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Cold heart, warm blood Becky Qiu

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Urban Layers

Danielle Steele Just after the train takes off, we discover that we had missed our stop and are now faced with the mission of navigation through a new station. Tokyo is the largest city of Japan with 13.5 million people all of which know where their destination is. Traveling throughout Tokyo was a journey nonetheless it was efficiently designed. The layers of transportation start at the bottom with varies subway lines, then underground trains, next roadways for cars going above and below ground, followed by more trains, next boats and ferries on the water, then monorails and finally plains in the sky. As all of these layers stack on top of each other buildings are squeezed in between and people are found all throughout. At the heart of the city lies the Imperial Palace and throughout the city are temples each with respected amounts of land. Experiencing these sophisticated modes of transportation I began to analyze the city as a bamboo forest. The city is famous for becoming vertically stacked as space is limited consistent with bamboo, the fastest growing plant in the world. This city has inspired me to be more conservative with space or better yet the famous saying less is more. I was able to witness firsthand how much space is required for living as we stayed in a 4 tatami matt room. Japan has achieved to invent new construction as space runs out and I think this will be a key part of my job when I become an architect.

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Contemporary Depth

Danielle Steele As I walked further into the building, my sense of sight became useless within the dense darkness. I had to rely on my hearing and sense of touch to continue walking with the group through the interior. This was my initial experience from the Minamidera House by James Turrell and Tadao Ando for the Honmura Art House Project in Naoshima. While within, we were instructed to sit down and stare at the screen in front of us. For what seemed like much longer than 15minutes, I struggles to keep my eyes focused on nothing. At one point I even tried to take my glasses off and discovered they were useless. After my eyes finally adjusted I saw the screen. The group was allowed to go touch the screen only to find it wasn’t a screen at all but a recessed large square portion of the wall. I tried to touch the pushed back wall but failed and grasped the dimmed light air coming from above. This was one of my personal favorites from Japan. On the outside the use of contemporary materials such as wood, glass and white gravel is seen but within is a completely new feeling while surrounded with familiar sounds, smells and feelings. Throughout our trip we were able to explore more examples of reconciling the traditional within the urban context

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Cold heart, warm blood

Japan has no addresses. I find navigating the cities in Japan very similar to way-finding as a child. Children don’t typically keep track of street names because there isn’t a need for them to know the “official GPS” level directions to a place, and people don’t ask children for directions. When you ask a kid how to get to a place they know, they will give you direction in first person perspective. This is because they are recalling their experience arriving at the location as they give you the directions. Typically they will give you place markers. For instance, they will tell you to “turn right at the corner pachinko room, then after you have passed four more, turn left and walk towards the train station, cross the street and look for the yellow and black sign that says ‘Aji Aji Ramen’”. In dense places like Tokyo and Osaka where the urban armature isn’t composed of orthogonal grids, people lose their sense of directional orientation while navigating the converging streetscape. Unless it is a big axial boulevard like Midosuji, the street signs are small and insignificant. The method of navigation by landmarks may work better than the conventional street listing since they are narrating your sight as you walk through the city. It also gives you a perspective on what the narrator sees as they navigate through the city. The method stated above is especially effective for dense areas since all the rooms and buildings are packed together. For something like the Imperial Palace, isolated in the center of the city, you just have to tell people to look for the emptiest place in Tokyo. The skyscrapers in Tokyo literally part the war and allow a main artery leading straight up to the gates of the place. When looking at the wide didn't made by the lack of buildings in the horizon, it can be interpreted as a population density graph for the city of Tokyo, where the center is nearly empty in comparison to the massive numbers that surround it. I approached the palace on a side gate where deliveries are made. There were no tourists on that side. In fact, there was no one there except for a security guard for clearance. I hadn't seen such emptiness since Ise, which looked like a ghost town. The palace is surrounded by a ring of parks, which didn't appear to have much activity. People use the green space surrounding the palace as recreational area to take a break from the chaos of the city. Becky

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The Souls of the Trees

Passing through the Torii to emerge in the outer shrine, there are structures and areas which are marked off that you are supposed to pay attention to. Stopping by a small roped off area, and after many failed attempts at discovering what miracle or spiritually significant event must have occurred for it to be roped off in the first place, my doubt of the beautiful religion began to fester. For some reason the symbolic areas of importance, including the enormous and elusive structures famously demolished and rebuilt every 20 years, had very little spiritual meaning to me (someone who has desperately tried and struggled to understand spirituality for years). Once I moved passed the strikingly identical monuments and consciously avoided my fellow classmates (which were reminders of my non-spiritual Western lifestyle) I began to notice and to actually believe in the spiritually significant power of nature.

