Zen & Japan-ness; A theological reading of the architecture of Tadao Ando
Academic critique of the architecture of Tadao Ando to date has struggled to ascertain the central thesis behind his work, limited by a formal analysis into the use of concrete, light, geometry and water. Potentially due to his biographical account of self-education of both Japanese and Western architecture, and the synthesis of occidental physicality and oriental conceptualism, Ando’s work has been conceptually manipulated into the boundaries of Japanese minimalism, critical regionalism, modernism or brutalism. Despite Ando himself refuting such labels, such critiques employing a fragmented reading of Ando’s work consequently miss the opportunity to define exactly what makes Ando’s work profoundly Japanese. Through a historic review of Zen Buddhism, this study will elucidate how Zen aesthetics, evident within temple design and teahouse architecture have become pertinent to understanding a Japanese Japan-ness within the arts. The present study will argue that in order to garner an essentialist conceptual ethos of the work of Tadao Ando, a theological lens of the teachings of the Buddha, and more specifically, the Four Noble Truths must be applied within a metaphysical analysis. Calling upon the seven Zen aesthetic phenomena evident within teahouse architecture, the following conceptual analysis will first compare Tadao Ando’s Buddhist projects before arguing the shared Zennisms found within are present also within Ando’s entire portfolio.
According to Arata Isozaki, there has long been an objectified search, albeit coloured by occidental “gaze,” to ascertain what essentially makes Japanese architecture, Japan-ness.[1] Potentially a sociocultural response to the aftereffects of the US Allied Occupation and the nationwide assertion of voice led by the 1968 Zengakuren student protests,[2] the 1970s witnessed a reclamation of a more percipient oriental understanding of Japan-ness within modernist and postmodernist architecture.[3] Interestingly, such a time also coincided with Tadao Ando’s establishment of Tadao Ando and Associates in 1969.[4]
However, prior to this Ando spent several years abroad travelling to Europe and the United States in the pursuit of studying Western Architecture, citing this chapter as his single most important teacher, believing that formal-education rarely prepares students for the realities of the profession, and hence wouldn’t have allowed for the experiential learning of space acquired.[5] In rejecting traditional training, the design ethos behind Tadao Ando and Associates was born from an unorthodox autodidactic education and a resume containing just a few brief apprenticeships with local merchants and craftsman.[6] Yet, this may just be the very reason Ando’s architecture embodies a causa sui and innate Japanese Japan-ness.
Born and raised in Osaka, Ando spent much of his early teens gaining an appreciation for materiality and craft of traditional Japanese woodworking from local carpenters, visiting the wooden temples, shrines and teahouses in Kyoto and Nara as well as the traditional minka residences around Takayama.[7] In contrast to his travels abroad, Ando connected with the austere application of materiality and restrained beauty of shoin-zukuri and sukiya-zukuri architectural styles expressed within the temples of Ryōan-ji and Ginkaku-ji, stating such built interventions not only complimented the ‘natural’ surroundings, but completed it.[8]
Current critique on the work of Ando either tries to establish a polarity between the occidental and oriental, purporting what is and isn’t ‘Japan-ness’, or attempts to separate Ando’s conceptual ethos either thematically, chronologically or through typology. The writings of architectural historian, Kenneth Frampton falls within the former category, suggesting Ando’s biography has led to a continual tension, pluralism and dyad of western and eastern ideals.[9] Suggesting Ando employs metaphysical Japanese concepts of ma[10] and yugen[11] within circumscribed and particularised formal elements, Frampton’s critique becomes vulnerable to the pitfalls Isozaki highlights in his disapproval of Western collection, collaging and appropriation of Japonaiserie.[12] Despite formally analyzing how ideas of “the gap” or “naturalness” can be traced back to traditional Japanese architecture, Frampton fails to question why such formal elements are innately instilled with the qualities of Japan-ness. Such a sentiment can be witnessed within Frank Lloyd Wright’s Imperial Palace. Despite Isozaki’s harsh stance against this Western product vis-à-vis its beaux-arts composition, Palladian typology and modern construction technologies[13], it is within Wright’s application of the misinterpreted concept of ma as a teleological state rather than a container of temporality and phenomena that renders the form alien within Japanese architectural grammar. Kakuzo Okukura illustrates this polemic within his seminal text ‘The Book of Tea,’ “the reality of the (tea) room itself is found in the space enclosed by the walls and roof, not the walls and roof itself.” [14]
Masao Furuyama falls into the second category of Ando critique, separating his work via typological study as well as thematically into ideas of monistic, dualistic and pluralistic architecture.[15] Consequently, such review limits the readings of a holistic and guiding ethos or doctrine behind the entirety of Ando-anthology. Furthermore, Furuyama theorises Ando’s projects exhibit an architecture of negation, suggesting the removal of social standards and conveniences has been decided upon due to their unessential nature to the creation of architectural space.[16] Consequently, Furuyama joins Frampton in reducing the work of Ando into an analysis void from answering the why. Is the architecture of negation within Ando’s work an ascetic renunciation in pursuit of space that inhabits reflection and spirituality? And so, to understand what essentially makes Ando’s architecture Ando-esque, we must ask what makes it Japan-ness?
