safe.

The space is confining yet invisible. The architecture exists but is nowhere to be seen. The user enters the small, closed space yet it is as if they are standing in a museum observing a painting of their surroundings. The walls serve to frame, while the floor serves to reflect. The user forgets the architecture exists. It as if they are standing on the water looking out onto the populated forest. They are now experiencing the painting which is the surrounding environment.

Image: Ji Young Lee

However, there is an object in the painting which now steals the focus.

The forest has become the backdrop to a much more significant detail for the users.

The cross.

The painting is complete. The object of which the entire world gravitates around for the users of the space has a viewer, a frame, and a backdrop.

The painting and Anda has facilitated through the architecture have a unique and sublime ability to pull the users into the painting. The lines between viewer and participant are nonexistent in this painting and therefore allows the user to be closer to the coveted cross.

Image: Yoshio Shiratori

Image of Fushimi Inari Taisha by Wendy of Friendskyo

Form “Like the poem itself, it is its figure as presence, which constitutes the means and end of experience. Yet, acknowledging that human experience is always mediated linguistically, and given out particular technopolitical context, we must still ask: What does architecture represent as the stage of our late twentieth-century everyday life.� (8) -Alberto Perez-Gomez in Questions of Perception: Phenomenology of Architecture

Image: Zachary Tyler Newton

Teshima Art Museum Ryue Nishizawa Teshima, Japan

“Two oval openings in the shell allow wind, sounds, and light of the world outside into this organic space where nature and architecture intimately interconnect. In the interior space, water continuously springs from the ground in a day long motion. This setting, in which nature, art and architecture come together with such limitless harmony, conjures an infinite array of impressions with the passage of seasons and the flow of time.�

-Benesse Art Site Naoshima

Image: Iwan Baan

Image: Iwan Baan

The free flowing, unsupported shell of concrete sits upon the site both blending in yet standing out. The form is derived from the site while the material and colors allow is to stand out. It is intriguing to the user as it imposes on the landscape in a subtle way. As the user progresses through the forest, they only catch glimpses of this white, mysterious object.

Upon entry, shoes must be taken off. With the rubber of our soles not acting as a barrier of the elements to our feet, we can experience in a different way. Every step, every slight movement, every spec of dirt and every ounce of water can be felt and experienced.

The user enters the raindrop structure through a tight, narrow cave-like opening. They are compressed, as if they are entering an opening in the landscape. The grotto of which they have entered is cold. The cold concrete floor touches the protection less foot. With all the light coming through the roof, the attention of the user is completely on the roof, there for each step is as surprising as the last one.

The mood has been set.

Image: Aysha Awwad

The structure houses a piece of art by Rei Naito called the ‘Matrix.’ The artwork is incorporated in the open hole in the roof. The opening allows the natural elements in without a filter where the artwork becomes the raindrops laid out on the floor.

The user once again finds themselves as a participant in the art as they move along the textured concrete floor sprayed with puddles of water.

The air enters through the gaping hole in the ceiling blurring the lines between interior and exterior. The sound of the wind blowing through the nature surrounding the site can still be heard within the structure. The feeling is surreal.

The white shell provides the users imagination a blank canvas to paint their own image. The user projects their own memories, cultures, identities, and feelings onto the canvas. This piece of architecture breaks down the environment into a couple key visual elements: form, color, and light.

Eric R. Kendel in Reductionism in Art and Brain Science describes this as “abstraction allows artists to demonstrate that art can exist on the canvas or a sheet of paper, a two-dimensional surface, in the same way it exists in the unconscious mind--independent of nature, time and space.” (182) The visual process es is then stimulated in a different way incorporating the regions of the brain associated with memory and emotions. This in combinations natural background of the user’s experience evokes a phenomenological experience The art is within the eye of the beholder.

Image: Andreas RIchter

Benesse House Museum Tadao Ando

Naoshima, Japan

“It is meant to be appreciated with the entire body, with long ramps, stairs, and passages to traverse, and with natural light from outside pouring in through apertures, weaving together the indoors and outdoors.�

-Benesse Art Site Naoshima

Image: Mitsuo Matsuoka

The project is embedded in the sight. It is isolating from and integrating that natural environment with the user’s experience. The gallery spaces begin outdoors. Ando with this move blurs the line between the environment and the program. The user views work of art along the wall with specific breaks in the wall for views out. The landscape is now framed in the same way the art is and becomes a painting in and of itself. The user then dives into the project through a series of stairs and ramps immersing the user into the building and separating them from the environment. The vertical movement down into the project mentally disassociates the user from reality. Ando plays with the idea of movement and circulation by using stairs, winding ramps, and passages to impact the users experience. As the user traverses through these various means of movement paths, they are constantly being reminded of their environment through openings in

Image: Carl Martin

Image: Dan Preston

the landscape which floods the project with light. Although the user is isolated from the environment, these openings provide the users with constant reminders as to the landscape, time of the day, and even the weather. This project is felt by the user as a complete, bodily experience.