Instead of putting blind faith into invisible and omnipotent entities whose only proof I had witnessed were ropes and ornate dead tree structures, I found peace and value in the physical presence of those wise old trees. Perhaps it was the simple physicality: being shaded by the powerful branch and leaf canopy, seeing moss and other organisms thrive on their large, cracking trunks, but I also found it fascinating that those trees bore witness to those mystical spiritual events that my mind had such a hard time grasping. If I can’t understand, maybe the trees can.

What if those trees are the true source of life, religion, and spirituality? Those trees have been prayed to, and I prayed to them. The most honest expression of my constantly doubtful religious philosophy was focused on the eyes and ears of that sacred shrine. They were the Gods I was capable of witnessing. Their power and souls were something felt beyond the physical senses. I am aware that the shrines and other sacred spaces were designated for a significant spiritual reason, but the thought of worshiping a man-made structure - symbolic of illusive gods - is a harder feat for my agnostic mind than respecting and appreciating the overwhelming value and power of that enduring landscape. I doubt anybody could walk between and beneath those giant trees with a quiet and open mind, and deny the souls of the trees.

Marilia Giuste

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Religious Appropriation

Grabbing a worn bamboo ladle from a beautiful purification fountain to pour cold fresh water onto your hands and rinsing some in your mouth is a traditional and symbolic cleansing ritual when entering many Shinto shrines throughout Japan. The physical cleansing is a concept more easily grasped, but for a pessimistic agnostic such as myself, the symbolic purification of impurities, known as Misogi, forces me to consider the deeper meanings behind the rituals we have thoughtlessly mimicked. Before walking under the Torii at the Ise outer shrine, I bowed my head because I was told to bow my head. But when I quietly passed beneath the venerable trees, along the same path that true, devout Shinto worshipers walked along, my head was flooded with doubts of my forced actions.

My ignorance of the religion shamefully gets me through the rudimentary steps, but which God(s) am I even praying to? And if they do truly exist, which ones bother listening to my honest form of religious appropriation? I attempt to convince myself that the undying traditions that have been widely respected and passed down for generations must have significant meaning, either personal or social, or both. How can society invest so much human energy in creating magnificent religious architecture, landscape architecture, art, and other cultural manifestations without some sort of reward? I ask these questions with a purely Western ideology, realizing Japanese culture is not nearly as individualistic as Western society.

The divide of entire hemispheres reveal teachings and traditions I could never fully understand, and perhaps the concept of religion speaks differently to this ancient civilization. I was brought up in an individualistic society enforced by a selfish, capitalist ideal focused on profit and gain. The Japanese culture respects and values ancestry, honor, society, and nature; values which are glossed over by the capitalistic forces of the west. But both cultures enforce a sense of belief, which is the hardest concept for my mind to understand. In the Shinto shrines I follow directions and act the way I am told to act, but this has me questioning my own philosophy along with how my actions are perceived by true believers.

Does my ignorance demean the process, the hundreds of years of devotion and sentiment passed on by a culture I’m not a part of, or does my doubtful compliance and effort empower what has been so vital to such a rich culture? There is much deeper symbolism in the actions being performed, just like the rocks which are embedded in white sand symbolize objects much greater, such as mountains, or islands. What I have learned in light of many insightful and varied tours of Japan is that nothing should be taken at face value (unless discussing contemporary facades - but that is for a different discussion). So, in somewhat of a conclusion, the symbolism in the shrines that I found so mesmerizing, were also the reasoning behind my realization of potential appropriation. But the question of religious appropriation could be answered in many different ways, and the Gods, if there are Gods, might possibly appreciate a naive 21-year-old mimicking traditions in honest appreciation and potential enlightenment.

