Abstract
A new strand of distinctive contemporary Japanese architecture represented by SANAA’s work is recognized as an extreme expression of materiality and formal austerity. SANAA’s architecture could easily be misunderstood as merely dematerialized abstract space, the outcome of an idealized vision. By analyzing the materiality and luminance quality of the Rolex Learning Center in Lausanne, Switzerland (2010) and the Louvre-Lens Museum in Lens, France (2012), this paper investigates the visual experience in SANAA’s work. It argues that visual perception within the buildings is profoundly ambiguous, and the ambiguous perception of space encourages active bodily engagement to explore and confirm that perception.
Notes
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20. Mark Wigley, White Walls, Designer Dresses: The Fashioning of Modern Architecture (Cambridge, MA; London, UK: MIT Press, 1995), 15.
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Jing Yang
Jing Yang is a lecturer at the Department of Architecture, Xi’an Jiaotong-Liverpool University, China. She holds a PhD in architecture at the University of Nottingham. Her research focuses on architectural theory and criticism; the relationship between architecture and the body; materiality and perception. Besides academic work, she practiced in the China Southwest Architectural Design and Research Institute Corp. Ltd. in Chengdu and Zhong Dekun Studio in Southeast University, Nanjing.