Nothingness Tadao Ando’s Christian Sacred Space The Christian architecture of Tadao Ando, one of the most celebrated contemporary architects, has acquired a monumental status in post-war religious architecture. This book explores the cultural significance of Ando’s works such as the Church of the Light (1989) in reference to the Buddhist idea of nothingness. Specifically, this book situates the works within the legacy of nothingness expounded by Kitarō Nishida (1870–1945), the father of the Kyoto Philosophical School, and its theory of perception and shintai, or the Japanese term for body. The interview text with Ando found in this volume elucidates his conception and embodiment of sacred space as it pertains to nothingness, the relationship between his residential architecture and Christian architecture, and his design approach to the Museum of Kitarō Nishida’s Philosophy (2002). Jin Baek is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Architecture at Pennsylvania State University. His research interests include cross-cultural issues between East Asia and the West in architecture and urbanism. To my family Nothingness Tadao Ando’s Christian Sacred Space Jin Baek First published 2009 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada by Routledge 270 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016, USA Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2009. To purchase your own copy of this or any of Taylor & Francis or Routledge’s collection of thousands of eBooks please go to www.eBookstore.tandf.co.uk. © 2009 Jin Baek All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Baek, Jin, 1969– Nothingness : Tadao Ando’s Christian sacred space / Jin Baek. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. 1. Ando, Tadao, 1941—Criticism and interpretation. 2. Architecture—Japan—History— 20th century. 3. Architecture and religion. 4. Architecture and philosophy—Japan. 5. Nothing (Philosophy) I. Title. NA1559.A5B34 2009 726.5092—dc22 2008052889 ISBN 0-203-64281-3 Master e-book ISBN ISBN10: 0-415-47853-7 (hbk) ISBN10: 0-415-47854-5 (pbk) ISBN10: 0-203-64281-8 (ebk) ISBN13: 978-0-415-47853-3 (hbk) ISBN13: 978-0-415-47854-0 (pbk) ISBN13: 978-0-203-64281-8 (ebk) Contents Acknowledgements vii Introduction 1 Notes 15 chapter one Emptiness and Christianity 19 Emptiness within Christianity 19 Return to Emptiness 24 Notes 31 chapter two The School of Things (Mono-ha) and its Criticism of Modernity 35 The Emergence of the School of Things and Space Design 36 The School of Things and Anti-Semiotics 40 The School of Things and Nothingness 43 Notes 53 chapter three Nothingness, Shintai and Christian Theology 59 Kitarō Nishida’s Philosophy of Nothingness 59 Nothingness and Shintai 66 Nothingness and Christian Theology 72 Notes 80 chapter four Emptiness and the Cross 89 Emptiness and the Demise of Symbols 89 The Cross between Romanticism and Barbarism 96 Emptiness filled with Situational Appearance 101 Metaphysical Light and Phenomenal Light 112 Dark, Light and Gold 115 Notes 119 contents v chapter five Emptiness, the Cross and Shintai 127 Shintai and Corporeality of Architectural Elements 127 Body Attuned 130 The Penetrating Light and the Cross in Efficacy 136 Seeing in Emptiness 142 Beyond Solitude 143 The Sublime 147 Notes 152 Conclusion 159 Notes 170 appendix Interview with Tadao Ando 173 Index 205 Image credits 211 contents vi Acknowledgements This book grew out of my doctoral dissertation entitled Empty Cross: Nothingness and the Church of the Light, which I finished in 2004 under the guidance of Joseph Rykwert and David Leatherbarrow. Accordingly, I would like to express my deep thanks to Joseph and David for their patient guidance during my doctoral study and for their continuous support of my scholarship until now. As a matter of fact, my words here can acknowledge but only a little of the intellectual nourishment and affection I have received from them. Their criticisms combined with, in Joseph’s case, shouts and smiles, and, in David’s case, unfathomable taciturnity always propelled me towards transcending my narrow architectural compass. It was another piece of luck for me to be guided during my doctoral study by William LaFleur, the E. Dale Saunders Professor of Japanese Studies at the University of Pennsylvania. I thank him for leading me to a fuller understanding of the philosophy of the Kyoto School and its relationship with Western intellectual traditions. In the process of modifying the dissertation into a book, I have reduced the part on the philosophy of Kitarō Nishida, the father of the Kyoto School, focusing more on its architectural content. Some parts of the book have previously been published: “Shintai and the Empty Cross: Tadao Ando’s Church of the Light” in Architectural Theory Review (editors: Gevork Hartoonian and Anna Rubbo), “The Sublime and the Azuma House by Tadao Ando” in Architectural Research Quarterly (editor: Richard Weston), “From ‘the Topos of Nothingness’ to ‘The Space of Transparency’: the Influence of Kitarō Nishida’s Notion of the Body on Art and Architecture (1)” in Philosophy East and West (editor: Roger T. Ames), and “The Perception of Self-Negation in the Space of Emptiness: The Primitive of Tadao Ando’s Azuma House” in Primitive: Original Matters in Architecture (editors: Jo Odgers, Flora Samuel and Adam Sharr; Routledge Press, 2006). I would like to express my thanks to the editors for the opportunity I had to explore the relationship between nothingness, on the one hand, and art and architecture, on the other, and for their permission to reproduce some parts of the publications in this book. Another article that addresses my interest in Nishida’s nothingness appeared under the title “Kitarō Nishida’s Philosophy of Emptiness and Its Architectural Significance” in The Journal of Architectural Education (executive editor: George Dodds; theme editors: Julio Bermudez and Thomas Barrie). I also thank these editors for their support of my scholarship. I would also like to acknowledge the support I have received from the following