DECONSTRUCTIVISM AND

CRITICAL REGIONALISM

Submitted By-
Abhiniti Garg
Anurag Kamal
Manisha Jain
Navdha Kabra
 DECONSTRUCTIVISM
• It is a development in POST-MODERNISM that started in late 1980s.
• It views architecture in bits and pieces.
• It has no visual logic.
• Buildings may appear to be made of abstract forms.
• The idea was to develop buildings which show how differently from
traditional architectural conventions buildings can be built without
loosing their utility and still complying with the fundamental laws of
physics.
• The ideas were borrowed from the French philosopher, Jacques
Derrida.
• Architects involved –
– Zaha Hadid
– Bernhard Tschumi
– Rem Koolhaas
 GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS OF
DECONSTRUCTIVISM
• Explodes architectural form into loose collections of related fragments.
• Destroys the dominance of the right angle and the cube by using the
diagonal line.
• Uses ideas and images from Russian Revolutionary architecture and
design.
• Provokes shock, uncertainty, unease, disquiet, disruption, distortion by
challenging familiar ideas about space, order and regularity in the
environment.
• Rejects the idea of the `perfect form for a particular activity and rejects
the familiar relationship between certain forms and certain activities.
• Two strains of modern art, minimalism and cubism, have had an influence
on deconstructivism.
• Analytical cubism also had effect on deconstructivism, as forms and
content are dissected and viewed from different perspectives
simultaneously.
• It also often shares with minimalism notions of conceptual art.
 Zaha Hadid
• At the age of eleven in her native
Iraq, Zaha Hadid (b.1950) decided to
be an architect.
• “We can’t carry on as cake
decorators and do these nostalgic
buildings that have an intense
degree of cuteness; we have to take
on the task of investigating
modernity,” Hadid told an
interviewer.
• Her style is Deconstructivism
(breaking architecture, displacement
and distortion, leaving the vertical
and the horizontal, using rotations
on small, sharp angles, breaks up
structures apparent chaos)
• Using light volumes, sharp, angular
forms, the play of light and the
integration of the buildings with the
landscape.
 CONCEPT
• GRAVITY-DEFYING
• FRAGMENTARY
• REVOLUTIONARY
• A MAIN THEME OF HADIDS DESIGNS EXHIBITS
THAT A BUILDING CAN FLOAT AND DEFY
GRAVITY.
Museum of Art, XXI (MAXXI), Rome,Italy
• MAXXI, ROME MAXXI stands for ‘Museo nazionale
delle arti del XXI secolo’ (National Museum of 21st
Century Art). The museum will become the joint
home of the MAXXI Arts and MAXXI Architecture
and Italy’s first national museum solely dedicated
to contemporary arts.
• MAXXI was also the winner of the RIBA Stirling
Prize for the greatest contribution to British
architecture in 2010
• The MAXXI’s 27,000 sq m contain – in addition to
the two museums – an auditorium, a library and
media library, a bookshop, a cafeteria, temporary
exhibition spaces, various open spaces for live
events, commercial activities, workshops and
spaces of study and recreation.
• The building is a composition of
bending oblong tubes,
overlapping, intersecting and
piling over each other,
resembling a piece of massive
transport infrastructure.
• It acts as a tie between the
geometrical elements already
present. It is built on the site of
old army barracks between the
river tiber and via guido reni,
the centre is made up of spaces
that flow freely and
unexpectedly between interior
and exterior, where walls twist
to become floors or ceilings.
• The building absorbs the
landscape structures,
dynamizes them and gives them
back to the urban environment.
• The two museums – MAXXI Art and MAXXI
Architecture – rotate around a large, double
storey atrium, the point of connection with the
permanent collection galleries and temporary
exhibition spaces, the auditorium, reception
area, cafeteria and bookshop. Outside, a
pedestrian path follows the shape of the
building, slipping under its cantilevered volumes
and restoring an urban connection interrupted
for almost a century by the former military
structure.
• In opposition to the decisive architectural sign
that dominates the exterior spaces and the
atrium, a more sober spatial quality characterises
the exhibition halls that host the collections of
the two museums. A combination of glass (roof),
steel (stairs and columns) and concrete (walls)
defines the neutral appearance of the display
spaces, while moveable panels ensure the
flexibility of their use.
