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built, Ando seeks to make the visitor aware that he is entering a sacred space. Once in the tempie, the visitor encounters a red pillared hall with a Buddha placed in the center, its back to the west, where a single corner opening allows the entry of natural light. At the end of the day, light floods the hall. Although not large, this structure certainly gives an impression of religious space. It is a place of meeting, but above all, a place of worship. Ando's strength is to show that the use of a strictly Modernist geometrie vocabulary, with materials often considered to be very ordinary, such as concrete, does permit a remarkable spirituality to be expressed. Ando has done as much for Christian chapels, so it might be said that the spiritual element uncovered here is morę probably an enlightened sense of late twentieth century humanism. Ando, despite frequent criticism, is undeniably one of the great architects of the late twentieth century, with an importance that already has been projected beyond his homeland.

Another iapanese architect of indisputable refinement and talent is 1993 Pritzker Prize winner Fumihiko Maki. Two of his buildings, the Tokyo Metropolitan Cymnasium, and Tepia, also located in the Japanese Capital, show how skillfully this architect has been able to blend the lessons of Modernism, the architectural tradi-tion of his country, and the demands of contemporary buildings. The gymnasium is a centrally located 44,000 m² complex with a main arena, indoor swimming pool and smaller arena. The roof of the main structure, a 120 m long oval, recalls Maki's 1984 Fujisawa Cymnasium, which also brought to mind the image of a samurai's helmet or a flying saucer. Maki also compares the shape to an oyster's shell. Tepia, located nearby, is a 14,000 m² structure erected for meetings organized by the Japanese ministry of industry (MITI), whose exterior cladding is a 5 mm thick gray aluminum. Here the sweeping curves seen in the gymnasium are replaced by a rectilinear geometry apparently inf luenced by the Dutch de Stijl movement. Despite this European reference, the subtle alternation between opacity, translucence and transparency

112 Places of Gatmering

Paget 112/113 Tadao Ando

Vitra Seminar and Study Center Weil am Rhein, Germany, 1992-93

With his first permanent built work in Europę, Ando did not abandon his predilection for concrete, nor his taste for an unusual entry path. which recalls iapanese temples and makes the visitor notice the buildmg he is about to enter. Although it is located next to Gehry's Vitra Design Museum, Ando's building notably turns a blind eyc m that direction. prefernng to focus on the views of the surrounding natural setting.