Reaction paper to the Baek article History Essay Paper

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The church of the light is one of the famous oeuvres of Tadao Ando, an influential Japanese self-taught architect. This work was built in the year 1989 which sits on a quiet residential suburb in Ibaraki near Osaka, Japan. Ando created the Church of Light from a renovation of an existing Christian compound. The church’s congregation financed the construction of the church but the budget was very low. To address the dire situation, Ando used inexpensive materials to address this problem. Thus, the Church of Light was built.
The building was designed to have a rectangular concrete volume (triple cube), with an oblique wall dividing the building into a chapel and a small triangular space as an entry point. To put it simply, the building is somewhat pierced with an obliquely-angled wall. At the points of intersection, glazed openings were placed to bring light into the dark interior of the premise. If you look at the inside, all you can see is darkness. However, at the very front, you will be surprised to see a light that forms a cross. The whole height and width of that wall in front of you forming behind the altar is a cross formed by a horizontal and vertical glazed opening CITATION Fra91 \l 1033 (Frampton, 1991). The minimum amount of openings intensified the power of the light emanating from the crucifix formed. The glowing light is a very radiant one because it is the only light that you can see inside this work of art. The main elements of the design and construction are wood and reinforced concrete. The tables and the floor are all made from the wood while the walls were from a bare concrete wall, Ando’s favorite material. The bare concrete walls could show a building’s history by the cracks and chips that take years to be seen. With the materials used for the creation of this building, you can see that the architect is quite a simple person who is not that materialistic when it comes to his creations.
Ando has a different way of looking at the geographical area where the buildings were built. It is not merely just a place but a place where many layers of memories and histories are
imprinted on. As Ando said, a whispering voice can be heard in that place that describes the forces within that area. With all those, the works that Ando creates carry the spirit that has been integrated with it which will make that place pure to the later generations that will come.
The overall look of the building if you look at the exterior or the outside will not show the contemporary church architecture seen in other places that also value Christianity. The different representations and expressions of this building make it an interesting architectural design to people with abstract and artistic minds. Even on the inside, the place does not look like the usual Church with many statues and images of the different saints. The only thing that you could see is the cross which would be the most cliché symbol to use to make the observer think that the building is a church. It is quite intriguing for a devoted religious person to see a Church with just the Cross inside because it is simply different from the norm and the usual.
Thinking about the symbol of the Cross as a representation of Christianity, you would wonder about the architect's perception of religion. However, looking at the whole work of art, there is a mix in both the contemporary Christian architectural church and the Japanese minimalistic architecture. The building shows the culture of minimalism, a Japanese traditional Zen-style design, because of the absence of other religious items inside except for the cross as well as the dull or dark interior that shows no color at all. The design focuses on the elimination of unnecessary things such as the decorations usually used in other church designs. More importantly, even though the only religious symbol the one you could see is the cross, the building did not lose the Christian depth which is an important aspect of building a church. With this style, the building look somehow ordinary but extraordinary because even thout the extravagant details and decorations, the place still looked sophisticated and classic with a touch of modernization.
There is a reciprocal relationship between culture and religion because both affect the other. One might say that both influences each other just like how religion and culture affected Ando’s way of expressing art. The minimalistic approach of Ando deeply expresses his Japanese culture. The other works of Ando show the same approach and emotions as the Church of Light. With these in mind, you could see that Ando’s ideas are rooted in the culture where this artistic architect grew up. All of Ando’s works show the love for the Japanese culture which could prove the fact that a person’s mind and characteristics are deeply influenced by the culture that person came to know about. As an architect, Ando greatly used that culture into making magnificent works that are truly worthy even to non-Japanese and non-religious people.
Darkness in the interior of the design does not entirely mean the absence of light. For Ando, the presence of darkness is needed so that light may enter. Ando said that “Light, alone, does not make light”. Truly, Ando’s statement makes a lot of sense. Without darkness, light could not be perceived clearly because nothing is making it even radiant. The rectangular box is Ando’s perfect construction of darkness and the oblique walls allowed the penetration of the light CITATION Dae28 \l 1033 (Daelemans, 28). Ando is a genius because every design and detail of the artworks have different meanings and representations behind. Not all people would have the same kind of passion as Ando because not everyone has the talent to incorporate a lot of things into one’s artwork. If you look at Ando’s work, the artworks are not purely abstract but rather just simple. An abstract would make no sense at all if you will not try to dig deeper but for Ando’s work, it’s all there. The meanings are all integrated there and all you need to do is look. Another way of looking at the perspective of darkness is the fact that the creation of light is impalpable. Truly, light is impalpable but what Ando created is not an artificial light but an actual light that came from the darkness. You will realize that everything inside that place is natural and that all came
from nature. Again, Ando’s Japanese culture is integrated into the idea because Japanese people are known for their love for nature. Ando depicted how nature can be miraculous and mesmerizing at the same time.
The building’s main function does not only show a place of gathering but a place of quiescence and prayer. Ando’s work could transform people from observers to participants because of the holiness of the place that makes people deeply moved. The simple but extraordinary architectural design itself makes the people feel at peace and comfortable at the same time. Truly, being in a place with almost nothing inside can be less stressful because the presence of unnecessary things inside a place brings a form of visual distraction that induces anxiety. The distractions would tend to blur and invade the minds of people making them unable to think clearly, peacefully as well as pray for the same time. A church’s purpose is for people to talk with God and the only way to do so is through peaceful prayer. A quiet prayer would let God into our minds and hearts which would make us even closer to God.
The "Semiotic theory" talks about three things, the relationship, and integration of signs, objects, and meanings. Signs can be anything, words, non-verbal words, images, and much more which are used to simply communicate to people. Everywhere you look, there is a sign but the interpretations of that sign depend on how people perceive them. However, some signs are there to be followed because there are rules imparted with those. For Ando’s work, the signs that could be enumerated are the darkness and cross formed from the light source. The interpretations of the semiotic theory for Ando's work is different. Ando goes away with the semiotic theory because of the emptiness of the place which disqualified the use of signs and symbols of Christianity. With this, Ando wants to give the participants the real efficacious symbolic power of the cross as
a symbol of Christianity. The perception of the light as naturally occurring which infiltrates the cross is not a sign in any way.
As was discussed a while ago, you would be able to interpret the use of darkness as a means of producing the light. According to Ando, light is the origin of all beings and the creation of space is simply created from the power of the light CITATION Svi12 \l 1033 (Svilar, 2012). Putting the statement into the application of architecture, we could see that light is so powerful that it can create a space with just simply existing. This is much of like how God created light which made it possible to see God’s other creations.
The formation of the cross from the light source is truly amazing because it is not the ordinary cross that you see in other churches that are tangible. The light of the cross is there bec...