Can architecture be invisible?

"Light is a powerful substance. We have a primal connection to it. But, for something so powerful, situations for its felt presence are fragile."
—James Turrell [1]

In his book Mapping Spaces (1987), the artist James Turrell discusses his work on the connection of light and space. Turrell states, "the qualities of the space must be seen, and the architecture of the form must not be dominant." [2] These complementary thoughts on how he tries to fill space with light resonate with the thinking-through-space in the work of the Japanese architect Junya Ishigami (1974). In the same manner as Turrell, he strives to create architecture that is, as it were, invisible and which allows visitors to experience space in a different way.

Until the 16th of June, Ishigami's work is on display at Antwerp's deSingel in an exhibition titled How small? How vast? How architecture grows. Upon entering the exhibition room, the visitor encounters a brightly lit space where everything is white, including the floor. This creates a translucent sphere — even small objects, placed around the space, look translucent — and a dreamy environment. This rendering space into a translucent aura is again reminiscent of Turrell.

The exhibition was originally made for The Shiseido Gallery in Tokyo in 2010. The first room in deSingel consists of an installation of eight tables. These are made of narrow wooden table sheets of plywood with finish in European linden (while in Tokyo he used a Japanese linden for the finish), standing on slender white legs in white lacquered steel. On them are displayed 58 realised and unrealised projects. The drawings, models and objects installed on the tables are complemented with small notes explaining each project — 56 different notes explain the idea behind the 58 projects.

The manner and materials of installation form a direct reference to his architecture. For example, the slender white lacquered steel legs of the tables reflect the beams in his architecture. The objects shown represent a fragile, delicate aesthetic, they all look very precious and embody the challenge to make an architecture that almost disappears. This is not purely aesthetic; it is a way of life. Junya Ishigami says he tries to combine architecture, artificial things and natural environments to make a new criterion for human activities. He further explores these ideas by conceiving pieces from a child's point of view on the world and natural phenomena. His work balances poetics and technical engineering as he tries to learns from thermodynamics and physics.

The work presented in this exhibition ties into Ishigami's interest on the relation between art and architecture. This is most transparently seen is his work for museums. In note 40, for example he explains and shows a model of the project of the balloon that he made in 2007 for The space for your Future exhibition at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Tokyo. The metal, cuboid balloon measures 7 x 13 x 14 metres, is filled with helium, and is displayed in a space of 15 x 20 x 19 metres. Here, it weighs more than a tonne and is as high as a building of four floors. This makes apparent Ishigami's idea that no matter how heavy architecture is, it still can be floating on air.

In a project for an extension of a museum (note 41), the idea of the balloon comes back. Here, the foyer is covered with a balloon-like acrylic material that creates an illusion of floating over the garden. Junya ishigami also once proposed a project for the Grand Palais in Paris (note 53). Since the Palais is always used as an open space, he wanted to frame it in order to bring out this otherwise overlooked quality. In order to do so, he suggested placing colossal 30 metre walls around it.

For the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art (note 54), Ishigami made studies which re-imagine the architecture and grounds of the Gallery. He proposed to keep the buildings untouched but to reconstruct the gardens so as to integrate the old buildings into the new gardens.

Other important themes that recur in his work are the relation between nature and housing, patios, cities with small population density, and new modes of inspiration such as clouds and weather patterns.

In the second room visitors can see the 2007 installation Small Gardens. Here one finds a low, coffee table, full of small containers made out of silver, where each piece is differently shaped and carries a dried flower.

Junya Ishigami studied architecture at the Tokyo National University of Fine Arts and Music. Before setting up his own firm junya.ishigami+associates, he worked for Kazuyo Sejima and Ryue Nishizawa. He became known with his Extreme Nature: Landscape of Ambiguous Spaces installation, which placed glass greenhouses around the Japanese pavilion during the 2008 Venice Architecture Biennale. Angelique Campens

Notes:
1.Kristine Stiles and Peter Selz, eds., Theories and Documents of Contemporary Art: A Sourcebook of Artists' Writings (University of California Press, 1996), 575.
2. Ibid.

Through 16 June 2013
Junya Ishigami: How small? How vast? How architecture grows
deSingel
Desguinlei 25, Antwerp