Wall

Theme 1 - The Cutting

"In my buildings, walls play a dual role, serving both to reject and affirm. By positioning a number of walls at certain intervals, I create openings. Walls are freed from the simple role of closure and are given a new objective. They are calculated to accept even as they reject. The amorphous and immaterial elements of wind, sunlight, sky, and landscape are cut out and appropriated by walls which serve as agents of the internal world. These elements are assimilated as aspects of the architectural space.

This tense relationship between inside and outside is based on the act of cutting (as with a sword), which to the Japanese is not cruel and destructive but is instead sacred; it is a ceremonial act symbolizing a new disclosure. To the Japanese this act has become an end in itself. It provides a spiritual focus both in space and time. In that tense moment, an object
loses its definition and its individual and basic character becomes manifest.

Walls "cut" into sky, sunlight, wind, and landscape at every instant, and the architecture reverberates to this continual demonstration of power. The more austere the wall, even to the point of being cold, the more it speaks to us. At times it is a sharp weapon menacing us. At times it is a mirror in which landscape and sunlight are dimly reflected.

Light that diffuses around a corer and gathers in the general darkness contrasts strongly with direct light. With the passage of time these two "lights" blend and enrich the space.

Man and nature, mediated by architecture, meet."  Tadao Ando, Perspecta 25 (1989).