Haunted by the agonizing pervasiveness of ghastly barrack-like structures of beton brut and the expanses of strip mall pavement of my [embarrassingly] suburban upbringing, I am unceasingly moved by the delicateness and sensitivity captured by Tadao Ando’s designs. I am strangely affected beyond the capabilities of painting and sculpture. While his concrete structures are inherently solid and massive, they are rendered powerless against the “shafts of sunlight [that] penetrate the stillness” (15 The Colours of Light) and rigidity of his in-situ cast concrete. Apertures through these massive concrete planes create a powerful dichotomy between corporeal and ethereal. In its silence–as in Zumthor’s “thinking architecture” as opposed to architecture that incessantly ‘talks’–lies its expressiveness. In its materiality–ambiguously “both organic and inorganic”–lies its power. Light delineates space rather than the concrete mass as it hits the sheen of the surface. Caught in the dialogue between simplicity and complexity, Ando achieves an incomparible lyricism and transparency so rarely realized by concrete.
- I highly recommend Tom Heneghan’s “Architecture and Ethics” and Peter Zumthor’s Thinking Architecture. Both beautifully explore conveying the human dimension of design through honesty of material.