The Benesse House is an underground stay with a hole in the landscape with a small body of water mirroring what is seen through the hole. The sky and the landscape are reflected by the pool creating an alternate experience where the user perception of the spaces changes from underground to floating. The sensory experience abstracts the user’s reality and once again, as seen in other museums allows the user to participate in the art rather than view it.

Image: Asher Hardt

Light “Light is the most subtle and spiritual of the elements of architectural expression. Of all the sensory experiences, light is capable of mediating the strongest emotions; a magnificent light can evoke feelings of bliss and ecstasy.� (25) -Juhani Pallasmaa in Sensuous Minimalism

Image: Hugh Pearman

Church of Light Tadao Ando Osaka, Japan

“Light is the origin of all being. Light gives, with each moment, new form to being and new interrelationships to things, and architecture condenses light to its most concise being. The creation of space in architecture is simply the condensation and purification of the power of light.�

-Tadao Ando

Image: Studiopham

Image: Archute

The building sits on the corner drawing people in with the massive cross embedded in the concrete of the main facade. The church is almost speaking to the city and calling people towards it. The relationship of solid versus void and the light effect on both the inside and the outside are at play in this project.

Image: Shigeo Ogawa

As the user enters, much like other Ando project, it evokes silence. The architecture is quiet, so the users are even more so. The concrete on all four side completely is overbearing. The concrete is engulfing the users.

This humbling, deafening feeling is only released by one thing.

The cross.

What the user saw prior to entering is unfamiliar now. What was a dark cross on the exterior is now glowing. The specific voids in the solid walls flood the space with light. There is only one thing in the space capturing the user’s attention due how it relieves the tension the user is feeling.

The light in this project forms the space. It manifests itself into a sculptural element. The dichotomy that the cross creates in this project between light and dark, solid and void, tension and harmony bring the user into a state of spiritual self-awareness.

“In all my works, light is an important controlling factor. I create enclosed spaces mainly by means of thick concrete walls. The primary reason is to create a place for the individual, a zone for oneself within society. When the external factors of a city’s environment require the wall to be without openings, the interior must be especially full and satisfying.” –Tadao Ando

Image: Shigeo Ogawa

Image: Richard Pare

Church in Hiroo Tadao Ando Osaka, Japan

“The second section, “Light,” is dedicated to buildings that evoke spirituality through an architecture of duality, where light bursts into darkness, where serenity coexists with austerity and where solid forms are defined by the empty spaces that contain them. Here, we find a life-size replica of the Church of Light, built as a special installation in the outdoor area of the exhibition.”

-Tadao Ando

Image: Zaki48

Image: Archute

While the Church of Light by Ando focuses on use of light and dark relationships to form an interior experience, in this project--Church in Hiroo--Tadao Ando forces the user’s perspective to be altered through the form of the space. The shift in perspective puts the cross into focus and creates an environment around it.

Image: Shigeo Ogawa

The feeling of this project is very different from the Church of Light in Osaka. The room is flooded with light from all sides, along with the wood cladding on the interior induces a sigh of relief when entering the project. It becomes immediate that the aim of Ando isn’t to create an experience revolved around light openings which break the tension.

The purpose can be seen immediately. the triangular form forces the intermediate level processing of the brain to create new logics to comprehend this space. The users visual understanding of space is being challenged here. The space looks infinite at first glance.

The forced perspective defies our horizontal perception of space. At the end of the infinite void is a vertical bar of light. Similar to the Church of Light, this beam of light focuses the user’s attention to the cross hovering in a boundless field of light. The light is then intentionally reflected onto the floor and the ceiling which creates a surreal experience where the users visual perception of space is now being challenged on all axes.

The unrelenting beam of light entering the space allows the user ease when contemplating and meditating to focus purely on mindfulness in the space.

