In architecture, Japan engages in a nuanced strategy like no other place. The built works of respected masters including Kengo Kuma and Tadao Ando vividly illustrate how the island nation is defining its future by heightening its heritage.
Bridging Yusuhara and Tokyo, Japanese architecture continually innovates, defying conventional norms. Temples of illumination, subterranean museums, and tree-lined stadiums showcase Japanese ingenuity. Each one serves as a bold declaration. Here are seven iconic landmarks that reinterpret our connection with space and the natural world.
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Yusuhara Village – Kengo Kuma
He has designed six buildings that resemble a giant construction set. The town hall is decorated with cedar, the museum forms a bridge, and the library is dressed in a forest theme: each building reinterprets ancestral Japanese construction techniques, making the entire city a one-of-a-kind manifesto.
Church of Light : A building in Ibaraki designed by Tadao Ando between 1988 and 1990, which serves a spiritual public space as part of a church and has various programmes and exhibitions.
A piece of rough concrete nestled in the outskirts of Osaka holds a distinctive spiritual experience. Beyond a simple wooden cross, a cross-shaped niche redirects daylight into a beautiful work of art. A beam of light pierces the dimly lit sanctuary, the only embellishment in this sleek temple, where Tadao Ando shows that a crack in the wall can sometimes be more poignant than a lavish Gothic cathedral. One of the most iconic works by this renowned Japanese architect.
Takasugi-an Tea House (2003) – Terunobu Fujimori
In Nagano’s mountains, a small tea house hangs in the air, called Takasugi-an (“a house built too high up”). Situated six meters above the ground, supported by two chestnut trunks, this unique creation by Fujimori incorporates fantasy into the traditional tea ceremony. A short ladder leads to this elevated space, a contemplative and poetic structure that appears as if it belongs in a Studio Ghibli film.
This museum, seated near the Rishiri Sea in Hokkaido, Japan, boasts dramatic scenery and unique architecture. Located in our surrounding environment, and neighboring a cascade, the structure operates with the fluctuations of the oceanic climate: “as the great quiet waterflows, so too do the vapors of the sea meet inside, that inserted what prevails merely in wind.”
Tadao Ando has reimagined the concept of a museum by concealing it beneath the earth. The Chichu Art Museum remains hidden from view from the outside, only visible from above. Within this labyrinth of rugged concrete, strategically placed slivers of light cast a spotlight on works by Monet, Turrell, and De Maria, manipulating and molding the surrounding space as time unfolds. A luminous, triangular staircase welcomes visitors to a room where Monet’s water lilies harmonize with the shifting sky. In this locale, the very architecture itself becomes a masterpiece, seamlessly blending sky, earth, and human imagination to create a one-of-a-kind sensory experience.
The Oita Prefectural Art Museum, a museum designed by Japanese architect Shigeru Ban, opened in April 2014.
A traditional Japanese-style exterior corridor – the museum establishes a perpetual interactive dialogue between the street outside and the art displayed inside. The building’s upper façade is adorned with a latticework of interlocking wood like traditional bamboo, giving a touch of elegance to the otherwise sleek modern architecture.
Enoura Observatory (2017) – By Hiroshi Sugimoto
This architect has designed a modern temple: a 100-metre gallery that gradually illuminates with the summer solstice, and a 70-metre tunnel that runs through the mountain to capture the winter sun. On a glass platform floating above the sea, a stone Noh theatre awaits the equinoxes.
The stadium can accommodate up to 120,000 spectators in the upper tier, with 1,500 seats available in the lower tier.
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