Mountain white: radical weekend house in Japanese forest doubles as performance place and gallery.Makoto Yamaguchi's country villa was puzzling to some members of the jury. At first it seems so simple. Then you begin to think. How does it work? How, even, do you get into it? [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] It is set on a steep slope above Karuizawa, a little town in the forest, much favoured by Tokyoites for weekend trips. Owned by two musicians, it is intended to act not only as a house, but a gallery for contemporary art (mainly sculpture), a place in which to entertain friends, and as a performance space for its owners' works. In view of the latter, it is curious that the owners demanded that there should be no visible wood, and that all materials should be smooth and hard: white walls, mirrors, glass and polished stainless steel stainless steel: see steel. stainless steel Any of a family of alloy steels usually containing 10–30% chromium. The presence of chromium, together with low carbon content, gives remarkable resistance to corrosion and heat. . What the architect calls 'white space' was required, even to the point of building the bath and kitchen into the floor. (To cook, you have to go down steps into a sort of narrow trench, so you can stand and prepare food at floor level.) Such careful minimalism minimalism, schools of contemporary art and music, with their origins in the 1960s, that have emphasized simplicity and objectivity. Minimalism in the Visual Arts allows space to be uncluttered. The principal volume is formed in a Y-shaped plan with each of its limbs arranged to point through glass walls towards a particularly fine part of the mountainous moun·tain·ous adj. 1. Having many mountains. 2. Resembling a mountain in size; huge: mountainous waves. mountainous Adjective 1. forest. The resulting main white space is a powerful focus, in which the forest is hauntingly present whatever the time of day. Externally, the confluence confluence /con·flu·ence/ (kon´floo-ins) 1. a running together; a meeting of streams.con´fluent 2. in embryology, the flowing of cells, a component process of gastrulation. of axes makes the small building a white node in the wild. It is totally clad (including the concrete base) in fibre-reinforced plastic A fibre-reinforced plastic (FRP) (also Fibre-reinforced polymer) is a composite material comprising a polymer matrix reinforced with fibres. The fibers are usually fiberglass, carbon, or aramid, while the polymer is usually an epoxy, vinylester or polyester thermosetting to form a seamless white box that appears to have been made of origami The code name for Microsoft's Ultra-Mobile PC. See Ultra-Mobile PC. by a giant's hands. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Though some jury members had reservations about the building's external form (holding it to lack scale), all were impressed by the calm spatial quality of the interior, and the resolve of clients and architect alike to achieve the spaces, and their relationship to the marvellous natural landscape. (Incidentally, you get in from the terrace From the Terrace is a 1960 motion picture directed by Mark Robson and starring Paul Newman, Joanne Woodward, Myrna Loy, Barbara Eden, Ina Balin, Leon Ames. The screenplay was written by Ernest Lehman based on the 1958 novel by John O'Hara that tells the story of a , either through the bathroom or the kitchen.) [GRAPHIC OMITTED] [GRAPHIC OMITTED] [GRAPHIC OMITTED] |
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