New Forms Taschen 170

Shapes for the Futurę

Concentrating on Europę, the United States and Japan, this survey has attempted to demonstrate that a number of factors have given rise to new forms in architec-turę in the past ten years. Naturally, the faaors that influence architecture, from the economy to the spreading use of computer-aided design, are numerous. Some of these factors, such as the Computer, are so powerful that they will continue to transform the shapes and function of architecture at an accelerating pace in the years to come. As John Frazer has written, 'A new architecture is being conceived in cyberspace by the global cooperation of a world community evolving new ideas by modeling ecologically responsible environments and using the Computer as an evolutionary accelerator. This movement is reinforced culturally by similar thinking in musie and other art forms. The emphasis has moved from produa to process as Buckminster Fuller, John Cage and Marshall McLuhan all foresaw; and it has moved from forms to the relationship between forms and their users. This paradigm shift will changeourunderstanding and interpretationof past architecture as surely as it will change the way we conceive of the new."^JS It has already been suggested here that the relationship between art and architecture has become closer. and that art has been a source for certain architectural explorations. Most often the published histories of architecture concentrate on the direct, formal and esthetic criteria that influence the built form, but recent trends suggest that a morę holistic approach, taking into account such apparently "peripheral" influences as art and the evolution of economic concerns, might permit a better understanding of the contemporary situation. Below, a certain number of built works are highlighted. Some have already been mentioned in this volume, others have not. In principle, each places emphasis on different trends that influence architecture, from the varying approaches to tradition to ecological concerns and formal, artistic ones. The liberty of expression given to architecture in part by computers, but also by the evolving attitudes toward the built form, and new sources of inspiration such as contemporary art, is the subject of this chapter.

Japanese Masters of Light and Space

The Osaka architect Tadao Ando has had a considerable influence on schools of architecture throughout the world. His rigorous approach and his development of a Modernist vocabulary in the context of Japanese tradition certainly make him a figurę to be reckoned with for the years to come. What is not always fully appreciated is the almost sensual quality that he gives to his concrete structures. Concrete gen-erally does not photograph well, and the play of light across its surfaces can only really be felt by vi$iting Ando's buildings in Japan. That said, his recent Meditation Space at the UNESCO headquarters in Paris can give some idea of his accomplish-ments to Westerners. Squeezed into a very difficult site behind Pier Luigi Nervi's Assembly Hall and next to Marcel Breuer's headquarters building, Ando's structure is a 6.5 m high cylinder madę of concrete, with an area of only 33 m². Its floor, like the entrance area of Kisho Kurokawa's Hiroshima Museum of Modern Art, is paved

Outlook 181