It would be almost impossible, however, to understand the essence of Japan-ness without understanding Zen Buddhism and the role it has played throughout history in permeating Japanese secular daily life, culture and the arts. Whilst there have been many major traditions of Buddhism within Japanese history, Zen moreso than any other sect influenced Japanese society through Zen-inspired arts such as sumie ink painting, ikebana flower arranging, tea ceremonies and haiku poetry.[17]
Whilst the introduction of Buddhism to Japan from the Korean Peninsula dates to 552 A.D.,[18] it wasn’t until the 12th century that the Mahayana sect of Buddhism, of which Zen is a school transferred over the Japanese borders with great voracity.[19] Originating from Chinese Chan Buddhism, Zen is thought to have developed from a blend of Chinese Taoist and Indian Buddhist ideals during the Kamakura Period (1192-1333).[20] The school of Zen Buddhism emphasizes a surrender to ‘what is’ via the salvation of oneself and a subscription to the middle-way of life through the practice of zazen meditation. Unlike other Buddhist sects, such as Pure Land, Zen is not about the external or the superadded. An austere and conceptual teaching, it promises no afterlife or heaven, but in fact the very opposite; enlightenment or ‘buddahood’ is achieved only through the acceptance of life’s suffering and the discovery of the reality of life.[21]
During the Muromachi period (1338-1573) under the influence of Zen teachings, two major forms of architecture developed; shoin-zukuri architecture employed in Zen monasteries, Abott’s quarters, temple design and pagodas following strict kiwari planning, and a less formal sukiya-zukuri style developed under the shoin-canon seen within teahouse design.[22] Ginkaku-ji (Fig. 1.)[23], a temple in Sakyo, Kyoto and the final resting place for Zen monk Ashikaga Yoshimasa, represents not only the oldest example of shoin-style architecture but an embodiment of true Zen aesthetics.
According to the Zen school there are seven aesthetic pillars to follow in the creation of traditional space so to form a place best suited for the work of a Zen student; fukinsei (asymmetry and irregularity), kanso (simplicity), koko (austerity), shizen (naturalness), yugen (subtlety), datsuzoku (imperfection) and seijaku (stillness).[24] Such physical aesthetical embodiments are also evident within the metaphysical Zen teachings, doctrines and way of life; kanso and koko can be seen in middle-way moderated life between hedonism and asceticism, seijaku aesthetics draws parallels with the contemplation and reflection sought in zazen meditative practice, and fukinsei, datsuzoku and shizen can be witness within the Zen student’s renunciation of control, and acceptance of ‘what is’ in order to find their own ‘true nature.’ Yet, for the Westerner it is potentially easier to read how such aesthetic principles have played out within the small-scale sukiya-zukuri architecture, rather than Zen temple designs.
According to Okakura, the sukiya (Fig. 2.) is described as nothing more than a cottage, unimpressive in appearance, fragile in structure, imperfect and unsymmetrical in design, sober in colour and materiality, subdued in light and devoid of ornamentation, yet detailed with an acute precision and refined workmanship.[25] The teahouse consists of four main elements, a garden path (roji), a waiting room (machiai), a utility room (midsuya) and the tea-room proper.[26] According to E. Dale Saunders, these elements are physical manifestations of Buddha’s teachings of the ‘Four Noble Truths’ of life; the roji and surrounding garden representing the teaching of impermanence, the machiai teaching Buddha’s lessons of suffering, the midsuya representative of the teaching of selflessness and the tea-room proper the teaching of nirvana.[27]
Despite aging weathering, the hut is not neglected, in fact, you will not find dust in any corner or recess, with the ritual of ‘cleanliness’ inbuilt into the monastic life of Zen-masters.[28] A parallel can be drawn here between the care and maintenance of the sukiya-zukuri hut and the refined poverty of Ando’s trademark concrete construction.
