The house as a piece of nature. Three mechanisms of the contemporary Japanese architecture

Abstract

In traditional Japanese culture, the house cannot be understood without its connection with nature. That fact qualifies the configuration of the house as well as the symbolic value of certain construction elements. This is reflected, at the beginning of the 20th century, in the writings of some Western authors who visited the country, as well as in other Japanese authors, contrasting these highly appreciated qualities of the traditional house with the rapid and substantial changes that were taking place in Japanese culture and architecture. Throughout the 20th century, the adoption of Western techniques and languages ​​and the search for a language of its own, led to the interest in the house and its relationship with nature to move away from the main architectural focus of attention. It will not be until the end of the 20th century and the beginning of the 21st that the importance of this relationship is once again claimed by various authors, who will place it at the center of the design concerns of some of their works. Somewhat, these attitudes may be influenced by the ideals present in tradition, but without an imitation of the referent. It will be through the generation of new project mechanisms, three of which we will collect in this text, that this search for a rapprochement between nature and architecture will be resumed.