Tea pavilion

Fu-an
Kengo Kuma
28 june - 5 september 2010

From the insular of artificial Vassivière island to the Japanese insular, the architectures inspired by the geographical feature reflect concerns and ideas with a specific attention to space, environment and light.

On Vassivière island, the post-modern building of the Centre international d’art et du paysage by the italian architect Aldo Rossi - built in a nature reserve dedicated to contemporary art – welcomes a temporary Japanese teahouse by Kengo Kuma.

Within this impressive architecture, Kengo Kuma reinterprets the end of the building by Aldo Rossi and turn it into an ephemeral "Tea Pavilion", a luminous and light structure with an invitation to contemplation and meditation to live an aesthetic and intellectual experience we can found in traditional tea houses in Japan.

To create the "Tea Pavilion", also called Fu-an – literally "tea ceremony space floating in the air "- Kengo Kuma transcends the oppositions in the combination with modern functionality of the plastic and the traditional nobility of the organza, an assembly that allows visitors to experience a disturbing and ambiguous space.

For the great japanese architect, this is about how developping a structure in which the use of light can create within the space a feeling of tightness and intimacy in contrast to the transparency and the lightness of organza dresses with memory heavenly angels japanese legends.

Outdoor light filtered envelops the visitor like a second skin and transforms this space into a unique experience of contemplation and tasting teas in the landscape filled with grace of Vassiviere island.

 

Copyright: Kengo Kuma,  Alexandra Bordes

Press release