PA Writing - Draft

In the forty years since I decided to become an architect, I have been looking for my own “matrix of space,” which in my imagination is an obscure place like a cave surrounded by thick, heavy walls of earth, or a space in the darkness lit only with a dim ray of light.

I am deeply imbued with, and influenced by, the feeling of space embracing life, a feeling you might get looking up at the sky from the depths of the earth. This feeling always lingers, whether I am designing the smallest house, a large, urban commercial building, or a museum. The long history of Western architecture can be also described as striving toward this search for light. Yet after the early twentieth century, when we learned to introduce light into buildings without structural restrictions, its significance began to diminish. It has been my desire to return to the origin of architecture and contemplate light from the side of darkness. – Ando

Above Tadao Ando is speaking of his work on the Chichu Art Museum (2004), a portion of the Benesse Art Site Naoshima on Naoshima Island, Japan. It was here that Ando was first presented with the opportunity of realizing an underground project. Unlike most architects of the 20th and 21st centuries, Ando does not have formal training – he built his architectural knowledge through self study and travel. And possibly because of this lack of formal education, Ando is able to create innovative designs that truly bring design into the 21st century by integrating nature and technology into a seamless whole. In his “search for light”, Ando is able to return to the origin of architecture – to create structures on the earth for human habitation that provide niches of human scale for comfort using natural elements to his advantage and minimizing a negative impact on the environment. It is within darkness (or silence as Louis Kahn spoke) that the designer searches for knowledge.

The first phase of design at Art Site Naoshima consisted of Benesse House and the Naoshima Contemporary Art Museum. The integrated design presents multiple structures set within the hillside of Naoshima Island, less than half of the structure visible above ground, where nature, art and interiors became one. Built from 1989-1992, Ando worked to merge nature and architecture into a single form creating moments in which to simultaneously observe man-made art and the natural beauty, or art of the universe, that surrounds you. Art pieces are placed throughout the landscape, the landscape is framed throughout the structure, open air courtyards create areas of connection between the two. The museum’s exhibit spaces, natural environment and living quarters all blend together to blur the lines between formal and informal, natural and artificial, indoor and out.

The Chichu Art Museum was later added to Art Site Naoshima in 2004 and was also designed by Ando. It was here that he was able to create his first fully underground structure, save the light wells to allow daylight into the spaces. The cave-like environment houses three permanent art installations for Claude Monet, Walter De Maria and James Turrell. Ando used both the art and artist as inspiration for these interiors, working in collaboration with De Maria and Turrell to create holistic spaces to house their installations. Here the architecture again becomes part of the artwork of the space, fully integrated with the installation and contributing to the experience in contrast to simply being a place of display.

Despite no formal training, Ando did extensive private research in the field and understood classical design ideals. In addition to Western architecture, growing up and residing within Eastern culture gave him the tools to merge Eastern and Western ideals and create a truly personal approach to design. Ando looks to create a dimly lit interior related back to Eastern ideals of bringing light into darkness, yin and yang. The diffused light of the shoji screen allows for transfused light into interiors and creates a dimmer, more intimate atmosphere. Growing up in this type of environment may relate Ando with a sense of comfort, but he does not simply recreate environments of his past. Ando pushes these ideals, uses new technology and materials, and creates spaces that challenge the space around or, in respect to Art Site Naoshima, spaces that harmonize with the natural environment.

Looking back to Ancient Greece, Ando utilizes the environment and its components as a source of inspiration and arrangement of space. Instead of simply placing a building on the landscape, Art Site Naoshima was planned with a great deal of respect for the surrounding environment. As stated above, less than half of the spaces are visible above ground and in addition to preserving the environment to be enjoyed by the public, Ando creates interior spaces below ground that still feel one with the environment by bringing natural light and elements in.

As in Ancient Rome, Ando works to create new and innovative spaces for habitation. Ando focuses on creating community spaces that work in response to their intended use. Art Site Naoshima becomes like the Baths of Ancient Rome, incorporating multiple community spaces that create a fully encapsulated environment for contemplation, discussion, relaxation or simple observation.

Ando controls light into the Naoshima Art Museum spaces and uses it not only as a source of illumination, but a source of enlightenment, a source of inspiration. Similarly to the Gothic Cathedrals of Medieval times, light becomes more than necessity for habitation, it becomes a representation of greater importance. Light is brought into the interior as a connection point to not only the exterior, but the natural environment as a whole. It forces contemplation of the power of the universe and in response, to the power within each of us. The power we have to respect the environment and live in harmony with nature.

In Ando’s search for knowledge, he creates spaces in which the inhabitant can strive for enlightenment. Ando uses his passion and talents to challenge classical ideals that disregarded the natural environment and simply created monuments on the landscape. He uses Art Site Naoshima to showcase a building’s ability to clearly define space that works in seamless integration with its site, a building that becomes not only a space for habitation, but one whose inhabitation furthers the experience of its function. Art Site Naoshima becomes an artwork in and of itself.