“To create a place where encounters between human beings or between a human being and a material object may take place.” - Tadao Ando

Image: Le Hoang Tuan

Image: SunBloom

Image: Kisui Nakazawa

Texture “The skin reads the texture, weight, density and temperature of matter...The tactile sense connects us with time and tradition; through marks of touch we shake the hands of countless generations.�

-Juhani Pallasmaa in An Architecture of the Seven Senses

Yokoo House Yuko Nagayama & Associates Teshima, Japan

“In her design, Yuko Nagayama integrated a pictorial element to the three-dimensional architecture with the use of red glass, in reference to the museum’s overriding theme: Life and Death. Red is a color that is used predominantly in Yokoo’s work, and it is also the color of blood, which symbolizes life. The distant scenery seen through the red glass appears in monochrome tones as if marking a border between the normal and the extraordinary, or between life and death.”

-Benesse Art Site Naoshima

Image: Tobias Rehberger

Image: Nobutada Omote

Image: Nobutada Omote

Among the vernacular in the town of Tonosho there is an intruder. This intruder protrudes out amongst the small houses. It is misplaced yet inviting.

The cylinder outlier appears to be intersecting the traditional style building and pierces through it.

What could it be?

The museum itself blends seamlessly into the town aside from its protruding addition. The user approaches the building and is met with the color red. The user sees a reflection of themselves in the red paned glass and it is reality altering. The color itself in Japanese traditions represents both life and death. The specific use of this color in this context represents the metaphoric duality of blood: to be alive, and to be dead. This sets the theme as the inescapable realism of death is unavoidable and is shown in your reflection.

Gravity feels stronger now.

When moving through the space, the entire work of architecture becomes an architectural experience. The windows are red paned glass showing what’s beyond in a monochrome red tint, which yet again shows a surreal depiction of reality, which alters the current one into a reality where death is current.

Colors evoke emotions. As mentioned before, beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Colors are interpreted differently by everyone, and therefore trigger different emotional responses from each user. Red could represent life to one user and death to another; furthermore, color vision elicits specific associations based on the individual’s experiences and memories.

Therefore, using color in this way can trigger extremely emotional and powerful responses by the user as their own interpretations are imposed on the architecture.

To end the sequence the user enters the intruding cylinder and is met with an infinite reflection of themselves. With mirrors on the top and the beyond the goal of this space is to ground you in your own reflection. The reflections are true to reality and remind the user of the identity in the present without the reality-altering red glass.

This is the present.

Image: Nobutada Omote

Image: Yann Nussaume

Water Temple Tadao Ando

Awaji Islan, Japan

“We borrow from nature the space upon which we build” -Tadao Ando

Image: Philip Jodidio

The user is first met with two concrete walls serving as arms empathetically embracing and guiding the user to the temple. The exposed concrete flaunts their soft, still material properties inviting the user to touch them. As before, Ando’s projects are bodily experiences and inducing a tactile sensation is a crucial component to the user’s emotions.

The arms guide the user to the face of the project: the man-made pond.

The pond is an extension of the surrounding landscape. It reflects it and brings it into the project. The complex is quiet, being isolated from the environment the only sound is from the water and the trees. The flickering of the ripples with the wind mixed with the chirping birds brings the user into a natural state of meditation.

The user then is invited to enter the project. A staircase leads the user down into the heart of the project. The procession into the space below takes the user from ground level, through an opening in the water and down into the temple. The user’s vision is aligned with the surface of the water during this procession allowing for a magical moment to occur where the user feels as if they are emerged within the pond looking out on to the landscape. this special moment can be seen as a purification process. The emergence into the water and cleaning one’s body prior to entering a shrine is a deeply rooted traditional method of cleansing called ‘Timiyuza.’ The goal is to purify physically with the use of the water, but also purify symbolically as you wash off stresses of the outside world. Ando abstracts this concept architecturally through this maneuver.

Once the sensory cleansing process is complete and the user enters the heart of the project. A cloud of red. hits the user. Unlike the Benesse House

by Anda where they are specific moments where the user is reminded of the outside through openings in the landscape, the user in this project is completely isolated from the environment in the heart of the project.

The user isn’t exposed to the inner shrine upon entrance, they must meander through a a series of concrete veins in order to arrive to the heart.

The red intensifies the closer they get playing on the user’s curiosity. The procession through the projects creates a stable spiritual mindset for the user to be properly immerse in this experience.