• The fluid and sinuous forms and the variation
and interweaving of different levels– assisted by
the modulated use of natural light – combine to
create a highly complex spatial and functional
experience that offers continuously different and
unexpected views, from the interior towards the
open spaces.
 The architecture of MAXXI
Two principle architectural elements
characterize the project:
• The concrete walls that define the
exhibition galleries and determine
the interweaving of volumes; and the
transparent roof that modulates
natural light.
• The roofing system complies with the
highest standards required for
museums and is composed of
integrated frames and louvers with
devices for filtering sunlight, artificial
light and environmental control.
• Galleries, Walkway and Materials
Located around a large full height space which
gives access to the galleries dedicated to
permanent collections and temporary
exhibitions, the auditorium, reception services,
cafeteria and bookshop. Outside, a pedestrian
walkway follows the outline of the building,
restoring an urban link that has been blocked
for almost a century by the former military
barracks in Rome. Materials such as glass
(roof), steel (stairs) and cement (walls) give the
exhibition spaces a neutral appearance, whilst
mobile panels enable curatorial flexibility and
variety.
The pedestrian path that crosses the campus
follows the soft lines of the museum, slipping
under its cantilevered volumes. The interior of
the building presents visitors with a glimpse of
numerous views and openings that cross the
structure: on the one hand protecting its
contents between its solid walls, on the other
inviting visitors to enter through its large
glazed surfaces on the ground floor.
• Sinuous shape
The fluid and sinuous shapes, the
variety and interweaving of spaces
and the modulated use of natural
light lead to a spatial and
functional framework of great
complexity, offering constantly
changing and unexpected views
from within the building and
outdoor spaces.
• MAXXI casts aside the idea of the
“closed” building in favour of a
broader dimension that extends
the interior spaces into the exterior
spaces around the building, open
to the entire neighbourhood.
 El Phaeno
• LOCATION:
Wolfsburg, Germany. This being the biggest factory in
Europe, employing more than 50,000 people, is home to
some 120,000 inhabitants. And receives an average of a
million and a half visitors a year. Located in the city center,
in an area between the commercial and office. A pass
around high speed trains, to the Mittelland canal bank.
• Science Museum:
In seeking to be more than the "city volkswagen" she was
commissioned to launch the idea of creating a museum
dedicated to engage children and young people to the
world of physics, biology and chemistry, in a didactic way.
This offers a different option for visitors, with its traditional
theme park Autostadt and the Volkswagen museum.
Receiving a 180mil visitors annually.
• Urban Analysis
The building appears in the landscape as a connecting
element between the two parts of the city, establishing a
direct relationship with the city and move through it.
Multiple paths pedestrian and vehicle motion is in the
terrain place either inwards or through building composing
a displacement interconnection routes.
INDEX
1. EXPOSITION
2. EMPTY
3. PUB
4. LABORATORY
5. STAIRS
6. RAMP AND BRIDGE
INDEX OF LOW LEVEL
1. SQUARE
2. RAMP
3. ENTRY
4. PUB
5. DEPARTURE
6. AUDIENCE
7. LOCAL
8. EVENT
• Landscape:
It appears as a mysterious object that arouses curiosity
and discovery. The terrain passes underneath the
volume as an artificial landscape with rolling hills and
valleys that stretch around the square. The Center
captures the surrounding landscape dynamics in
elongated form off the ground, in aventajamientos
crashes and walls that give the illusion that the building
is moving. The public path leads bridge-like woodworm-
hole inside the building, promoting interaction between
the inside and outside which enables, as in floor, a
fusion of both.
• Spaces:
The building allows people to walk and climb down one
part of the pavement to get inside. In other places, the
ground floor takes visitors to a public square.
Downstairs open broad prospects, exposing the context
of the city, between the concrete cones.
• The building does not tread the earth completely. Much
stands on a square with a series of large inverted
conical shapes with rounded corners that act as legs
and give an effect of weightlessness.
• Among them develop various functions as a library, conference
rooms and an auditorium for 250 people.
• Techniques and materials:
Concrete: The roof structure is steel.
Facade: Has only large portions of concrete.