Marilia Giuste

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Xin Hu

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Mysterious Entrances

Many Japanese shrines and some Japanese temples have to keep their mystery. Unlike churches, entrances of shrines and temples sometimes are not very welcome or inviting. Fore example, both entrances of the Ise Outer Shrine and the Water Temple are hidden and very mysterious.

 The Ise Outer Shrine, Gekū, is one of the two main shrines of the Ise Grand Shrine (Ise Jingū) which is located in the city of Ise, Japan. It is officially known as "Toyouke Daijingū". The other main shrine is the Ise Inner Shrine which is officially known as "Kotai Jingū". These shrines are famous of being rebuilt every 20 years. The Ise Outer Shrine is dedicated to the god of agriculture, rice harvest and industry. The shrine is built of wooden structure and surrounded by forests. People need to walk for a relatively long time in order to get to the shrine after they enter the gate of the shrine garden. After a long time of walking, however, people can only see a piece of white cloth, wooden fences, and some edges of roofs at first. Visitors can not enter the shrine. The white cloth is the most delicate and mysterious part in the shrine. It blocks people’s sight while it looks so soft and light that people can imagine it dancing with wind and revealing things behind it. But it doesn’t. The white cloth is a mask of the shrine.

 Similarly, there is a concrete wall at the entrance of the Water Temple. The Water Temple is located in the northern part of the island of Awaji and it is designed by Tadao Ando. It is the residence of Ninnaji Shingon, the oldest sect of Tantric Buddhism in Japan. People need to walk up for a while to the entrance of the temple. After entering an opening on a concrete wall, visitors still can not see the temple. In order to get to the real entrance of the temple, which is under a lotus pond, people have to walk along another concrete wall on a white gravel path. This concrete wall blocks visitors’ sight. People can not see the temple itself until they turn around at the end of the wall. This sensory experience also creates a mysterious atmosphere for the temple.

 The concrete wall in the Water Temple acts like the the white cloth in the Ise Outer Shrine although are made of very different materials. However, there are differences between the roles of these two pieces. The white is an obstacle of the view in the shrine while concrete wall is not only an obstacle, but also a transition of the atmosphere for the temple. People can get prepared mentally when they walking along the concrete wall. The transition also happens in the Ise Outer Shrine. It happens when people are walking in the forest before they get to the shrine.

Xin Hu

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Elliot Olney  |  Post Three  |  Urban Majesty

The last stop on our journey across Japan before we descended upon Tokyo was the city of Ise.  Ise could be described as a small town, a country town, or even a forgotten town.  But what Ise lacks in urban sprawl it more than makes up for in terms of historical significance.  There are two major shrines (shrine parks?) in Ise, the inner shine and the outer shine.  Both follow a similar construction logic.  There are two plots of land side by side, and every 20 years some of the most beautiful Japanese wood constructed shines are torn down and rebuild anew on the adjacent plot of land.  A remarkable tradition that has been carried on for over 1000 years.  These shrines are composed of layers of gated enclosures, all off limits to the curious tourist, only a glimpse beyond the outer fence is offered as a way to pay respect.  A remarkable place, in an amazingly lush forest.

After leaving Ise was embarked on our final high speed rail adventure into the city, more like region of Tokyo.  An area that houses the most people in one place on the planet.  37 million people.  The sprawl is unimaginable, but one thing stood out, most of the buildings that comprise the city are human scaled.  Three to seven stories.  A condition that gave the city a feel of comfort.

The highlights of Tokyo have to be the contemporary facades that try and draw in consumers to their glittery goods.  Many times our group was standing in awe of what one architect or another had done to make a particular project start out another the crowded shopping streets that we were encouraging “everyday tourists” to do the same.

Tokyo, the magical electric city at the end of a long journey.  It left me with one thought; when can I go back?

Sketches

These Sketches look closer at the Tokyo Sky Tree and a building that looked as though it was frozen mid-earthquake.

