modern japanese architecture and ma

nazara at + blog has created a modern japanese architecture facebook page. wonderful!

these pictures are from the facebook page (the nishizawa and sejima (SANAA) section.)

hello sandwich also featured pictures and really comprehensive links to 

SANAA houses and the book here (and got to meet them!). 

and here is a make it easy post on moriyama house.

i recently received my copy of SANAA Houses from amazon. 

i really, really like SANAA's houses. 

and i am totally enthralled with the book. the houses and pictures are of course incredible.

but the essays at the back are also highly informative and engaging, i found them really...exciting.

i highly recommend this book to anyone interested in modern japanese 

architecture and design, and the influence of deeply japanese concepts 

such as mono no aware (also see yasujiro ozu films), emptiness, shadows and darkness, and ma:

MA

ma (space, emptiness, interval, the experience of interdependence of space and time).

from the wiki entry on ma, Taoist philosopher Lao Tse wrote extensively on the 

concept of ma including his poem The Uses of Not :

Thirty spokes meet in the hub,

but the empty space between them

is the essence of the wheel.

Pots are formed from clay,

but the empty space between it

is the essence of the pot.

Walls with windows and doors form the house,

but the empty space within it

is the essence of the house.^[4]

see this series of four films on the subject of ma by video artist takahiko iimura.

one of which uses the zen garden of ryoanji to interpret ma.

ma is also a important in the sparse rhythym of traditional japanese music. this wikipedia entry summarises it well.

(and as a nice little segue there, i have added a music player to the sidebar, 

as part of 'on my record player'. at the moment it is playing 

minimum chips 'cold afternoon' from the album sound asleep. beautiful music...)

i would like a bathroom in the garden like this