1985 Bachelor of Architecture
Idealized Gardens of the Japanese Civilization and their Relationship to the Landscape

I would like to gain an awareness of one of the world’s oldest and most traditional cultures, Japan. My study will be about this civilization’s idealized representations of its natural environment in the form of their traditional gardens. I will focus attention on the architectural elements that define these gardens, and those elements within the garden that create interior spaces from which the gardens are to be observed. I will spend half of my travel time in the Kyoto region and the other half in the Tokyo area.

In Kyoto the studies will focus on the traditional rapport between Japanese architecture of the house and its surrounding gardens. Sectional studies will be made with the site scale as well as with the wall or plane that differentiates inside and outside. Recordings will also be made of the views from inside toward the gardenscape. In the Tokyo area I will focus my study on contemporary housing that may reinterpret the traditional concept with respect to Japanese modernization and westernization. More specifically, in the architecture of Tadao Ando, Hiromi Fujii, and Arata Isozaki I will observe how contemporary dwellings respond to their new urban context and what conflicts may have been resolved. Again, there will be a study of the surfaces separating interior and exterior.

Initially, I hope to observe many examples from both traditional and contemporary periods. I will focus on several traditional examples heretofore and an equal number of contemporary structures in order to understand special parameters or constraint between the periods. My observation will be developed from the drawing of referenced plans and large-scale sectional and elevation studies.

After having studied and described many exterior facades as part of my work at the Taller de Arquitectura, it will be a very stimulating contrast to study the views and works of the exterior of the Japanese house and garden. I feel that trying to come to understand this very different sensibility from the vocabulary that I am now working with will provide a variety of perspectives through which to further understand the architecture of the United States.