Personal Statement Of Japan Architecture

Paul Goldberger, an American architectural critic once quoted, “Urbanism works when it creates the journey as desirable as the destination.”

Japan is described as a country of wood, and the reverence of natural materials. The depths of the love and admiration that the Japanese people have for wood are famous, which is similar to the Greek love of pristine marble and its smooth surfaces. This can be seen in an old Japanese expression "plants and trees all have something to say", Japanese believe that trees have a soul and say they can sense spirits, or "kami", within them. It is trees that form the core which nurtures the sensibilities about nature held by the Japanese people. It is thus natural for architecture in Japan to be based on wood. Many structures are made of wood, ranging from shrines and temples to palaces and homes, and in doing so grand structures have been created (Stokstad).

From the beginning of my architectural education I have been inspired and influenced by political realities and issues throughout Canada and the wider world. Discussions relating to how architecture participates in political change, conflict, movements, and other events have refined, shaped and sustained my interest in the field. Growing up in suburban Winnipeg I have been continuously struck by the lack of architectural authenticity, consideration and intention found on the fringes of the city. These monotonous architectural landscapes promote and enable political inactivity. Among and in-between the many strip malls, condominiums and stucco-clad houses, there is no space for political activism or protest. In a reality where consumerism

hometown of Newark, New Jersey becoming one of the most successful architects of our time.

Japans history dates back almost 53,000 years and is filled with interesting and fascinating events. Most of Japans actions have left the major world powers in the world stunned. The base of this amazing country is astonishing just by itself. The base is a bunch of active and large under water volcanoes. Japans uniqueness from the rest of the world ranges from its culture to its very interesting history to the change in government every few hundred years and their trading dilemma with petroleum and their assortment of fish that they export. Japan as a country is so very appealing and kind compared to the rest of the world its no wonder that it’s geographically separate from the rest of the world.

There is a movement among architects, city planners, designers and real estate developers that desire to return to a simpler way of living. A way of designing communities that at its essence captures the design traditions of years past while also avoiding some of the pitfalls of modern city development. A desire exists to avoid the prefabricated homes and endless urban sprawl of strip malls that have arisen all over the modern American landscape. Some see this as a return to classical traditions of city design that incorporates the rich architectural planning of traditional, small southern towns. For these people, the

First, let’s talk about Ise Jingu situated in Japan. It is the largest Shinto shrine located in the city of Ise. Millions of people make their pilgrimage to this shrine for either tourism or religious purposes. It holds a lot of both spiritual and historical value of Japan. Spiritually as the shrine was made in light of the Sun Goddess Amaterasu Omikami, and the traditional progenitor of the imperial Japanese family, later another God Toyaku Okami being another sacred being, being worshipped. (Pletcher) The architectural design of the shrine consists of many rows of buildings but the most distinct are two large huts, being the inner (Naiku) and outer shrine (Geku). (Pletcher) Naiku was first constructed, which had the Goddess of Amaterasu, later Geku with the intention of worshipping Toyaku Okami, the god of food and benevolence. (Pletcher) The shrine is surrounded by a thick forest, which the buildings were made from. Using the essence of nature, or “ke”, the priests and priestesses used the surrounding trees as the buildings blocks of the shrine, as the trees had much devotion and spirituality of the Japanese people.

“Japan has been alternatively receptive or closed to outside influences.” (Irving, Richard, & A.Stanley, Thomas, 2017). For centuries Japan was closed off from

Architecture should be nurturing, responsive and alive, dynamically shifting spatial balances, organically expressive forms, subtly luminous colors and biologically healthy. To achieve such life-enhancing architecture, it has to address all the body senses simultaneously and fuse our image of self with experience of the world. By strengthening our sense of self and reality, architecture serves its all-important function of accommodation and

As suggested by the title, this piece of literature attempts to highlight the importance of sensory experience in architecture. It is indeed a response to what the author terms as ‘ocularcentrism’ of Modern Architecture. Ocularcentrism is the act of prioritizing visual stimuli to all other sensory stimuli available to a human perception. He quotes famous German poet, Goethe, in his defense, “the hands want to see, the

It is hard to find a balance between having a proactive approach with maintain nature and abusing nature itself. The Shinto Shrine in Ise, Japan, and its residents (primarily priest of the Shinto religion), for decades are the best representation of how to have a balance of maintaining their culture and having a positive impact on nature by being proactive in their architecture and religion. This essay will cover how the builders of the Shinto Shrine, are benevolent towards the treatment of nature by combining both using dignity, purity their respect of their gods and spirts that the shrines are for. Additionally, this essay will try to find evidence on how the constant building and tearing down of the shrines affect nature, along with the

Coming to the United States for college from China was already quite eye-opening to me. The study abroad program to Italy opened up my horizon even more – I designed a memorial hall dedicated to the Nanking Massacre during WWII, and the moment that a dozen architects coming from Chinese, American, Italian, and other European backgrounds got together and shared their intelligent thoughts on the project really struck me. There were so many cultural and intellectual sparks colliding, and I felt substantial potential there. This is why I decided to take a summer off and travel around China to see different architectures and educate myself. Being a resident of three diverse environments has enabled me to integrate into other cultures, discover how they understand buildings, and imagine the greater potential for our built environment.

In my last year of L.Arch Undergraduate program, I started to think of what my future plan is, and what I want to achieve in my life in Landscape Architecture. I realized I have goals which can be achieved and dreams that can only be achieved through hard work and luck. To further elaborate, I will categorize them into short term goal, long term goal and advocator.

Different architects have different styles because they are trying to get at different things. Architecture is not just about making something beautiful anymore, it is about trying to get across a set of ideas about how we inhabit space. Two of the most famous architects of the twentieth century, one from each side, the early part and the later part up until today each designed a museum with money donated by the Guggenheim foundation. One of these is in New York City, it was designed by Frank Lloyd Wright. The other is in bilbao, Spain, and it was designed by Frank Geary. My purpose of this paper is to interrogate each of these buildings, glorious for different reasons, to show how each architect was expressing their own style.

Architecture can be viewed with two different types of properties. Properties that can be seen like shapes, their composition, the spaces they create and, the colours and textures that make up their appearance. These properties are considered to be visual while other properties are considered to be abstract. These properties can only be described using words; the meanings behind the architecture and the stories that can be told about it. The context, its cultural background and its function also affects how we view architecture. The question is, what