Despite Frampton arguing Ando’s use of concrete continues the universal language of 21st century technology,[29] the application of this material refutes such a claim. Calling upon traditional Japanese knowledge of timber craft within temple design, as well as his early education in carpentry, Ando applies a high-quality timber formwork achieving a uniformity in colour and surface appearance (Fig. 3.).[30] Through a painting and varnishing treatment of the timber, Ando reduces the wood grain transferred to the concrete form, creating a smoothness in texture, “no one but Japanese could produce.”[31] As such, the finished concrete refracts and reflects light from the surface in a manner akin to the traditional gold leaf expressions of traditional Japanese screens catching the light to illuminate the darkness of the Japanese house.[32]
Despite the modernist critique of concrete being “inhumane” and “un-Japanese” due to the material’s short history within traditional Japanese craft, the virtuosity and acute craftsmanship needed to create the restrained beauty and monotone expression of Ando concrete exhibits the Zen tenets of koko austerity and kanso simplicity originating in Zen teahouse architecture. Yet despite Ando’s application of concrete embodying an essence of Japan-ness, much like the straw-hut, the significance of Ando’s architecture is found not within the physical form itself but the metaphysical, ontological space in-between.
The following analysis of Tadao Ando’s Buddhist projects aims to reveal that in the experience of Tadao Ando’s architecture, the visitor traverses a metaphysical journey of Buddha’s teachings of the Four Noble Truths, impermanence, suffering, nirvana and selflessness, originating from Zen philosophies and sukiya architecture.[33] Through a comparison with Tadao Ando’s other works, whether residential, commercial or civic in nature, commonalities of procession, descension, emptiness and interconnectedness are revealed.
The Honpukuji Water Temple (Fig. 4.), located to the northeast of the island of Awaji, built in 1991, marks Ando’s first Buddhist project.[34] Arriving at the entrance of the temple, a large concrete planar wall conceals the design, forcing the user to embark on a procession around the site along a wavering path lined with white gravel reminiscent of the Zen dry-sand gardens surrounding the roji path at Ginkaku-ji.
The floating planes of the thin concrete guiding the procession (Fig. 5.), irregular and incomplete in form, are comparable to the Zen aesthetic pillars of fukinsei and datsuzoku, expressing the imperfection of our existence. To proceed through this labyrinth is to embark on a transition from the ‘outside’ world of attachment and avoidance to the inner world of the sacred. This journey, akin to the circumambulation or jendo, of Zen monks prior to meditation, also draws similarities with the enso ‘Zen circle’ found in traditional ink paintings. Within the doctrines of Zen, the roji path is representative of Buddha’s first teaching of the impermanence of life; everything changes from moment to moment, and our attachment to the ‘permanent’ is the causation of our suffering and unhappiness.
At the end of the roji procession, the visitor stands tall above the still waters bounded by an elliptical pond of waterlilies reflecting the mountainous surrounds, prior to descending a staircase into a momentary darkness below (Fig. 6.). A Buddhist symbol of purity, the lotus, or waterlily floats gestures detachment and lightness, prior to the visitor entering a phenomenologically ‘dark’ space confronting one with their own suffering, and metaphysically embodying the second Noble truth and teaching of the Buddha. Within this successive space, Ando connects with the Zen aesthetic principles of seijaku through the stillness and flatness of water, and yugen through the subtle unveiling of the inner sanctuary of the temple, without revealing the entirety of design within a single impression.
This graduated perspective or Oku, is not dissimilar to the concealment of form experienced when first arriving at Honpukuji. Once inside the womb of the temple, one must again complete a circumambulation prior to arriving at image of the Buddha.
Within the temple proper one is able to find a space of quiet, stillness and reflection. However, the differing quality of this space in comparison to other sectarian buildings lies with the centripetal focus and essence of ma, that begs one to look inwardly. Best translated as the notion of emptiness, yet not to be confused with the western contrast to notions of nothingness, the in-between space of ma is indicative of an omnipresent, impermanent, every-changing condition. Within Zen philosophy, such a meditative space can be paralleled with Zen formal qualities of shizen and yugen, as well as Buddha’s third noble truth and teaching of nirvana (Fig. 7). Notions of impermanence are manifest within the varying light illuminating the statue of the Buddha, ranging from gentle diffusions to bounded and dynamic movements dependent upon the time of day, season or year.
