Has It Really Been A Week?

So...I'm not quite sure how a week went by, but apparently it did. It's currently 11:30 pm on Saturday, April 25th and I am in Hiroshima. Let me fill you in on what's happened in the past week.

Sunday was supposed to be another day of touring around, but I was pretty exhausted. It ended up being a work day. I uploaded a bunch of pictures and worked on the sketch up model for our design project.

Monday was a standard class day...Japanese and studio. Our project was progressing nicely, and I just realized that I haven't put up any pictures of either one of our projects, so I'll work on that.

Tuesday we went back to Osaka to see some...well some bathrooms in the park of a castle designed by Endo Shuhei (a famous Japanese architect). Later that evening, we went to his office and spent some time with him. I guess he could be called a "paramodern” architect. He tends to focus on one specific idea on each group of projects he does. His work has been separated into these different areas of exploration. Some of his work is called "Gravitecture", in which he allows his buildings to be formed or influenced by the force of gravity. He also has collections of works he has titled "Bubbletecture" and "Rooftecture". These focus on redefining architectural elements and their implications and use in the formation of space. The meeting with him was really interesting, and though he is not my favorite architect, his ideas about space and form are really interesting and could definitely help contemporary architecture progress in new directions.

Wednesday consisted of classes and work. Our final for Project 2 was due on Friday and there are very few hours left over in each day after we go to our classes and on our tours. Needless to say, none of us have been sleeping very much lately.

Thursday we went to Kobe and Osaka to visit some of Tadao Ando’s works. He is just such an amazing architect. I love photographing his buildings because you can’t really go wrong. They are just so photogenic that every picture comes out amazing. We first went to the Hyogo Prefectural Museum of Art in Kobe. Ando tends to use a lot of concrete, but he always seems to capture the potential of the material in its relation to form, gesture and, particularly, light. There are beautiful little moments throughout his buildings that are very inspiring, though the buildings themselves may appear rather simple at first. The Prefectural Museum of Art not only creates excellently open spaces to show the artwork, but also becomes a work of art itself. As you walk through it, views are framed or you find yourself looking up at the sky, perfectly framed between two concrete walls. A shell-like stair case leads you down into the museum itself, where the spaces are left open, allowing the art to take over. Ando has mastered the artistic side of architecture without allowing it to deconstruct the programmatic and practical element of the practice.

We also visited the Church of the Light on Thursday. This is one of those buildings, like Frank Lloyd’s Falling Water, that every architect knows about and is inspired by. The building itself is very simple in terms of space. It is a rectangular shaped room that steps down to allow for seating and pews, but at the end of the small church, there is a beautifully simple cross cut into a concrete slab. It is really astounding how such a simple move can change the entire feeling of a space. There are some beautiful details and well thought-out connections in other parts of the building, but this simple void in the concrete is one of the most powerful architectural statements I have ever witnessed. I must have sat in the pews, staring at the concrete form for at least ten minutes before I even remembered to take pictures. The name “The Church of the Light” is extremely appropriate for this small, protestant church. The building itself captures light and shadow in an amazing and inspiring contrast. The experience is incredibly spiritual, even for those of us, like myself, who are not necessarily religious. The ideas of a connection to nature and to life itself truly rang out to me as I experienced the space.

Friday, our final project was due. Jeff and I stayed up until 4 am working on it on Thursday night, and I haven’t gone to bed earlier than 1 am this whole week. I think D. Choi has started to realize how hard we have all been working because he flat out asked us when we had time to do the work we did. Our project was well-received, and I think we’re both happy with it. I will do my best to post pictures soon.

After class, Carissa and I went shopping/browsing a little bit, then later we went to karaoke with Jeff and Blake. It was a lot of fun, and I think we’re all going to have to do it again sometime soon.

My money situation got a little stressful for a minute because I had to cancel my debit card, seeing as someone was using it in California while I’m in Japan…fun stuff. Jeff and I also ended up staying up til 4 last night cuz we had to pack to leave Kyoto after we got back from karaoke. We had to leave our weekly mansion at 11 this morning, so we went to Miyoyama Castle, and then back to Kyoto to meet with the group and leave for Hiroshima.

Our train got in at somewhere around 6. We have individual rooms for tonight, which I think will be nice for a minute. We went out to dinner in Hiroshima and then Jeff and I went and found a bar, where we had a few drinks. It’s kind of amazing to think that it was only 50 years ago or so that an atomic bomb was set off in this city. Every time I think about it, I almost cry, but I’m sure I’ll do enough of that tomorrow when we visit the Memorial Park here in Hiroshima. After that, we’ll head to Miyajima (I think) and spend a day or two there.

So, I think you’re about caught up. For now, I’m incredibly tired so I’m going to try to get a full night’s sleep (rather than the 4 hours I’ve been averaging) before we meet at 10:30 tomorrow morning to tour around Hiroshima. Don keeps emphasizing that we’re on vacation right now…I think he feels bad for working us so hard for the past month. I think he needs to be careful, or we’ll all be burnt out by the time we get to Tokyo next Friday.