Bonus Video

A video posted by Elliot Olney (@olneydesign) on Jun 11, 2016 at 11:57pm PDT

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Inside-Outside

As i reflect on this trip, I have been thinking about what takeaways I may have and how I might reflect and apply what I have learned to my future projects as well as my general outlook on architecture. Throughout this trip we have been looking at ways the Japanese successfully merge architecture with landscape which i have found to be very intriguing as it greatly differs from what is seen in western culture. Rather than differentiating the structure and the landscape, there is a blending of outside and inside space that is truly remarkable when experienced in person. The trip continued to probe at the question ‘what is architecture?’ Typically architectural theorists have many different views of what architecture can be. Whether it means to be a master builder or one who combines structure with emotional response, I have believed architecture can be many things. I did not however give much consideration to the fact that architecture can be an extension of the landscape. A new point of view struck me as I experienced the work of Tadao Ando throughout our journey. Throughout his works I found myself weaving through inside and outside spaces. His work in Naoshima as well as Awaji created quite a monumental experience as we the visitors felt the procession of experience while we made our way through his museums and hotel spaces. Knowing I was at the center of a building yet I am able to look up and see the sky above was an incredible feeling. Beyond the procession of approach to his work, which in most cases incorporates hide and reveal elements as we find our way through the forest or up a winding path, the natural environment could be felt throughout the building. The ability to truly experience this ambiguity in person made all the difference in understanding and appreciating its simple complexity. Another element that has intrigued me throughout this trip I has been the ability to experience great architectural work in person. Being that this was my first study abroad course, much of the knowledge I have learned about architecture has been through books and in-class lectures. From this experience, I have learned the importance of physically experiencing architecture. Meaningful detail and information come to life that simply cannot be experienced from looking at pictures. The trip has rendered many reactions from the class, both over and underwhelming, as to what some were expecting to experience at certain architectural works versus actuality. I for instance thought Tadao Ando’s Water Temple would be much grander in scale, yet on the other hand I was still surprised by the process of approach which I had studied much less about. This is why I believe architecture truly needs to be studied on site to expose all of a building’s nuances that can be so easily missed in a textbook format. Jessica Holmes

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Jessica Holmes

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Elliot Olney  |  Post Two  |  #nophotosallowed

After five days of exploring the eternal city of Osaka and it’s timeless surroundings the group of 15 students and two senseis embarked on a cross-country trip through Japan that was to be highlighted by constructions of old and new, and of dead and alive.  The excitement was building early, we were to experience our first high speed rail, a potion of travel which also included a regional train through farmland and coastal hills leading up to a ferry ride that was to end at a mysterious fishing village on a smaller island off the coast.

This fishing village lived on the island of Naoshima.  Naoshima has drawn a unique art scene to its shores as a way, in part, to help revitalize its small economy.  This experience of art began with a tour of 6 small installations peppered throughout the small village.  Each was an exercise in restraint, each designed to highlight one particular idea that connected the artist and the viewer.  My favorite was an installation that guided the viewer into a pitch black room, holding the walls for direction until finally landing on a bench.  The experience was erie.  But the effect was unforgettable.  The room turned out not to be pitch black, but had three light sources, very dim, that could only be registered once the viewer had rested, and adjusted to the space.  The primary feature within this room was what seemed like a projection of soft bluish purple color on a wall, but was in fact a void, lined with colored lights… an effect that would return later on this island excursion.

The highlight of Naoshima island is the Chichu Art Museum.  A masterpiece of architecture blended within a pristine landscape showing the work of only three artists.  The most powerful work in my eye was that of James Turrell.  I had not done my prep work for this museum in hope that I could be surprised by what I was going to see and experience, and I was not disappointed.  Turrell’s Open Field was an installation I had heard about, but I never connected it with Chichu, and didn’t even know what I was seeing until I was halfway through the exhibit.

After leaving the island paradise of Naoshima our adventure continued through Takamatsu highlighted by its spectacular gardens, Miyajima for its colossal shine that could be experienced in different ways during both tides, Hiroshima for a solemn remembrance of the history between the US and Japan, then to another Tadao Ando mega complex at Awaji.

Awaji was a vastly different experience compared to Naoshima, the overwhelmingly prominent feeling I had about the place was that it was empty and forgotten.  A feeling I was not quite expecting on this trip.

Sketches

These sketches are of two rooms that I was unable to photograph. First is Open Field by James Turrell.  The second is Walter De Maria’s Granite Sphere.

