Church on The WaterTADAO ANDO

Tadao Ando Born in Minato-ku, Osaka September 13, 1941 Self-taught architect with strong Japanese

influence Practicing architecture since 1968 Architectural style is said to create “haiku”

effect, emphasizing nothingness and empty space to represent the beauty of simplicity, associating between nature and architecture. The concept often called Zen architecture.

“If you give people nothingness, they can ponder what can be achieved from that nothingness.”

What Is Architecture? "Architecture is an expression of the human spirit, I believe. Though I'm

Japanese, I travel and take in influences from the West, and express western culture in a Japanese context, and try to show how they can relate to each other.“

"Without this spirit, Modernist architecture cannot fully exist. Since there is often a mismatch between the logic and the spirit of Modernism, I use architecture to reconcile the two.“

"You cannot simply put something new into a place. You have to absorb what you see around you, what exists on the land, and then use that knowledge along with contemporary thinking to interpret what you see."

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I would like my architecture to inspire people to use their own resources, to move into the future.

If I can create some space that people haven't experienced before and if it stays with them or gives them a dream for the future, that's the kind of structure I seek to create.

The Church on the Water

Background Story The church is located close to Tomamu in the

heart of the island of Hokkaido, in northern Japan. It's actually a small chapel belonging to the lAlpha Resort Hotel, specialized in arranging the perfect honeymoon for newlyweds.

The Alpha Resort is made in an style that tries to mimic the northern European architecture and organize their rooms in a kitsch, grotesque tower which stands horribly without any consideration to the environment or any kind of integration into the landscape.

Ando, then, seems to start organizing his chapel by giving his back on these grotesque buildings, separating the church by a L-shaped wall, establishing a holy place isolated from the mundane and focusing all views toward a grove of beech trees on the front of the temple in which also a small stream runs.

Inspiration

At the same time, Ando’s Church on the Water finds in the chapel of the University of Technology in Otaniemi, Finland, designed in 1957 by Kaija and Heikki Siren, its most immediate Western reference.

The idea of connecting places of worship with water, linking the sacred area with the landscape has a notable precedent in the Itsukushima shrine in Miyajima, near Hiroshima. In the shrine, a torii or gate is located in the middle of water.

StyleHe is most renowned for his design style which focuses on “experience” rather than visuals. Tadao Ando's trademark is the finely crafted concrete construction that he painstakingly oversees from start to finish. Unlike the rough surface of a sloppily poured concrete sidewalk or stairway that most people mentally relate to when thinking of "concrete" - the concrete used in his buildings is treated, polished, and finished so that the end result is a concrete surface that feels more like silk. Combined with the thin, fragile transparency of glass and the ruggedness of steel, his work is a brutal yet phenomenal beauty.

In one corner of the chapel adjoining the semicircular staircase and discreetly hidden under the light cube are three waiting rooms and toilets, arranged around a cylindrical glass space that receives top lighting through four glass surfaces

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The approach to the chapel is carried out by following the path of the free wall and ascending a gentle slope to reach the access area, defined in its four sides by a white frosted glass. In this enclosure of light, in which four contiguous crosses rise, the intensive and direct sunlight and the light filtered through the frosted glass are mixed, wrapping visitors in a subtle contrast that gives solemnity to the place.

-TADAO ANDO

The four crosses, which define a virtual cube represents a sacred space that spreads toward the cardinal points. The interior of the cross is a little square with glass ceiling, which seats are arranged around its perimeter. The 50 cm thick crosses are arranged so that their end vertices are separated by only 5 inches, increasing the drama of the composition.

The most notable feature in the church is that Ando has substituted the front wall of the temple, which generally displays images or icons of religious significance, with a more vivid and eloquent representation of the Creator: nature itself. This provides a live, colorful and ever changing setting, ranging from the intense red colors in autumn, the serene snow white tone in winter, the colorful spots in spring and the intense green hues in summer.

“The horizon separates the sky from earth, the sacred and the profane. The landscape changes gradually appearing as a transition in which visitors can feel the presence of nature and the sacred. Sunlight, the

lake and the sky will continue to sing different tunes. "

Next to the chapel lies a concrete porch of 6.2 m high, holding a beam that extends a span of 9.15 m. This gate symbolically reinforces the idea of a transition from the profane to the sacred, while functionally hosts the sliding glass door that is limiting between the chapel and pond. Thus, when the weather permits, it is possible to open the screen, maximizing the intimate contact of the chapel with its environment. To avoid interrupting the continuity of the water surface, the rail of the screen is slightly submerged, being imperceptible from a distance.

Ando’s work is like a symphony. He orchestrates masses and voids, shape and volume, light and space, choreographing their interaction with his trademark precision. His structure is firm yet tranquil, sometimes mysterious. What I love the most is the contrasting feel. That within the bareness of his design, lies a truly rich and deep experience of space.

Conclusion

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