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B UDDHIST TEMPLE , S AIJO , J APAN

ARCHITECT
T ADAO A NDO

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Existing elements have been
retained, generating a powerful
tension between old and new.
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The luminous slatted timber
cage of the hondo or main hall.

Despite his increasingly prolific

output, Tadao Ando is still able to
create buildings that are powerful,
subtle, and moving. Komyo-ji, a
new temple for the Pure Land sect
of Buddhism, is one of his most
impressive recent works. Located
in Saijo, a seaside town on the
MAN-MADE FOREST island of Shikoku, it replaces a
250-year-old structure that was
gloomy and becoming decrepit.
Tadao Ando’s poetic synthesis of materials and light finds renewed expression in this The chief priest – a force for
66 | 10 Buddhist temple complex, which reworks traditional forms with an austere intensity. change – wanted a light-filled perspective section 67 | 10
 gathering space for the community,
welcoming to the young, and
suitable for jazz concerts and
lectures as well as worship.
Site plan symmetry has been
sacrificed in order to retain
existing trees, stone walls,
gatehouse and belltower as a
memory of the old – a decision
that produced a more
compressed and engaging
complex. The fir posts of the
main hall (hondo) rise from a
moat fed by natural springs, and
entry is across a bridge that leads
from one of three flanking
blocks. These impassive
structures house offices, priests’
quarters, meeting spaces and a
columbarium. In signature Ando
fashion, light gleams off bare
polished concrete walls.
The hondo is a contemporary
reinterpretation of the Great
Buddha style, which was brought
from China and first employed in
the massive south gate of the
thirteenth-century Todai-ji
temple in Nara. Multi-tiered
brackets atop tall wood columns
support a gently shelved
projecting roof. The main
structural support for the layers
of beams is provided by four
clusters of four massive posts
within the hall. ‘I wanted to
create a space that would return
to the origins of wooden
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68 | 10
cross section looking east
ground floor plan (scale approx 1:500)
architecture; a single structure
made up of multiple parts, each
full of tension’, says Ando. ‘It
would express the image of
people gathering and joining
hands, supporting each other in a
single community.’
At the first viewing of the
model, shocked parishioners
thought the sheer facades of the
hondo resembled a cage, but were
won over and now applaud the
boldness of the design. At night, it
serves as a beacon, revealing a
glimpse of the ornate inner
shrine, and the glowing columns
and eaves are mirrored in the still
water. By day, its mysteries are
disclosed only after taking one of
Ando’s processional routes, past
the bell tower, around the moat,
through the guest hall and across
1 gatehouse
2 belltower
3 car park
4 moat
5 bridge
6 main hall (hondo)
7 meeting spaces/guest hall
8 offices
9 columbarium
10 priests’ quarters
the enclosed bridge to a narrow
peripheral corridor. Light floods
in from strips of glass between
the outer posts and passes
through massive shoji screens of
frosted glass that can be swung
open to make the pine-floored
corridor an extension of the
hundred-mat interior.
Walking around and through
the central space with its
clustered columns, branching
beams, dappled light and softness
underfoot is to enter a man-made
forest. It shows how temple
architecture evolved from
nature, and how the Japanese
learned to assemble a multitude
of wooden parts in lieu of organic
growth. What was formerly a job
for master carpenters (who
shaped each element on site) is
B UDDHIST TEMPLE ,
S AIJO , J APAN
ARCHITECT
T ADAO A NDO
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Light-dappled corridor runs
around the edge of the hall.
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Shrine at the heart of the hondo.
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Precisely crafted geometry of
the arboreal roof vaults
resembles a man-made forest.
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now an assembly of pre-cut
laminated fir beams, a process as
pared down and precisely
controlled as an automobile
production line manned by
robots. And yet, the austere
simplicity of the spaces, the
sensual appeal of the structure,
and the complex geometry of the
vault match the finest hand-
craftsmanship in warmth and
serenity. As Ando declares: ‘I
want to create intense yet quiet
buildings and to make spaces that
promote conversations with
natural materials, where you can
feel light, air and rain’. M. W.
Architect
Tadao Ando Architect & Associates, Osaka
Photographs
All photographs by Shigeo Ogawa
except no. 1 which is by Mitsuo Matsuoka 69 | 10