The concept of selflessness, the last teaching of the Buddha in the Four Noble Truths, not to be confused with an erasure of identity or ‘ego’ but rather with an acute awareness of the interconnectedness of life, forms the last stage in the succession through Ando’s Water Temple. An openness to the ‘external’ conditions and elements, via void, atria and window allows a disintegration of boundary and threshold between ‘interior’ and ‘exterior’ as well as ‘nature’ and non-nature’ dualities. Zen philosophers would argue they are one of the same; interconnected. The concrete walls allow for an interplay of light that forms a space of ma, emptiness, with the realisation of impermanence allows for an ascension into nirvana. As such, the phenomenological essence of interconnectedness within the inner sanctuary allows one to reflect not only upon cyclical-esque, albeit imperfect in nature, journey of the path of enlightenment, but draws the visitor to return via their original journey, around the cyclindical volumes, up the staircase, through the waterlily pond and around the roji path. Ascending through Ando’s geometric forms, the visitor revisits the seven Zen aesthetics of irregularity, simplicity, austerity, naturalness, subtlety, imperfection and stillness that manifest metaphysically within successive spaces of selflessness, nirvana, suffering and lastly impermanence. In leaving the Water Temple, it is the hope the visitor walks away with a greater ontological awareness and acceptance of self.
The experience of the Honpukuji Water Temple and the journey through the metaphysical manifestation of the teachings of the Buddha is not dissimilar to the path one takes through Ando’s latest Buddhist work, The Hill of the Buddha.[35] Built within the Makomanai Takino Cemetery in Sapporo, over twenty years after the Water Temple (Fig. 8.),[36] the work reiterates central tenets of Ando-isms; procession, descension, emptiness and interconnectedness.
The journey into the cave-like tunnel begins first with a procession around a monolithic concrete planar boundary wall, before circling a water garden bordered with an austere gravel-bed (Fig. 9.). The journey to the temple is lengthened so to create a circumambulation of the still and simple water installation. At this point, only the top of the Buddha statues’ head can be made out; the temple slowly revealed in a successive manner as the journey progresses.
Visitors must pass through a dark and shadowy 40-metre underground tunnel prior to meeting the base of the monolithic statue of the Buddha (Fig. 10.). Whilst this ‘descension’ through the tunnel cannot be formally assimilated to the downward journey of the Water Temple, the phenomenological encounter with the darkness and coolth of the subterranean space creates a similar connection to Buddha’s teaching of suffering.
A further circumambulation, similar to the Water Temple is encouraged around the image of the Buddha. Buddha’s head, first seen at the entrance of the temple’s roji path, can now be understood as piercing a circular opening at the top of the verdant mound, welcoming the natural and ever-changing elements of light, weather and sky into the space (Fig. 11.). As such, an experience of emptiness, meditation and ma is created within the sacred temple, and an understanding of the impermanence of life. Much like Honpukuji, visitors retrace their steps made on the journey into the temple, however, this time, contemplating the interconnectedness and oneness between Western notions of interior and exterior, natural and unnatural, self and non-self (Fig. 12.).
The journey through impermanence (procession), suffering (descension), nirvana (emptiness) and selflessness (interconnectedness) however, is not limited to Ando’s Buddhist projects, and are manifest within all of Ando’s work, creating an ethos that creates a linkage between diversifying elements of typology, location and form. Whilst delivering an analytical comparison between the Zennisms of Ando’s Buddhist works with the rest of his portfolio is beyond the scope of this study, it is important to acknowledge that such concepts have in fact played a role within other typologies.
The notion of procession has been repeated in many of Ando’s works, and can be found within the residential projects of Kidosaki and Kishino houses, the Christian chapel designs of Chapel on the Water and Church of Light, and more recently in the gallery and site design of Chichu Art Museum (Fig. 13.). Whilst the length, degree of privacy or openness, and formal properties vary within each project, the allowance of this procession akin to the roji paths of traditional sukiya architecture, allows not only an extended distance and transition from the ‘outside’ world but an acknowledgement of the evanescence of the immediate surroundings. Limited vectors and vistas concealing the design are formally manifest in irregularly placed windows within residential work, or slits within concrete geometries, linking again with the Zen tenets of incompleteness and imperfection.
The notion of descension is manifest within the immediate downward stairways of 21_21 Design Site, TIME’s 1 Commercial Complex and Natsukawa Memorial Hall, or the cave and womb-like corridors of Row House and Koshino House and the underground burial of structure evident in the likes of Chichu Art Museum (Fig. 14.). However, many of Ando’s projects reverse the formal execution of descension, into an upward journey, as in Kidosaki House or Church on the Water. However, such formal expressions, still embody a space of dark, inward reflection reached through a comparison of self with the world and a realisation of one’s suffering.