Glazed areas: They used large glass shades. Furthermore you can
see skylights, respecting the diamond pattern was made in the
concrete. Were used in construction, 27 cubic meters of concrete
and more than 3,500 steel beams.
• The "cones”
So called piles, appointed by the architect as cones, which are
widening as rise. There are 10 of them and each one is identified by
its curvature and tilt. These piles are inhabited with windows, and
sliding glass doors.
 Temporary tensile structures, Lilas
Installations, London, 2003
• The Serpentine Summer Party Installation is designed as an open air space raising 5.5m that consists of three
identical tensile fabric structures or parasols arrayed around a central point. Each parasol develops sculpturally
from a small articulated base to a large cantilevered diamond shape.
• Taking inspiration from complex natural geometries such as flower petals and leaves, the three parasols overlap to
create the pavilion’s main conceptual feature: complex symmetry, interweaving all-the-while without touching,
allowing air, light and sound to travel through narrow gaps in a state that is both open and likewise tending toward
closure.
• Raised on a low platform located within an open field flanked by a row of trees just South of the Serpentine
Gallery, the Serpentine Summer Party Pavilion is free standing and accessible from all sides.
• Accommodating movement throughout the site, the Pavilion is enigmatic. In the day it provides shading, while at
night the pavilion undergoes an energetic transformation into a source of illumination. From continuous lighting
around each base, light is thrown up the fabric surfaces along very thin seams that radiate about the parasols that
act like corseting or the veining of flowers revealing the geometric intricacy of the pavilion and highlighting the
overall architectural form in calligraphic arcs.
• SIZE/AREA:
Height 5.5 m
Width 22.5 m
Length 22.5 m
Total Floor Area 310 m2
Centre for Contemporary Art, Cincinnati
Cincinnati's Contemporary Arts Center is the
first built project in the United States
In response to the metropolitan setting of the
building, Hadid developed the concept of the
"urban carpet", to draw in pedestrian traffic
inherent to a downtown area. The "urban
carpet" is articulated by a seamless run of
concrete that begins outside the building,
continues into the mezzanine level and
eventually curves upward at the far end of the
building behind the stairs.
 ZHA Nordpark Cable Railway,Innsbruck, Austria
• In the project there are four stations.
The scenic railway, which serves ski
stations in the mountains above the
city.
• The concepts of “Shell & Shadow”
generate each station’s spatial quality.
• A lightweight organic roof structure
floats on top of a concrete plinth. The
fluid shapes and soft contours give the
appearance of glacier movements.
• New production methods like CNC
milling and thermoforming allow
computer generated designs to be made
into buildings structure.
• Parts of the building look like cars,
aeroplane wings, yachts. Large
cantilevers and small touch down areas
give a floating appearance to the shells.
 BERNHARD TSCHUMI
• Decon follies (like Tschumi’s
pavilions at La Villettein Paris)
seek to promote dislocation, not
provide cosyshelter. Decon is
mostly paper architecture, in
which many of designs
published in magazines are
clearly unbuildable: girders
projecting at weird angles into
air, beams that pierce space like
pins in a voodoo doll, and
columns without function seem
to violate laws of gravity.

The designs create non-sensual sculptures for an irrational world. “Making

things fit doesn’t make sense anymore,” the Swiss-born Tschumi said.
 Principles
• Form follows fiction.
• Theory of timelessness.
• Red is not a colour.
• Point, Line and Surface theory.
Six Concepts
• Technologies of Defamiliarization
• The Mediated “Metropolitan” shock
• De-structuring
• Superimposition
• Crossprogramming
• Events : The Turning point
 Parc de la Villette, Folies, 1982-97
• Over 1 kilometer long in one direction C and
700 meters wide in the other La Villette appears
as a multiple programmatic field, containing in
addition to the park, the large Museum of
Science and Industry, a City of Music, a Grande
Hall for exhibitions and a rock concert hall.
• The basis of the design is the superimposition
of three independent systems, namely: Points
Lines Surfaces
Superimposition: lines, points, surfaces.
 Points
• The folies are placed according to a point-grid
coordinate system at 120 meter intervals
throughout the park. The form of each is a basic 10
x 10 x 10 meter cube or three-story construction of
neutral space that can be transformed and
elaborated according to specific programmatic
needs. Taken as a whole, the folies provide a
common denominator for all of the events
generated by the park program.
