p9.Ĭlient: The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angelesĭesign team: Shin Watanabe, Hajime Yatsuka, Makoto Kikuchi, Ronald Rose, Allyne WindermanĬonsultants: Gruen Associates, Los Angeles (associate architect) John A. ≺rata Isozaki, "Architecture With or Without Irony," 1985. It was an unfulfilled wish, a mourning for what was lostĪ style of wit, a sense of humor and paradox were adopted.Īfter twenty years of practical experience, I am now going to find a method to create architecture without irony. It could admire the vulgar against the noble, the secular against the sacred, without shame. It made it possible to create architecture as criticism.
"For the first twenty years of my career as a professional architect, I believed that architecture could only be accomplished by irony. The rooms in the extremes of the building have expressive skylights in volumetrically pure shapes: various pyramids and a series of linear skylights.The exterior is a natural reddish coloured stone, contrasting with the transparent skylights and the lustre of the semi-cylindrical roof of the offices." Above the courtyard, the only building which stands out is the section devoted to administration, with a roof in the shape of a semicircular dome.The whole geometric composition of the building is based on the golden section as the Western method of planning shapes and subdivided the spaces, and on the oriental theory of ying and yang, positivenegative. Under the courtyard, the galleries lead into each other from left to right.
The galleries are below ground level, most having overhead lighting. "Ordinances required a building of low height, with a pedestrian walkway crossing its axis.The building is built around a terraced courtyard.