Summer Living and the Elements

Light

In his novel In Praise of Shadows, Junichiro Tanizaki expounds on the Japanese sense of aesthetics within light and shadow. Be it summer or winter, day or night, delicate light fills a traditional Japanese-style home. Dramatic staging with light presupposes the control of shadow.

Softening the light in a new town meetinghouse with washi

text by Makoto Ueda / photography by Mitsumasa Fujitsuka

An aperture cut into a solid wall creates a window. The Japanese living space reflects a rather diluted consciousness of windows as such, having never been built of stone or brick. In the West there is a history of "cutting windows" into the permanent, horizontally stacked timber walls of log houses. Japanese architecture, on the other hand, has earthen walls, portions of which are sometimes left unplastered, as in tearoom design, to expose their bamboo-lattice core—thus forming a window. This shows the deeply rooted sense of the wall as a screen-like object.

With the development of glass, houses worldwide began incorporating large-scale openings. It has often been said that modern architecture composed of simple walls and openings was influenced by traditional Japanese post-and-beam architecture, which similarly incorporates paneled and plastered walls with large openings and fixtures such as shoji. While this may be true, the underlying philosophies behind the two still differ somewhat. The Japanese sense the large glass panel not as a wall, but rather as a linkage of interior and exterior spaces. Europeans and Americans perceive the transparent wall as also being a form of enclosure. This was the subject of an interesting discussion among architects from Japan and the United States more than 40 years ago. The viewpoints still apply to the work of many young architects today. The difference, of course, is related to the Japanese climate, as reflected in the longstanding conviction that a Japanese house should be built for summer.

To this day, the people of Takayanagi, Niigata, live in thatch-roofed houses. Designed as the town meetinghouse, Hikari no Rakuya is a modern rendition of the vernacular house, clad in Japanese paper. At dusk, the light inside the building spills outside creating a dream-like scene.

Modulating light—done since ancient times with shoji, wooden lattice, and bamboo blinds—remains an element in Japanese living spaces today. Furthermore, an experimental consciousness linking traditional and contemporary thinking has begun to surface.

Architect Kengo Kuma's Hikari no Rakuya is a superb example: A meetinghouse for a charming little town of thatch-roofed houses surrounded by rice paddies, it has external walls composed of thin, vertical strips of alternating glass and shoji. The glass reveals the beautiful countryside beyond, and soft light fills the interior through the shoji. Inside, the floors, walls, beams, and pillars are wrapped in Japanese paper, imbuing the interior of the meeting hall, thatch-roofed like the all of the houses around it, with a quality of other-worldliness.

Built as the town meetinghouse, the building serves as a place of recreation and relaxation for Takayanagi's citizens. Designed by architect Kengo Kuma. Yasuo Kobayashi of Echigo Kadode Washi created the washi.

The concept of transparency behind the unique glass and paper walls reflects an utterly Japanese treatment of light. The strips of shoji, however, are fixed. Thus they are more wall than fixture, similar perhaps to panes of stained glass in Western architecture. In other words, the building is not easy to categorize into typical genres—Japanese, Western, traditional, contemporary—but rather it has blurred the borderlines.

Yasuo Kobayashi, a Japanese papermaker residing in the neighboring village, made all the washi by hand. To produce consistently delicate design, craftsmanship is of course essential. However, to ensure that the structure endures after completion, having a craftsman like this nearby to protect its integrity must be reassuring. The building seems to float on the rice paddies skirting its base. The paddies, the beautiful farmhouses, and the woods and hills beyond—all appear as part of the light enveloping this little meeting hall.

Meanwhile, in Japanese cities the nights are bright. Too bright. Streets, railway stations, offices, shops, vending machines—all vie in their brightness for people's use. The entire interior of convenience stores is luminous. Unfamiliar with the calming effect of balanced lightness and darkness, the Japanese perceive a dark city as desolate. While there has been repeated mention of reviewing the excessive brightness of cities, nothing has changed; rather, cities are calling for more brightness amid economic doldrums.


Like lattice doors, the thin, vertical strips of washi give people inside a view of the surroundings while screening the interior from those outside.

Conditions inside the home are much the same. Typically a single lighting fixture hangs from the middle of the ceiling over a small Japanese room, a custom that has its origins in the chandelier imported as a key element of interior style popularized in the Meiji period (1868-1912). And the Japanese have long maintained their admiration for radiant light overhead, no matter how dwarfed the form.

Local residents expressed considerable opposition to the proposed thatched roof on Hikari no Rakuya. While they cited maintenance difficulties and the roof's short life as reasons, the desire for a work of contemporary architecture surely swayed their judgment. Having ultimately won unanimous approval, this meetinghouse is all the more praiseworthy for naturally fitting into the space between traditional and contemporary. No doubt the residents experienced its true charm once they entered the completed building and saw its totally new rendition of light.

I can name many great craftsmen and artists producing extremely fine traditional work, and outstanding examples of contemporary architecture are also far from few. Yet in all these years, it is still difficult to come by comfortable, beautiful light—day or night—in our homes and cities. Even though light is one of the most critical needs in everyday living, it apparently takes time to treat it as something integral—a task far more difficult than designing the facade of a building or determining a floor plan.

Makoto Ueda, Architecture critic, editor in chief of Sumai Library Publishing Co.
Ueda has been active in the field of architectural criticism since working on the editorial staff of Kenchiku (Architecture) magazine and as editor in chief of Toshi jutaku (Urban Housing), launched in 1968. In 2003 he received the Architectural Institute of Japan's Appreciation Prize for Contribution to Enlightenment of Architectural Culture. He has authored Shugo-jutaku monogatari (Story of Collective Housing) and other works.

Articles from the 2004 SUMMER issue:

Kateigaho International Edition Issues:

2005 SUMMER - 2005 SPRING - 2005 WINTER

2004 AUTUMN - 2004 SUMMER - 2004 SPRING - 2004 WINTER

2003 AUTUMN - INAUGURAL ISSUE