• The repetition of folies is aimed at developing
clear symbol for the park, a recognizable identity.
• Their grid provides a comprehensive image or
shape for the otherwise ill-defined terrain.
• Similarly, the regularity of routes and positions
makes orientation simple for those unfamiliar with
the area. An advantage of the point-grid system is
that it provides for the minimum adequate
equipment of the urban park relative to the
number of its visitors.
 Lines
• The folie grid is related to a larger
coordinate structure, an orthogonal
system of high-density pedestrian
movement that marks the site with
a cross.
• The North-South passage or
Coordinate links the two Paris gates
and subway stations of Porte de la
Villette and Porte de Pantin, the
East- West Coordinate joins Paris to
its western suburbs.
• A 5 meter wide, open, waved
covered structure runs the length of
both Coordinates.
 Surfaces
• The park surfaces receive all
activities requiring large
expanses of horizontal space for
play, sports and exercise, mass-
entertainment, markets and so
forth.
• During summer nights, for
example, the central green
becomes an open air film
theater for 3,000 viewers. The
so called left over surfaces
where all aspects of the
program have been fulfilled, are
composed of compacted earth
and gravel.
 New Acropolis Museum, Athens
• A movement concept
The visitors route forms a clear three-
dimensional loop, affording an
architectural promenade with a rich
spatial experience extending from the
archaeological excavations to the
Parthenon Marbles and back through
the Roman period.
• Movement in and through time is a
crucial dimension of architecture, and of
this museum in particular.
• With over 10,000 visitors daily, the
sequence of movements through the
museum artifacts is conceived to be of
utmost clarity.
• ORGANISATION
The Museum is conceived as a base, a
middle zone and a top, taking its form
from the archaeological excavation below
and from the orientation of the top floor
toward the Parthenon.
• Tectonic & programmatic concept
The base of the museum design contains
an entrance lobby overlooking the
Makriyianni excavations as well as
temporary exhibition spaces, lobby,
retail, and all support facilities. The base
hovers over the excavation on more than
100 slender concrete pillars.
 Mid – level Plan
• The middle (which is
trapezoidal in plan) is
a double-height space
that soars to 10
meters (33 feet),
accommodating the
galleries from the
Archaic to the late
Roman period.
• A Mezzanine features
a bar and restaurant
(with a public terrace
looking out toward
the Acropolis) and
multimedia space.
 Top level Plan
• The top is the rectangular,
glass- enclosed, skylight
Parthenon Gallery, over 7
meters high and with a floor
space of over 2,050 square
meters (22,100 square ft).
• It is shifted 23 degrees from
the rest of the building to
orient it directly toward the
Acropolis.
• The building’s concrete core,
which penetrates upward
through all levels, becomes
the surface on which the
marble sculptures of the
Parthenon Frieze are
mounted. The core allows
natural light to pass down to
the Caryatids.
 REM KOOLHAAS: THE CULTURE OF
CONGESTION
• The Dutch architect Rem Koolhaas
(b.1944) believes architecture should be
a dangerous, risk-taking enterprise. His
vision of dynamic between an architect
and the megalopolis informs his work.
• Koolhaas’s hallmark is the inventive use
of inexpensive industrial materials like
plywood and plastic.
• He seeks to preserve the immediacy of
improvised sketching in his inventive
designs.
• An urbanist and thinker as well as
builder, Koolhaas has a hybrid cast of
mind that puts subversive kinks into
Modernist forms.
 Philosophy
• Interpretation of post-modern metabolism
• Idea that mega-structures should emerge
organically from the community and culture to
meet contemporary needs
Seattle Central Library, Seattle, USA, 2004
•The Seattle Central Library redefines the library as
an institution no longer exclusively dedicated to the
book, but as an information store where all potent
forms of media.
• Central library for Seattle’s 28-branch library
system, including 33,700 sq m of hq, reading room,
book spiral, mixing chamber, meeting platform,
living room, staff floor, children’s collection, and
auditorium, and 4,600 sq m of parking.
• Floors - 11+1 basement level
• From the outside , you can see a large glass
building , straight lines that intersect. It is
articulated by large blocks at different levels
corresponding to the library premises .
