Shin Takamatsu 1991
Shin Takamatsu admits:
'I am very apprehensive about whether or not to call this mysterious structure a piece of architecture.'
And indeed, its cryptic character makes it unlike any other building, even in Tokyo.

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Shin Takamatsu 1991
Down to page [NCSA Mosaic users only]

Shin Takamatsu 1991
Takamatsu sees architecture not just as a functional container for living and working, but as an entity which possesses an autonomous power. For a thousand years his native city of Kyoto was the capital of Japan, and many of its surviving historic buildings have a strong aura of past power struggles, glories and declines.

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Shin Takamatsu 1991
Down to page [NCSA Mosaic users only]

Shin Takamatsu 1991
With the full support of his client, Takamatsu intended to build something that, while remaining within the bounds of contemporary urban architecture, would exceed, or rather disregard, the usual constraints of function and cost.
'The programme may have included the acquisition of the maximum practical volume of space, but it also comprised the more important points of establishing a notably high presence and stressing the individuality of the architecture itself.'

Shin Takamatsu, JA Library

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Shin Takamatsu 1991
Down to page [NCSA Mosaic users only]

Shin Takamatsu 1991
Four floors of the 'building' are underground and only three emblematic towers indicate its presence. Natural light falls from elaborate skylights through a quarter-circle void to the lower basements. As one steps down to the bottom of the well, a disconcerting sense of vertigo sets in.

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Shin Takamatsu 1991
Down to page [NCSA Mosaic users only]

Shin Takamatsu 1991
The surrounding land is landscaped as a kind of Elysian fields: walls of bamboo and a 'ground' of polished black granite are laid around the metallic quarter-sphere roofs of the towers. The role of the facade is displaced: there are no walls to divide inside from outside or to communicate to passers-by the function and layout of the interior, but instead a frame around the site which separates it from its surroundings.

This very experimental project may turn out to have a short life due to its unprofitability. Its ruin would leave a trace of a small transgressive dream.

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