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IDEAS / travel
words: Natalie Donat-Cattin
photos: Jian Yong Khoo
Close your eyes. If you do so you will hear the noise at the Shibuya Crossing and the smell of the sakura flowers in bloom in Shinjuku on an April’s day, while walking around Gyoen National Garden.
Close your eyes tighter. Do you feel the spatial tension? From the small labyrinth-streets of Nakano to the huge Roppongi’s skyscrapers, Tokyo paints the 21st century Japanese society on one single canvas. If you are willing to get lost in the city, do not stay on wider avenues. Follow less traced paths: you might find yourself turning the corner of a glass building to then end up on a narrow paved street, guarded by a series of human-animal-shaped sculptures. Suddenly everything is peaceful. Time has stalled. The only tinkle is that of the go-(y)en thrown in the name of hope (and luck!).
In Praise Of Shadows – “…what strikes the eye is the massive roof of tile or thatch and the heavy darkness that hangs beneath the eaves. Even at midday cavernous darkness spreads over all beneath the roof’s edge, making entryway, doors, walls, and pillars all but invisible.”
When the Milanese gallerist Massimo De Carlo gets taped on the wall and morphs into the artwork… are we human or are we art?
“La Tourette is in-situ cast concrete, and it reads as a singular structure in spite of its volumetric and formal complexities and apparently tectonic language. The monastery is suspended between earth and sky; it echoes the dark depths and gravity of the earth while reaching towards the sky, hovering weightlessly on its dense system of piloti. This building merges the opposing human dreams of flying and being buried in the earth…
The Rolex Learning Centre sprawls itself across a vast expanse of the EPFL campus, its striking undulations reminiscent of the nearby alps. The interior is a visual delight where artificial hills and valleys replace traditional partitions – prompting different kinds of occupation and spatial interactions.
The Grace Farms building, designed by SANAA nestles itself nicely into its context, offering various programmes for the community- all playfully placed under a long sinous roof.
architasters / project by Natalie Donat-Cattin and Jian Yong Khoo. It is a platform for speculation and discussion, functioning as a complementary repository for their design work.