Casa Azuma

Abstract

The main core of this study is to understand, through an investigation of a specific case, how Tadao Ando conceives the house. Being so, this study begins from his example, representative of his architectural basic principles, the Azuma House. This work that, in a way, represents his maximum space achievement in the seventies, in Japan, considered by many theorists as belonging to a group of monastic buildings, reflects, with a peculiar ability, the intermediation of some traditional values with the specific circumstances of its time. This study is articulated as if it was a compilation of memories of whom, though not being in loco, was willing to understand the convergence of both tradition and modernity in the design of the house. Starting from Azuma House, it is an approach of the Japanese culture, in very specific aspects and particularly in the architectural field. Given the rooted experience of the Japanese way of life, it is implicit that, to understand the origins of the architect and, by extension, his work, it is important to be acquainted with part of the cultural wealth of the archipelago. At the same time, it is of great significance the paramount knowledge of the critical version of Tadao Ando facing the influences of Western architectural thought of the twentieth century. Therefore, the work is observed within a framework that seeks to understand to what extent the Azuma House can be considered as an example which is part of critical regionalism as stated by Kenneth Frampton in Towards a Critical Regionalism. Despite the distance from this house, in Manuel Magalhães House, in Portugal, it can be found some of the purposes and intentions of the first architect, now in the hand of Siza Vieira. This architect, also in the seventies, sought to find answers to an architecture that discusses the importance of cultural values, its own origin, even while accepting the opening of his world to the international context. The instability of the true nature of what is local and what is universal foster a critical position on how to design and, most surely, determined the construction of a particular case, as it is indeed the Manuel Magalhães House. Both houses, either in the Japanese or in the Portuguese context, demonstrate the determination of the authors in creating spaces where, as the result of creativity, they question the extent of the architecture.