Traveling Fellow Studies the Architecture of Japan
2018 Swank Traveling Fellow Shares Highlights of Research Trip
Krishnan Mistry is an American-born Indian, who grew up between the United States and the United Kingdom. He studied at The University of Texas at Arlington for a Bachelor of Science in Architecture and The University of Texas at Austin for his M.Arch I. He hopes to pursue design of all forms for the rest of his life, whether it be through drawing, architecture, graphics, programming, and so on.
As the 2018 Swank Traveling Fellow, his research objective was to examine how Japanese architecture has evolved with modernity through traditions in culture, religion, and design.
Here is a portion of his travel log from the trip.
After two weeks across four Japanese cities - Kyoto, Osaka, Sendai, and Tokyo - exploring the dense maze and viewing architecture both new and old, was ready for something with a slower pace. I took a Hikari Shinkansen, the Japanese bullet train, from Tokyo to Okayama, marking the fifth time I passed Mount Fuji. What was once an icon I saw in pictures growing up became almost a marker of “home,” as Tokyo was the area from which I would venture out. After arriving in Okayama, I took a JR (Japan Rail) line to Uno Port. I was surprised by the sight of the train as it was only one very rickety carriage - definitely a change of pace from the pristine modern transport of the big cities.
From Uno Port, I took a ferry across the Seto Inland Sea to Naoshima Island. While on the ferry I saw an intricately textured sea littered by islands from the archipelago, contrasted with large excavation machinery and trucks perched upon their steep hills. With a population of about 3,000, it seemed like just a small mining town. However, the island and adjacent islands of Teshima, Inujima, and Megijima are also home to some modern architectural classics by SANAA, Tadao Ando, Hiroshi Sambuichi, and so on. The work is funded by the Benesse Corporation whose owner, who comes from the region, saw the area was economically waning in the late 1980s.
Upon arrival at the SANAA designed Miyanoura port on Naoshima, I walked to a group house hosted by Sae, an architecture graduate from Musashino Art University, who now teaches art to special education students on the island. Then, I ventured out to the local beach and took a swim in the sea. It was an overcast day and slightly cold, but after my body adjusted, floating in the water and letting my mind wander while looking at the surrounding archipelago was such a pleasing experience.
While at the beach I also came across the infamous yellow and black spotted pumpkin sculpture. A piece replicated around the world by the artist Yayoi Kusama, most known for her abstract and feminist artwork, it postured itself against the sea and looked defiantly onward to Takagawa, a city of about 500,000, but from Naoshima barely the size of ants. You could tell this installation was a hit as countless people would walk up to it and take pictures of it with their DSLR cameras - dare I say, very instagrammable.
On my return to the group home, I found three French people having tea in the living room. Their names were Mandy, a museum manager fluent in French, English, and Japanese, who studied architecture at La Villette, Elody, another museum manager, and “JoJo,” a funny psychologist originally from Castile. After getting dinner with them from the local family mart, or convenience store, we found out we had similar plans, so they kindly let me tag along with them.
With my new group of friends, we biked around the islands over the next two days, viewing the famous museums there such as the Chichu Art Museum, Benesse Art Foundation, and so on. A highlight for me was arriving, entering, and lingering at the Teshima Art Museum by Ryue Nishizawa and Rei Naito. Surrounded by farms, which grow vegetables during the summer months, the building was like a friendly little alien object. Its pristine and amorphous concrete form starkly contrasted the dirt, greenery, and tiny life.
While up close, the surface looked paradoxically smooth yet rough at the same time, which was something I noticed about much of the concrete work in Japan, especially that of Tadao Ando’s work. Before I was able to touch the outside of the structure, I noticed it was crawling with bugs. Slightly surprised I took a step back and took a more zoomed out look. Like a video of rain on a window in reverse, there were thousands of little black dots climbing up the building. It was pristine but refuted the sterility that comes with it. This stood out to me, as rather than be an infrastructural piece that puts a wall up to nature, as I found of Ando’s work, it happily embraced it.
While walking into the building through its hobbit-like entrance, I found myself with the goofiest grin and failing to whisper “yes” over and over again to my friends as we weren’t allowed to talk inside. It was the first time I truly felt like I was in a space rather than just a room. Maybe it was its blobbiness, or the light coming in and creating beautiful amoeba-like shadows. As I sat in a corner people watching, I noticed a strange effect. The exhibit was a spattering of seashells, and water droplets scurrying across the uneven floor, but as the light hit the water, it would reflect the blue sky and turn the concrete shell a bluish-purple hue. I backed myself up to get myself into a little nook between the floor and roof with maybe a max of ten inches clearance between my nose and the concrete. The inside surface was significantly more smooth than the outside, and the hue disappeared revealing the gray concrete again at such proximity. Despite this, it somehow felt very warm. I spent two and a half hours here, and may or may not have taken a nap in my little nook.
