VSBA : Venturi Scott Brown and Associates Architecture - Nikko Symbols

<Span class="title"> VSBA - Venturi, Scott Brown and Associates Architecture<br><br><br> </Span> <Span class="description"> <b>Links:</b> <br> <a href="http://vsba.com/whoweare/index.html">Who we are</a><br> <a href="http://vsba.com/whoweare/index_philo.html">Who we are : Philosophy</a><br> <a href="http://vsba.com/whoweare/index_team.html">Who we are : Team</a><br> <a href="http://vsba.com/whoweare/index_awards.html">Who we are : Awards</a><br> <a href="http://vsba.com/whoweare/index_contact.html">Who we are : Contact us</a><br> <a href="http://vsba.com/projects/pov/index.html">Points of view</a><br> <a href="http://vsba.com/projects/boards/index.html">On the boards</a><br> <a href="http://vsba.com/projects/index.html">Timeline</a><br> <a href="http://vsba.com/projects/atozlist/index.html">A-Z List</a><br> <a href="http://vsba.com/bibliography/index.html">Bibliography</a><br><br><br> <b>Nikko Symbols</b>:<br> <a href="index_symbols.html">Nikko Symbols</a><br> <a href="opener.html">Page 1</a><br> <a href="page2.html">Page 2</a><br> <a href="page3.html">Page 3</a><br> <a href="page4.html">Page 4</a><br> <a href="symbol1.html">Page 5</a><br> <a href="symbol2.html">Page 6</a><br> <a href="symboltext.html">Page 7</a><br><br><br><br> <p> <table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" border="0" width="95%"> <TR> <td valign="top"> THE SYMBOLIC ELEMENT IN THE ARCHITECTURE OF THE KIRIFURI RESORT PROJECT IN NIKKO, JAPAN<br> © Robert Venturi<br> August 11, 1993; revised January 11, 1995<br> <br> All architecture includes an element of symbolism in its composition whether it is admitted or not by its designers. Any architecture no matter how much its aesthetic employs abstraction or adopts imagery which is new will evoke in its perception expressions and meanings that derive from reference or association. These qualities enrich the character of the architecture as a whole. Valid architecture almost inevitably employs some elements that are conventional, familiar or historical and that make for implicit or explicit symbolism; even Modern architecture in its heyday, whose aesthetic was essentially based on an expression of function and structure, derived some of its meaning from vocabularies that referred to industrial vernacular architecture of the early 20th century and to advanced structural engineering of the late 19th century. From these sources a symbolism was derived that was by implication universal in its meaning. <P> The architecture of the Kirifuri complex employs symbolism in two ways: first via spatial and formal elements that are suggestive and abstracted as in the layout of the wings of the hotel that on the outside suggest a village recessive in the woods as in the applied trellised elements that, when seen obliquely at eye-level, suggest the traditional roofs of historical Japanese architecture and as in the decorative patterns on the end elevations of the village pavilions that depict fragments of Mondrian compositions and suggest timber frame construction. <P> The second way of employing symbolism occurs in the abstracted, decorative "leaves" applied to the structural frame in the main space of the athletic dome that suggest a forest in Nikko and in the hotel lobby "Village Street." This kind of symbolism is more literal and realistic than suggestive or abstracted in its reference. Also it depicts elements that are not heroic or original but natural or ordinary. The "ordinary" aesthetic of this manner of symbolism is based on that of Pop Art where old and familiar elements are depicted via new media and at a different scale and in a new context: by this means new meaning is acquired and aesthetic tension is achieved. <P> The famous genre painting of the Netherlands of the 17th century is another historical precedent for the symbolism of the everyday in art reflected in the aesthetic of the open-ended Village Street. R.H. Fuchs writes in his book, Dutch Painting, of the discovery and glorification of the everyday experience where juxtaposed elements of ordinary life are made vivid in their depiction in this form of genre painting at a time when a heroic ideal of aristocratic art was substituted by a realism illustrating everyday life of middle-class society in the Dutch Republic. In this book Fuchs discusses the idealization of generic order over high tradition, of indigenous and vernacular culture as represented in clutter in the paintings of Pieter de Hooch, Jan Steen, Franz Hals, Jacob van Ruisdel, and Jan Vermeer. The consequent combinations of realism and symbolism, of the metaphorical and the representational corresponded to later manifestations of realist and vernacular content represented in the work of Van Gogh and of his French predecessors like Manet, Renoir, Cezanne, and others. <P> And it is relevant to mention distinguished traditions within the history of Japanese art of prints depicting everyday life in a stylized and aesthetic manner. So the signs in the lobby as symbolic street of the hotel combine historic-traditional and contemporary-conventional references that are essentially familiar. The "street" they line is covered by a glass roof and terminates at each end with a glass wall so the street appears to extend under the sky and into nature; there are representations of roof overhangs at its edges. The symbols work mostly as big-scale, two-dimensional signs either perpendicular to or parallel with the street. They are often applied to columns. Where the spaces along the street are enclosed, realistic and colorful depictions of street elements or street scenes are applied as porcelain-enameled panels. This material is employed for other depictions of individual elements and for some perpendicular signs. Dynamic juxtapositions of all these elements achieve an effect of rich clutter and acknowledge, as the interior "street" meets the woods outside, another juxtaposition traditional within Japanese architecture where serene and controlled shrine meets rich and cluttered market. <P> And these qualities derive as well from joining of cultures what might be called traditional-craft and contemporary-hype cultures where the village ethos and the global ethos are juxtaposed, as are high and low cultures and local and universal cultures in the Japanese urbanism of our time. And these symbolic and representational elements, combined in the tense manner of Pop Art, can look both familiar and unfamiliar. <P> It is extremely important to understand that this explicit inclusion of symbolism enhances the architecture we are describing by expanding its range and increasing its dimensions, but that this approach inevitably involves some difficulty and must be employed with care in this case aesthetic courage must be balanced by aesthetic care. This complex of buildings cannot suggest by its quality the questionable sensibility of a Madame Butterfly or a Disneyland. Foreign architects in this case might see as appropriately exotic what is utterly banal to local observers; yet foreigners might see new wonders in familiar elements as they produce art in this era of hype-sensibility and as they celebrate the vitality in the ordinary and enhance the everyday in this meeting of street and woods. We are assuming that the degree of sophistication we are working toward can be achieved through a procedure in the course of design where the architects consult a Committee representing the client, local architects, historians and/or anthropologists concerning subject matter and aesthetic manner and involving these methods of representation, symbolism, stylization, and abstraction. If this approach is to work it will in the end be sophisticated and naive, serious and playful adults and children should like it now and over time. <P> The form and symbolism of the Village Street exploit and celebrate the vitality and joy characteristic of the Japanese urban scene which is unsurpassed anywhere in the world. In the end we want to express in this architecture-for-recreation the ethos of vigor and wit that is a part of Japanese public life today, and at the same time design the hotel and dome so they are lovable and marketable to the public. <P> Is it not interesting that a significant hotel designed at the beginning of the century in Japan was named the Imperial Hotel but a relevant hotel designed at the end of the century is to symbolize a village street? <A HREF="page2.html" TARGET="_top"><IMG SRC="images/square.gif" ALT="" hspace="4" vspace="0" HEIGHT="10" WIDTH="10" border="0"></A> <br> </td> </tr> </table> </p> </Span>