• The " spiral " , was a new way of delivering books
to customers within a library system . Instead of
books on different shelves and floors, the spiral
inclined allowed a continuous row of books that
make them " easy to navigate " .
 Concept
• The concept involves the reinvention of the library as an access point to
information presented in a variety of media "The new library does not
reinvent or modernize traditional , they are just packaged in a new way ,"
explain in the OMA study.
• Koolhaas applied its interpretation of the feature set and architecture for
the project that the building would be flexible for future expansions.
• Flexibility in contemporary libraries is conceived as the creation of generic
floors on which almost any activity can be developed.
• This form of flexibility , the library strangles the very attractions that
differentiate it from other information resources .
• Instead of its current ambiguous flexibility , the library could cultivate a
more refined approach in organizing spatial compartments, each dedicated
to and equipped for specific services.
 Paces
• Inside the building, a spiral structure
provides a continuous surface with coated
side shelves that offer different themed
collections. These ramps are supported on
slender columns constructed economically .
• The interior is divided into 5 distinguishable
blocks from the outside :
1. the parking area
2. public reading area
3. café deployed in the large atrium
4. main library space ,and reading rooms
and
5. administration, all them culminates in a
terrace on the roof.
• The third floor of the library is called "living
room ".
• The Book Spiral implies a
reclamation of the much-
compromised Dewey Decimal
System. By arranging the
collection in a continuous
ribbon— running from 000 to
999—the subjects form a
coexistence that approaches the
organic; each evolves relative to
the others, occupying more or
less space on the ribbon, but
never forcing a rupture.
• The main feature of the interior
is its large public spaces and
leisure reading , illuminated with
natural light coming through the
glass walls .
• The building is covered by a
striking glass and steel structure .
INNOVATIONS IN ENERGY EFFICIENCY
• The library exceeds Seattle’s
energy code by 10 percent.
• The expected energy savings
would power at least 125
homes.
• Better shading effect than
most tinted glass buildings,
without the undesirable
darkening.
• Diagonal grid system :
protection against
earthquake or wind damage
 CCTV Headquarters, Beijing
• The tower redefines the form of the skyscraper,
with the primary system comprised of a
continuous structural tube of columns, beams
and braces around the entire skin of the
building.
• Rising from a common platform the two towers
lean towards each other and eventually merge
in a perpendicular, 75-meter cantilever.
• Completion
2011
Height
234 m (768 ft)
Stories
49
Primary Use
Office
Area
473000.0 sqm
• The CCTV Headquarters
combines the entire process of
TV-making into a loop of
interconnected activities. Two
structures rise from a common
production platform that is
partly underground.
• Each has its own character: one
is dedicated to broadcasting,
the second to services, research
and education; they join at the
top to create a cantilevered
penthouse for the television
management.

Interconnected Activities
• The design of the CCTV then aims to
reinvent the tall building by creating a
truly three-dimensional experience; a
canopy that symbolically embraces the
entire population, as oppose to a
predictable two-dimensional tower that
points only skywards.
• The creation of a continuous series of
spaces and activities will promote the
building as a giant social catalyst – a city
in itself – where 10,000 employees will
work and thousands of visitors will gain
an insight into the functioning of all
aspects of a television station. Circulation Loop
• The diagrid (triangulated steel tubes)
provides maximum flexibility for the
bespoke planning of the interiors, since
bracing is not needed within the floor
plates. This allows large studio spaces to be
laid out within the towers. It has enabled
the Overhang section to be constructed
without the need for temporary propping,
since the braced skin provided stability as
the steelwork was cantilevered out from
the towers. This type of structure has a
high degree of inherent robustness and
redundancy, due to the potential for
adopting alternative load paths in the
unlikely event a key element’s removal.
• The self-supporting hybrid facade structure
features high performance glass panels
with a sun shading of 70 percent open
ceramic frit, creating the soft silver-grey
color that gives the building a surprisingly
subtle presence in the Beijing skyline.
 'MAISON À BORDEAUX'

A wealthy married couple with three children lived in a very old and beautiful house in Bordeaux
in France. For many years this family was thinking about building a new home, planning how it
could be and wondering who the architect would be. Suddenly, the husband had a car accident
and almost lost his life. Now he needs a wheelchair. The old beautiful house and the medieval
city of Bordeaux had now become a prison for him. The family started to think about their new
house again but this time in a very different way.