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Patrick J Moe_Repetition and Release

The experience I had in Yayoi Kusama’s infinity room is one that I will never be able to forget. Beside running into David Hockney and hearing him rant about architects not understanding lighting and the horizon, an encounter that only compounded the weightlessness that I was feeling. The infinity room is a room clad with mirrors on the floor and ceiling with water serving the same reflective purpose on the floor. LED globes suspend and reflect into infinity, slowly shifting through the color wheel. Kusama’s obsession with repetition—often taking the form of polka dots—is not only a record of her own crippling visions, but also show a quintessential element of the Japanese aesthetic. Repetition has been constant in our travels through Japan. From ancient to present, and into the future, an obsessive sense of replication leads to awe, meditation, anonymity, and/or confusion. Again and again, the number 1,000 shows up as a remarkable attribute of a place, from Fushimi Inari’s thousands of torii gates—so well described by Rebecca Solnit’s essay— to Sanjūsangen-dō’s thousand buddhas. In the mindset of being in religious sites, the presence of repetition brings us into a trance where the mind is allowed to wander beyond the safe structure of endless similarity. The same effect can be had in the less structured environment of Kyoto’s Bamboo forest. Here, the experience leads to a wonder at nature. Where torii gates frame the environment just over their threshold—or in the case of Fushimi Inari, the glimpses of nature that bleed between each gate—the bamboo frames itself, layering and layering through simple movements to create a wall, a barrier to the outside, profane world. Playing into Japanese folklore, the Childrens’ memorial in Hiroshima displays paper cranes from school children around the world. The cranes signify the wish of one girl, stricken by radiation poisoning from Hiroshima’s atom bomb blast, to be cured. Legend states that if a thousand paper cranes are folded, the wish will be fulfilled. The cranes are prominently displayed, bringing a weight to the experience by just knowing how many hands and how much work went into creating the threads of origami behind the glass. The success of the boundless, repetitive aesthetic in Japan is supported by a deep history of sacred culture. In the present, this aesthetic has been celebrated in modern architecture, most notably in the facades of retail flagships like those in Tokyo’s Ginza district. I am still trying to unravel the transition from the purely sacred world to one that is governed not by devotion to spirits or teachings of the buddha, but by money and, all too often, surface appearances.

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Patrick J Moe_Noguchi

It seems fitting that the path to Isamu Noguchi’s studio and home wound through streets lined with stone workshops and their accompanying collections of stone fragments and surplus monuments, lanterns, and sculptures. In the distance, above the street, signs of a quarry cut into the hillside, and stone dust drifted in the air. A pilgrimage in the guise of a field trip, our visit to the live/work space of this truly great artists is among the highlights of my time in Japan, fueling me to remember my art-based past and work to weave my feelings on material, nature, and spirit into the architectural work of my present and future. After paying one of the highest entry fees of the trip, then hearing the disheartening words of “no photo,” I must admit that my spirit was more than a bit crushed. After those dark words, one photo was allowed, a view to meticulously maintained gravel, stones on end, a stone wall, and promising roofs beyond, but this photo is all I need. Following the humble road through a low gate, I began to try my best to soak in every bit of the master’s workspace that I could—beyond what is possible through photography alone. Wandering among the sculptures either unfinished to too loved to be removed, I was able to pick up on subtle lines between textures that only sought to enhance and showcase the beauty and spirit of each piece of stone. Mimicking scholars rocks of old, Noguchi’s work has the power to contain all of the universe in one container. Through the eyes of a sketchbook, I may not have been able to capture the exact light effects, or the proportions just so, but these sketches serve as more valuable tool for focusing on the power of Noguchi’s minimal, respectful, and beautiful interventions into living stone. Echoing throughout my remaining encounters in Japan, I was drawn to a similar spiritual aesthetic key to Japan-ness. Ise provide the clearest vision of where Noguchi’s thinking sprouted from. Here, the simplest of joints, the knot of rope, denotes the barrier between sacred and profane, the world of mere mortals and the homes of gods, like a thin line between rough and honed surfaces leading to an appreciation for the other in an endless cycle. The natural world around us is a beautiful thing and what this trip has reinforced in me is that it is the job of artists, architects, and makers of objects to release and create reminders from our immediate surroundings.

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Sketches by Jingbo Huang