In the last two blogs, I discussed the relationship between body and space through painting. Today, let’s take a look at the relationship between body and space through architecture.
Tama Art University Library in Hachioji, Japan
Toyo Ito is a Japanese architect known for his conceptual architecture that continuously challenges the idea of contemporary city. He is critical of Ludwig Mies van der Rohe’s Euclidean grid for its lack of vitality. Ito wrote in his book Toyo Ito : The New "Real" that “most cities today … are virtually indistinguishable inorganic continuums of glass and steel, utterly artificial environments bearing no relation to nature.”
Seagram Building in New York City by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe and Philip Johnson
Indeed, modern architecture appears so perfectly minimalistic that it looks more like a machine than a man-made space. The industrial style makes the buildings and cities appear cold and distant as the program of the building overrides the pleasure of being inside it. Thus, there is a lack of connection between the built space and the occupants in and around it.
Seagram Building in New York City by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe and Philip Johnson
Thus, Toyo Ito proposed to shift these grids into spaces with more dynamism and fluidity by breaking the rigid walls and connecting architecture with nature and people.
Grin Grin is a greenhouse park in Fukuoka, Japan, designed by Toyo Ito in 2005. It consists of multiple different pathways that lead to various greeneries.
windows for daylight that appear like plant cells
plant cells
Ito adds fluidity to the architecture by using organic shapes: although he still uses grids as a supportive structure for large windows that let in day-light into the greenhouse, he breaks the rigid nature of grids by shifting them into curved patterns that resemble plant cells.
outdoor walkway
In addition, the walkways are intentionally curved to not only add dynamism into the work, but also interact with the people in that space as it changes their pathways from straight to a more playful sightseeing. Even the name of the park is playful: Grin Grin suggests a sense of vitality that is not seen in modern architecture.
indoor greenhouse
The connection between Grin Grin and nature is clear: it is surrounded by green plants, and there is an indoor greenhouse inside the building.
Another interesting twist of the grid is at the Serpentine Gallery pavilion in London, United Kingdom, designed by Toyo Ito, Cecil Balmond, Arup, and associates, where the grid is no longer rectangular, but in unpredictable, randomly placed triangles. The industrial material of glass is still used in this architecture but sometimes serves a rather decorative purpose rather than purely functional.
inside of Serpentine Gallery pavilion
One of my favourites is the Gifu Media Cosmos in Gifu, Japan designed in 2016. Toyo Ito indirectly connected the environment to the architecture. The roofs curve upwards to reflect the mountains that surround the city.
The interior ceilings are made by local carpenters and are curved to add organic shapes and dynamism to the interior space, especially in a library, a place that is usually thought of as serious and rigid.
furniture in Gifu Media Cosmos
arrangement of tables are also dynamic and are combined with Akari lamps
Most of the building and its furnitures are made of wood, which gives a natural texture and allows the occupants to immediately feel a sense of warmth, comfort, and an instinctive attachment to the space.
Multimedia Library in Sendai, Japan
To break the conventional modern architecture seen today, Toyo Ito merges the function of architecture with people’s pleasure and engagement of being inside a building through a dynamic play of grids, from rigid to fluid, environment, from artificial to natural, and material, from cold to warm, creating a space that brings people an immediate sense of delight and fulfillment.
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