The notion of ma within the work of Ando has been commonly applied by turning his architecture inwardly with a centripetal vector forming quite an austere and ‘whole’ reading of an exterior geometry in contrast to an atria, double-height space or labyrinth or open interior. This is best experienced within Ando’s residential work of Row, Ito and Yamaguchi Houses, as well as the enclosed spaces of Chichu Art Museum (Fig. 15, 16.). Seijaku stillness and meditation and the use of water within Ando’s designs have also been repeated in projects such as Awaji Yutembai and Langen Foundation. Such spaces invite naturalness from the ‘outside’ world, whether climate, sky, or plantlife, into the space to exhibit an omnipresent emptiness. As such, these spaces allow for visitors or users to realise the interconnectedness of Ando’s architecture, and consequently, of life.
The architecture of Tadao Ando has long begged for a critical account that delves deeper into the phenomenological experience of his aesthetics, rather than the formal arrangement of geometry, as such arrangements themselves exist only for the benefit of the space created in-between. Acknowledging his early connections to the Zen temple designs of Ginkaku-ji and Ryōan-ji as well as teahouse architecture, it is evident how Zen aesthetics has played a major role in not only the treatment of concrete, but the creation of existential successions of space, procession, descension, emptiness and interconnectedness, consequently finding a Japanese Japan-ness within his art. Whilst this study has been able to follow the journey of the user from the roji path to the inner sanctuary of the design of Ando’s Buddhist projects, scope has been restricted with regard to the comparison and conclusions with Ando’s non-religious works. As such, a larger study into the phenomenological, metaphysical, and existential journey within Ando’s non-religious works would do well to further elucidate how Japan-ness has been exemplified through Zennisms in the architecture of Tadao Ando.
[1] Arata Isozaki and David B. Stewart, Japan-ness in architecture (Cambridge, Massachusetts: The MIT Press, 2011), 3.
[2] Bharne Vinayak, "Manifesting Democracy: Public Space and the Search for Identity in Post-War Japan." Journal of Architectural Education 2 (2010): 42.
[3] Isozaki and Stewart, Japan-ness in architecture, 3.
[4] Tadao Andō, “Tadao Andō: 1983-2000.” El Croquis Editorial, July 2000.
[5] Ibid.
[6] Tadao Andō and Matthew Hunter, eds., Tadao Andō: conversations with students (New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 2012), 20.
[7] Ibid., 18.
[8] Kenneth Frampton and Stuart Wrede and Tadao Andō, Tadao Andō (New York: Museum of Modern Art; Distributed by H.N. Abrams, 1991), 11.
[9] Ibid., 14.
[10] Ibid.
[11] Ibid., 12.
[12] Isozaki and Stewart, Japan-ness in architecture, 3.
[13] Ibid., 9.
[14] Kakuzo Okakura, The Book of Tea (New York: Fox Duffield and Company, 1906), 91.
[15] Masao Furuyama, Tadao Andō: The Geometry of Human Space (Los Angeles: Taschen, 2006), 12.
[16] Furuyama, Tadao Ando, 14.
[17] E. Dale Saunders, Buddhism in Japan: With an Outline of Its Origins in India (Tokyo: Charles E. Tuttle, 1972), 225.
[18] Ibid., 91.
[19] Ibid., 185.
[20] Ibid., 218.
[21] Daisetz Teitaro Suzuki, What is Zen? (New York: Harper & Row Publishers, 1972), 12.
[22] Saunders, Buddhism in Japan, 227.
[23] Commonly referred to in modern times as The Silver Pavilion, Ibid., 232.
[24] Okakura, The Book of Tea, 77.
[25] Ibid.
[26] Ibid.
[27] Saunders, Buddhism in Japan, 227.
[28] Kenya Hara, White (Baden, Switzerland: Lars Müller Publishers, 2010), 67.
[29] Frampton, Tadao Andō, 10.
[30] Tadao Andō, “Tadao Andō: 1983-2000.” El Croquis Editorial, July 2000.
[31] Ibid.
[32] Jin Baek, Nothingness: Tadao Andō's Christian Sacred Space (London: Routledge, 2009), 12.
[33] Dōgen and Kazuaki Tanahashi, Treasury of the True Dharma Eye: Zen Master Dogen's Shobo Genzo (Boston, Massachusetts: Shambhala Publications Inc., 2010), 501.
[34] Tadao Andō, “Tadao Andō: 1983-2000.” El Croquis Editorial, July 2000.
[35] https://www.dezeen.com/2017/08/08/tadao-ando-hill-of-the-buddha-lavender-mound-makomanao-takino-cemetery-sapporo-japan/
[36] "Tadao Ando Envelops Giant Buddha Statue in Lavender-Planted Hill Temple," Patrick Lynch, ArchDaily, last modified August 8, 2017, https://www.archdaily.com/877329/tadao-ando-envelops-giant-buddha-statue-in-lavender-planted-hill-temple