Image: Philip Jodidio

Nature “The natural landscape or the urban setting forms the context and frame for architecture. A building is unavoidably in dialogue with its context; it either accompanies and supports the landscape or creates a deliberate contrast� (34) -Juhani Pallasmaa in Sensuous Minimalism

Image: Tokuriki Tomikichiro

Light Cave MAD Architects Niigata, Japan

“MAD’s “Tunnel of Light” is an artistic transformation that demonstrates how art and nature can come together to reinvigorate a community. Each one of the installations, forms a poetic space where visitors can transcend the role of observer, and become an active participant – allowing individuals to place themselves in nature in unexpected ways.”

-MAD Architects

Image: Hidehiko Sakashita

The introduction is mysterious. The user is met with a foot bath to commence. The user is confused. What is yet to come is unknown to the user, although the present is comforting. The user unsettlingly places their feet into the foot bath to stem the tide of emotions in the user’s head. Suddenly all prior stresses of the unsettling world now lack importance in the user’s head.

The user is in present.

Image: Nacasa & Partners inc.

The user descends. Their afloat minds are then compressed into the rugged tunnels playing ominous music. The experience is unworldly. The tunnel seems boundless and is a complete divorce from reality.

What’s next?

Image: MAD Architects

The user is exhausted. With the conclusion unclear, the user continues to funnel through this cryptic tube of colors playing with the users’ moods and emotions.

Image: MAD Architects

Where are we?

The light in the distance has finally emerged. The user’s destination is clear. However, there is one final obstacle. These elliptical mirrors have been placed along the wall. Their relationship to the wall is ambiguous as the appear to be floating in space.

The mirrors reflect the outside while also challenges the perspective of the user. As the user approaches these reflective droplets, their shapes begin to shift.

Ambiguity rises.

Image: MAD Architects

The finale is apparent. The long-awaited interaction with the environment is finally met. The brewing curiosity of the user is wonderfully satisfied with the final scene. “Nature is like a mirror” - Ma Yansong of MAD Architects states and is evident here in the conclusion of this play of emotions. The nature on the outside is framed by the tunnel, while the reflecting pool on the floor provides a window into the surreal. The experience as a whole is unworldly induces an out of body and hepatoscopy sensation.

Now I see......

Image: MAD Architects

Image: Steven Karapetyan

Chichu Art Museum Tadao Ando

Naoshima, Japan

“Finally, the coastal route arrives at Ando’s pièce de résistance — The Chichu Art Museum is Naoshima’s crowning highlight, an enormous, sunken sculpture of a building that defies a host of architectural conventions to provide the perfect environment for displaying the works of three extraordinary artists. Ando set himself a seemingly impossible task during the concept stage of the museum’s design: The architect insisted that the entire building should be buried within the hillside, but that every piece of art would be lit by natural light sources.”

-Architizer

Image: J.P.B, Flickr

Once again, Ando invites the user to step away from the reality of the ground plane and emerge into the landscape. The subterranean museum buries itself within the landscape of the Teshima Islands opening its pours in search to bring light into its insides.

The user enters into what feels like burdensome, deafening volumes. The massive concrete walls overbear the user until gravity becomes heavier.

The user has to succumb to the weight of the architecture. The inside of this subterranean being is a meandering path taking the user from volume to volume. The only moments where the tension is relieved is where the pours of the beast open up filling the space with light. Being underground and viewing the sky through these openings in the landscape is a surreal experience.

Light creates art in this project. Similar to the Church of Light by Ando, interactions between light and shadow through voids in concrete walls

However, these relationships exist in ceiling features creating moments of heavy tension for the user underneath. Elements feel disconnected and unstable. This instability in such a massive volume above the user is excruciatingly straining.

The finale of the project is a Walter de Maria where a sphere is placed atop a staircase with a light well overhead constantly changing throughout the day. Light enters through this oculus and interacts with sphere. The reflectivity of the sphere then takes the light throughout the space so each second passing the artwork changes. The user enters the room at the bottom of the staircase and the sphere appears to be unstable and bound to begin rolling with any slight breeze. This is offsetting, much like the rest of the project. The user’s survival instincts come to fruition and cannot take their eye off the sphere. The geometries in the room begin to warp around the geometry of the sphere playing with the user’s perspective.

The entire experience is offsetting, yet humbling.

Image: Laurence King

Image: Alexander Kozak