scholars, primarily during my doctoral study: Nadir Lahiji, Brian Brace Taylor, Peter McCleary, Nicholas Temple and David Brownlee. I also thank several scholars who visited the School of Design, University of Pennsylvania, to share their knowledge and acknowledgements vii insights with doctoral students: Sokratis Georgiadis, Anthony Vidler, Alberto Perez- Gomez, Kenneth Frampton, and Dalibor Vesely. I especially thank Dalibor for the series of insightful conversations on intellectual traditions in Europe and Asia, for allowing me to read his personal papers, and for his continuous support of my scholarship. I would also like to take this opportunity to express thanks to the teachers I had during my two years of study at Yale. As a student from East Asia who nevertheless had a strong desire to engage fully in intellectual discussions, I found this period particularly difficult. I thank the following teachers for their patient guidance and education: Peggy Deamer, Silvia Kolbowski, Christopher Wood, Thomas Hanrahan, Thomas Beeby, the late Samuel Mockbee, Fred Koetter, Jeffrey L. Klug, and Esther da Costa Meyer. In particular, I am greatly indebted to Peggy for her kindness and continuous support. In addition, without taking account of my student days at Seoul National University, my portrayal of how I was nurtured would be incomplete. I thank my teachers at the University: Sung- Mok Hong, Hyun-Chul Kim, Jin-Kyoon Kim, Kwang-Hyun Kim, Kwang-Woo Kim, Woo- Gab Shim, and Jang-Seob Yoon. To my deep appreciation, some of them continue to extend care and affection till now. My research included two long-term field trips and a couple of short visits to Japan. I cannot express my gratitude enough to Hisao Kohyama, the Professor Emeritus of the University of Tokyo. His heartfelt support for my visits to Japan, my stays in Tokyo and my research at the University of Tokyo remain unforgettable. I also thank Hidetoshi Ohno of the University of Tokyo for his guidance of my research activities at the university and for the relationship of collegiality that continues until today. I confess that I am unable to remember all the names of the Japanese scholars whom I met to seek support in one way or another. However, the following names come to my mind: Ken- ichi Sasaki, Ohashi Ryosuke, Haruo Okuma, Fujio Maeda, Akiko Kato-Ueji, Kenjiro Hosaka, Kinya Maruyama, Tsutomu Iyori, Yasuhiko Nishigaki, and Hideto Kawakami. Kawakami sensei kindly took me to show some of the early modern churches in the Nagasaki area. I am grateful to Tadao Ando and his staff members, including Yumiko Ando, Kulapat Yantrasast, and Kaori Soneda, for their hospitality during my stays in Osaka and their support of my work in various ways, including the supply of drawings and photos. Ufan Lee made time in a busy schedule so that I could interview him and deepen my understanding of the School of Things (Mono-ha). The hospitality of Moritaka Nakamura and Michiko Nakamura of Kamakura Gallery still remains a memorable moment. They spared time to share some ideas about Japanese contemporary art and showed me and nothingness: tadao ando’s christian sacred space viii my wife works of the School of Things. They also helped me in acquiring images of art works for this publication. I also thank Ayako Ashizawa of the Gallery for guiding me with practical matters regarding the acquisition of the images. I express my thanks to Gen Okuma, a curator in the Museum of Kitarō Nishida’s Philosophy, for his encouraging words and provision of photos of the Museum. I also thank Keiichi Taira, the inaugural editor of Space Design, for sparing his time for an interview. I also received unexpectedly generous aid from the following Japanese individuals in the matter of acquiring images for this book: Akira Tsukahara of the Kobe City Museum, the deceased Ryusen Miyahara and his family members, Koichiro Yoshida of the Kosei Publishing Company, Takako Fujimoto of Arata Isozaki and Associates, Chiyoko Iwanami of the Tomo Publishing Inc., Ayako Akaogi of the Kodansha International Ltd., Kaori Haga of the National Museum of Western Art, Hiroaki Misawa, a photographer who compiled churches in Nagasaki and the islands of Gottoretto, and Nobuo Sekine of the Environmental Art Studio. I would like to thank many of my friends and colleagues for their ongoing inspiration. In particular, I thank the following people who read the drafts of this work, offering invaluable comments and editorial assistance: Peter L. Laurence, Beverly Frank, and Frederic Simmons. I also thank Richard Conrath from whom I often acquired editorial support. I also thank Alex Hollingsworth and Georgina Johnson of the Routledge Press for their kind and patient guidance. As an author working on his first book, I demanded an extra amount of care, and Alex and Georgina guided me through the processes patiently. I would also like to thank Alex Lazarou. Alex transformed the manuscript into the beautiful pages in this book. I also appreciate very much his patient handling of the numerous requests I made throughout the process. I also thank the College of Art and Architecture and the Department of Architecture at the Pennsylvania State University for supporting my book project in various ways including acquiring copyrighted materials. I also thank the colleagues of the Department for formulating an intellectual atmosphere where I could refine my thoughts. Walking the wooded and hilly campus with them, sharing ideas and having meals together are the matters that enrich my daily life at University Park. I thank Daniel Willis, who served as the head of the Department during the period in which I was working on this book, for supporting my scholarship. I thank James Cooper for reviewing some parts of the text to offer editorial aids. I also thank Marcus Shaffer for his comments and instructions for the initial design of the book cover. I also thank the staff members of the Department, particularly Karen Bair, Karen McNeal, Lynda Schreffler, and Jameson R. Heilman for their handling of many documents acknowledgements ix