Japanese Architecture Style

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Japan is one of the countries known for its different styles in architecture. Its different architectural forms vary between farm houses and grand imperial palaces. This diversity is due to the change in architectural styles that evolved from pre-historic to modern times. Early designs were influenced by Asian architecture and were imported from local tastes, but the recent history saw the introduction of Western architecture into Japan. Many architects have lived through the evolving of these different styles in architecture, and many have adopted a certain style. Yoshio Taniguchi is one of the most known architects who worked in Japan and abroad, and had the concepts of Japanese culture found deep down within his projects. Yoshio Taniguchi,…show more content…
It presents itself confidently as a supremely refined, neutral space for showing art, and its moments of cool elegance and transcending clarity can astonish. Yet its cavernous size, in places where the building's smooth rectilinear planes never seem to stop, can feel monotonous. The construction reaches an impressive precision in certain areas, such as in the glass-and-metal curtain walls; but borders on ragged in others, for example where the drywall ripples by the escalators. (Stephens, 2005) “ In Taniguchi’s subtly tailored galleries you have room to wander, to enjoy MoMA’s greatest hits in a variety of sequences and to get a clear look at everything ” said Peter Plagens. Many critics also commented on how the familiar masterpieces now seemed to shine, and that seemed to have been Taniguchi’s intention from the start. According to Robin Pogrebin “Without art, museum architecture should look unfinished; if it looks finished, it’s a very bad museum.” (Brennan,…show more content…
It was built 20 years ago, to accommodate the work of one of Japan’s first documentary photographers. The structure symbolizes greatly Taniguchi, since it depicts the theme of changing and spare space, which he still uses to this day. The museum was built on the banks of the Mogami River, next to a pond which did not exist when the architect first arrived to the site. He says, “I try to exploit the context of a site; if it’s not ideal, I try to make something by landscape design. If a site is good, it’s very easy to place any objects on it.” Other than its aesthetic contribution, this pond serves to orient the visitors as they walk through two different parts of the museum. The permanent photographic gallery is illuminated by overhead fluorescents hidden behind a ceiling grille, in order to protect the pictures from sunlight and thus causing them to fade. Furthermore, when moving from the gallery to the research center, the audiovisual room, or the memorial rooms, a visitor proceeds toward the pond on a ramp. Thanks to a wall of increasingly sized wide windows, the pond becomes progressively flooded with daylight. According to Taniguchi, “Movement is a very important element in my architecture; as you go through the corridor, you feel the space.” Another important feature in the museum is a window-framed vista of a Zen-like cascade of smooth pebbles,
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