The married couple bought a hill with a panoramic view over the city and approached the Dutch
architect Rem Koolhaas in 1994. The husband explained to him: "Contrary to what you might
expect, I do not want a simple house. I want a complicated house because it will determine my
world."
 Circulation in the new house.
Instead of designing a house on one floor which would ease the movements of the wheelchair, the architect
surprised them with an idea of a house on three levels, one on top of each other. The ground floor, half-
carved into the hill, accommodates the kitchen and television room, and leads to a courtyard. The bedrooms
of the family are on the top floor, built as a dark concrete box. In the middle of these two levels is the living
room made of glass where one contemplates the valley of the river Garonne and Bordeaux's clear outline.
The wheelchair has access to these levels by an elevator platform that is the size of a room, and is actually a
well-equipped office. Because of its vertical movements, the platform becomes part of the kitchen when it is
on the ground floor; links with the aluminium floor on the middle level and creates a relaxed working space
in the master bedroom on the top floor. In the same way that the wheelchair can be interpreted as an
extension of the body, the elevator platform, created by the architect, is an indispensable part of the
handicapped client. This offers him more possibilities of mobility than to any other member of the family-
only he has access to spaces like the wine cellar or the bookshelves made of polycarbonate which span from
the ground floor to the top of the house, and thus respond to the movement of the platform.
Experiencing the house.
Koolhaas designed a
complex house in itself
and surpassed the
conventional, in every
detail. For example, the
top floor rests on three
legs. One of these legs, a
cylinder that includes the
circular staircase of the
house, is located off-
centre. Although this
displacement brings an
instability to the house, it
gains equilibrium by
placing a steel beam over
the house which pulls a
cable in tension. The first
question that the visitor
asks is: what happens if
the cord is cut? Koolhaas
has created a structure
which, equal to the life of
the client, depends on a
cable.
Experiencing the house.
This arrangement provides the
middle level with an
uninterrupted view over the
surrounding landscape, and an
effect that is intensified with
the highly polished finish of the
stainless steel cylinder which
incorporates the stairs, and
makes it disappear into the
landscape. The middle level is a
balcony where the top floor
floats above. It is a glazed space
which allows the wheelchair to
confuse the nature outside with
the interior of the house. In
contrast, the same landscape
receives another treatment
from the top floor. The view
appears restricted and
predetermined, framed by
circular windows placed
according to whether one
stands, sits or lays down
Experiencing the house.
Inside the house the
family experiences
Koolhaas's
interpretations of life's
instability and dualities.
In regards to the
husband, he has
experienced this
instability and is now
part of his own self. In
the same way that the
umbilical cord belongs
both to the mother and
the baby, and gives it
nutrition; the elevator
platform connects the
husband to the house
and offers him a
liberation.
 CRITICAL REGIONALISM
• The term ‘Critical Regionalism’ was first coined by Alexander Tzonis and
Liane Lefaivre and later more famously and pretentiously by Kenneth
Frampton in “Towards a Critical Regionalism : Six points of an architecture
of resistance”
• According to Frampton, critical regionalism should adopt modern
architecture critically for its universal progressive qualities but at the same
time should value responses particular to the context. Emphasis should be
on topography, climate, light, tectonic form rather than scenography and
the tactile sense rather than the visual.
• According to Tzonis and Lefaivre, critical regionalism need not directly
draw from the context, rather elements can be stripped of their context
and used in strange rather than familiar ways.
• Critical regionalism is different from Regionalism which tries to achieve a
one-to-one correspondence with vernacular architecture in a conscious
way without consciously partaking in the universal.
• It is considered a particular form of post-modern response in developing
countries, not to be confused with postmodernism as architectural style.
• Architects involved are-
– Alvar aalto
– Raj Rewal
– Tadao Ando
– Charles Correa
– B V Doshi
 TADAO ANDO
• The idea of stability against the dynamic of
change and volatility against the superficial
use of modernism (Metabolism was a
movement in the 1960s which proposed a
new urbanism based on the city as an
organism requiring change and renewal.