As the 2018 Swank Traveling Fellow, his research objective was to examine how Japanese architecture has evolved with modernity through traditions in culture, religion, and design.
Here is a portion of his travel log from the trip.
After two weeks across four Japanese cities - Kyoto, Osaka, Sendai, and Tokyo - exploring the dense maze and viewing architecture both new and old, was ready for something with a slower pace. I took a Hikari Shinkansen, the Japanese bullet train, from Tokyo to Okayama, marking the fifth time I passed Mount Fuji. What was once an icon I saw in pictures growing up became almost a marker of “home,” as Tokyo was the area from which I would venture out. After arriving in Okayama, I took a JR (Japan Rail) line to Uno Port. I was surprised by the sight of the train as it was only one very rickety carriage - definitely a change of pace from the pristine modern transport of the big cities.
From Uno Port, I took a ferry across the Seto Inland Sea to Naoshima Island. While on the ferry I saw an intricately textured sea littered by islands from the archipelago, contrasted with large excavation machinery and trucks perched upon their steep hills. With a population of about 3,000, it seemed like just a small mining town. However, the island and adjacent islands of Teshima, Inujima, and Megijima are also home to some modern architectural classics by SANAA, Tadao Ando, Hiroshi Sambuichi, and so on. The work is funded by the Benesse Corporation whose owner, who comes from the region, saw the area was economically waning in the late 1980s.
Upon arrival at the SANAA designed Miyanoura port on Naoshima, I walked to a group house hosted by Sae, an architecture graduate from Musashino Art University, who now teaches art to special education students on the island. Then, I ventured out to the local beach and took a swim in the sea. It was an overcast day and slightly cold, but after my body adjusted, floating in the water and letting my mind wander while looking at the surrounding archipelago was such a pleasing experience.
While at the beach I also came across the infamous yellow and black spotted pumpkin sculpture. A piece replicated around the world by the artist Yayoi Kusama, most known for her abstract and feminist artwork, it postured itself against the sea and looked defiantly onward to Takagawa, a city of about 500,000, but from Naoshima barely the size of ants. You could tell this installation was a hit as countless people would walk up to it and take pictures of it with their DSLR cameras - dare I say, very instagrammable.
On my return to the group home, I found three French people having tea in the living room. Their names were Mandy, a museum manager fluent in French, English, and Japanese, who studied architecture at La Villette, Elody, another museum manager, and “JoJo,” a funny psychologist originally from Castile. After getting dinner with them from the local family mart, or convenience store, we found out we had similar plans, so they kindly let me tag along with them.
With my new group of friends, we biked around the islands over the next two days, viewing the famous museums there such as the Chichu Art Museum, Benesse Art Foundation, and so on. A highlight for me was arriving, entering, and lingering at the Teshima Art Museum by Ryue Nishizawa and Rei Naito. Surrounded by farms, which grow vegetables during the summer months, the building was like a friendly little alien object. Its pristine and amorphous concrete form starkly contrasted the dirt, greenery, and tiny life.
While up close, the surface looked paradoxically smooth yet rough at the same time, which was something I noticed about much of the concrete work in Japan, especially that of Tadao Ando’s work. Before I was able to touch the outside of the structure, I noticed it was crawling with bugs. Slightly surprised I took a step back and took a more zoomed out look. Like a video of rain on a window in reverse, there were thousands of little black dots climbing up the building. It was pristine but refuted the sterility that comes with it. This stood out to me, as rather than be an infrastructural piece that puts a wall up to nature, as I found of Ando’s work, it happily embraced it.
While walking into the building through its hobbit-like entrance, I found myself with the goofiest grin and failing to whisper “yes” over and over again to my friends as we weren’t allowed to talk inside. It was the first time I truly felt like I was in a space rather than just a room. Maybe it was its blobbiness, or the light coming in and creating beautiful amoeba-like shadows. As I sat in a corner people watching, I noticed a strange effect. The exhibit was a spattering of seashells, and water droplets scurrying across the uneven floor, but as the light hit the water, it would reflect the blue sky and turn the concrete shell a bluish-purple hue. I backed myself up to get myself into a little nook between the floor and roof with maybe a max of ten inches clearance between my nose and the concrete. The inside surface was significantly more smooth than the outside, and the hue disappeared revealing the gray concrete again at such proximity. Despite this, it somehow felt very warm. I spent two and a half hours here, and may or may not have taken a nap in my little nook.
