MAN-MADE FOREST.

Tadao Ando's poetic synthesis of materials and light finds renewed expression in this Buddhist temple complex, which reworks traditional forms with an austere intensity.

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 island of Shikoku, it replaces a 250-year-old structure that was gloomy and becoming decrepit. The chief priest -- a force for change -- wanted a light-filled 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 (honda) 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 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 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 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 handcraftsmanship 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'.

ARCHITECT

TADAO ANDO

BUDDHIST TEMPLE, SAIJO, JAPAN

1 Existing elements have been retained, generating a powerful tension between old and new.

BUDDHIST TEMPLE,

2 The Iuminous slatted timber cage of the hondo or main hall.

SAIJO, JAPAN

ARCHITECT

TADAO ANDO

3 Light-dappled corridor runs around the edge of the hall.

4 Shrine at the heart of the hondo.

5 Precisely crafted geometry of the arboreal roof vaults resembles a man-made forest.

Architect

Tadao Ando Architect & Associates, Osaka