• The movement saw technology as an
extension to humanity and advocated the
use of pre-fabricated plug-in units or
capsules, which could be arranged
interchangeably on a core mega structure,
facilitating the changing needs of the city.)
microcosmic interiority and territorial
delineation.
• Concept of creating ‘shintai’
• Concept of ‘engawa’(Fort Worth Modern
Art Museum)
• Ando’s use of long corridors and
passageways, for example, can be traced to
the alley-like spaces among townhouses in
Japan.
 Azuma house, Sumiyoshi, Japan
• This territorial articulation is
exemplified by Ando’s Sumiyoshi
House (1975 -1976) which boxes
itself against its suburban
neighbours.
• The walls of the house wrap
around the site perimeter.
• All that faces the street is a
blank concrete façade with a
single door.
• The interior is punctuated by an
open court which contains the
only connecting path from one
room to another, exposing the
inhabitants to the natural
elements
• Built between medians, this apartment is
perched on a lot of 57.3 m². The total square
footage of 64.7 m² is divided into three equal
sections: two floors and a patio.
• This box of concrete occupies the entire site. The
building, centripetal as far as its organization, has
a tripartite structure centered around an
uncovered patio.
• The reinforced concrete used in this house is
presented as the ornamentation for the facade.
 Ando’s definition of “vernacular”
• Ando recognizes the disjuncture between the traditional
Japanese way of life, and the way of life introduced to
Japan in the post war period. He seeks to justify his
departure from the vernacular.
• Thus, Ando does not address regionalism through the mere
simulation of traditional timber construction or the use of
evocative domestic elements like the shoji screen or the
tatami mat, apparently denying the nostalgic ethos which
such vernacular elements would imply.
• Instead, Ando’s architecture gives rise to a revitalized
Japanese feeling for the interplay of light, material and
detail, which can be traced to the history of Japanese
farmhouses (minka) where light filtering through
clerestories produce sharp contrasts of light and shade.
 Rokko Housing
• The Rokko Housing Project is
characterized by the steep 60 degree
slope of the site located at the foot of Mt
Rokko. Avoiding the modernist tabula
rasa approach of levelling the site, Ando
chose to situate his building on the severe
slopes to make a “quiet building standing
quietly in nature,” one that preserves the
tectonic quality of the rugged Mountains.
• “direct dialectical relation with nature,” a
dialog with the environment that Ando’s
architecture embodies in the articulation
of structure through the changing impact
of light and terrain.
• In Rokko Housing, these passageways
were intended to be activated by the
interpenetration of public and private
realms so that one can get a sense of the
life in each housing unit.
• The houses were built with strong relationships between
public and private spaces, through the concept of public
traffic and terraces, where the residents. In turn, each
household seeks to reaffirm its own individuality, different
spaces, terraces, views, and relationships between them.
• I Rokko is based on a grid of twenty modules in plant and
increase of 5.80 x 4.80 meters from the sites that are
organized.
• Rokko II is structured around a central staircase and
contains 50 homes designed on a uniform grid of 5.20
meters behind. The second set of spaces are wider and
more luxurious than in the first case. This set has an indoor
pool.
• Rokko III is L-shaped built on three levels. It has 174
apartments, with garden terrace on the roof of each home.
Fort Worth Modern Art Museum, Texas
• Concept of engawa
• Concept of territorial
delineation.
• It houses more that 2,600
significant works of
modern and
contemporary
international art in it's
53,000 square feet of
gallery space.
• The Museum exemplifies it's
simple geometry, incorporation
of the natural environment, and
very minimal material
selections. Five long, flat-roofed
pavilions appear to float atop
the 1.5-acre reflecting pond.
• Constructed with only concrete,
steel, aluminium, glass and
granite, the museum is
perfectly reflected in the
surrounding pond.
• By using glass as a wall, physically there is
a barrier, a protection from the outside,
but visually there is no boundary
between outside and inside. There is also
the light that comes off the water
through the glass that indicates a lack of
boundary and can make its presence felt
on the wall.
• Light also became key in the design of
the museum, with an emphasis on both
diffused and reflected natural light.
Cantilevered cast-concrete roofs support
linear skylights and clerestory windows,
which accommodate natural light. Five Y-
shaped columns standing 40 feet high
support the roof slabs, and have become
a symbol of the museum.
THANKYOU