A HOUSE FOR AMATERASU

Even myth has its limits.

And those who believe that what we think is what life is made of, are only in part correct.

The devastations that Japan again is facing are beyond what wishful thinking is made of.

Yet, this being said, myth and the life of the mind do matter.

ISE Shrine IS, inasmuch as Order IS, to remember Kahn.

And ISE Shrine was dedicated to Amaterasu, the great Sun-Goddess of Ancient Japan, when Japan was a matriarchy.

Maybe the cynics or the “realists” are very tempted to think that no remote goddess can repair what the fury of the earth and the fury of the ocean did.

Maybe they are right… but maybe not.

The Land of the Sunrise, the land where the Sun originated, as Japan is called, cannot remain indifferent to its roots, particularly at a time of great and difficult trial.

What would Amaterasu’s relevance be, now…????!!!!

From the remoteness of her thousands of years she can give strength. Solar strength, to a country that needs it!

Food is important, yes. A home is important, yes. Money is important, yes. A family is important, yes. A job is important, yes.

But so is the soul. And the soul is immortal. And the best companion for the immortal soul is the immortal god, or goddess.

Let’s imagine, again, A HOUSE FOR AMATERASU.

The Great Sun-Goddess of Ancient / Present Japan.

Let Her warm again the ravished land of the sunrise!

Let the Sun rise again…!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Let’s inspire again a great nation on the road to recovery.

Japan can do it.

Japan did it after the war. This tiny country remade itself magnificently, inspiring a whole world.

It can do it again.

We need Japan. We need its solar myths. We need Amaterasu, the great sun-goddess.

Design a NEW HOUSE FOR AMATERASU.

And let us thus contribute to a new rebirth of a new Japan.

Please send us ANY work, ANY size and ANY format that responds to the theme. We will publish all the works received on our website. 

Thank you,

ICARCH Gallery

A HOUSE FOR AN ATOMIC SAMURAI

What is a samurai…?

If we are to judge from the great film by Akira Kurosawa called The Bodyguard it seems the samurai somehow died in the XIXth century, when a true samurai had no one left to serve except his own whims and need to survive.

Yet the “legend” of the samurai seems to continue, as the fascination with a more heroic age refuses to die.

All the more so since the heroism of the samurai was largely caused by very great standards of self denial, morality and loyalty to the “master.”

Such qualities are not easily found in the present.

Yet, just recently we were “intrigued” by the words “atomic samurai,” in reference to the few Japanese who stepped into the deadly radioactive field of the damaged reactors in the attempt to stop the tragedy.

We can only speculate about what an “atomic samurai” felt when taking the decision to do so, in the name of a panicked country (and world).

It seems then that the courage and ethical devotion of man are not dead, although sinning.

That death colors life we always knew.

But to reflect philosophically on it, from the comfort of one’s home is one thing, and to act with a clear knowledge that death is playing a chess game with you that it cannot, it cannot, it cannot lose, is another…

Indeed, if we are to remain in the realm of cinematography (we refer here to Ingmar Bergman's "The Seventh Seal") we well remember the calm terror of the knight who, playing chess with Death, realizes, in the end, that he cannot win.

Similarly, these great Japanese Knights of Courage, these “atomic samurais” know that they cannot win this battle, at the level of their own life… but they sacrifice themselves for the larger good. For the “others.”

For us.

For all of us.

Design THE HOUSE OF SELF-SACRIFICE.

Design A HOUSE FOR AN ATOMIC SAMURAI.

And remember, dear architect, Nietzsche’s words:

“I love the one who wants to perish.”

Even more we think we should love those who do NOT want to perish, yet they decide to do so, for a wider good.

Was / is there any higher meaning in the message of ANY scripture…?!?

Please send us ANY work, ANY size and ANY format that responds to the theme. We will publish all the works on our website.

Thank you,

ICARCH Gallery

THE HOUSE OF FIERY WATER

This is what Leonardo said about water:

"Water is sometimes sharp and sometimes strong, sometimes acid and sometimes bitter, sometimes sweet and sometimes thick or thin, sometimes it is seen bringing hurt or pestilence, sometime health-giving, sometimes poisonous. It suffers change into as many natures as are the different places through which it passes. And as the mirror changes with the colour of its subject, so it alters with the nature of the place, becoming noisome, laxative, astringent, sulfurous, salty, incarnadined, mournful, raging, angry, red, yellow, green, black, blue, greasy, fat or slim. Sometimes it starts a conflagration, sometimes it extinguishes one; is warm and is cold, carries away or sets down, hollows out or builds up, tears or establishes, fills or empties, raises itself or burrows down, speeds or is still; is the cause at times of life or death, or increase or privation, nourishes at times and at others does the contrary; at times has a tang, at times is without savor, sometimes submerging the valleys with great floods. In time and with water, everything changes."

We were reminded of his words as we contemplated, in terror, the news from Japan.

How true Leonardo was…!!!

And his magnificent drawings illustrate so well his thoughts on water.

We ask you to design a different kind of House of Water.

A House of Water that is tormented and tormenting.

A House possessed.

By water possessed. By a possessed water. Possessed by the demons of destruction.

The Tsunami that hit Japan just days ago released in one hour an energy that was equal, we were told, with the energy consumed by the whole of the United States in one month.

Could we even imagine such a comparison…?!?

So we ask you to design THE HOUSE OF SWIRLS.

The HOUSE OF TORMENT.

The HOUSE OF FIERY WATER.

The water that frightened Leonardo and the water that frightens us.

That this fright came from that very East that gave birth to the sun and hit the very country considered to be the origin of the sun is all the more paradoxical.

This great tragedy reminded us, as if it was still necessary, of our immeasurable fragility.

Trembling, design, dear architect!

We will display all the works received on our website.

Thank you,

ICARCH Gallery

A HOUSE WITH A LANDSLIDE

It has been said that a picture is worth 1,000 words.

What would this picture tell us…?

For some reason, visually it is similar, somehow, to that tormented self-portrait of Michelangelo in the flawn skin of St. Bartolomew on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel.

A sense of doom, a sense of “falling.”

We do not think of landslides when we design buildings. We take the solidity of the earth for granted.

Indeed, foundations assume a rock solid earth, unshakable.

But the earth does shake, often. And when it does our notion of stability is shaken too.

The recent disaster in Japan is just such an event.

But to consciously, from the very beginning of the design process assume and express the landslide, or the quake, is to introduce in the design process an awareness we usually ignore.

Kahn spoke of the ruin that tells us how the building was made.

But what about the ruin that tells us how the building, inevitably, will look like…?!?

Is it not, somehow, the very same meaning that animates, tenebrously, Michelangelo’s self-portrait mentioned above…?

So how would a House with a Landslide look like…?

The landslide will be part of the building and the building will be a part of the landslide.

There were slicing gestures in architecture, if we are to mention only Gordon Matta Clark.

But here we ask you to consider an intertwining of earth and building in an unresolved struggle.

Which one will overcome the other one…?!?

The convulsions of the land test the integrity / serenity of the building.

This is what we ask you to consider: a building that is attacked, partially covered, raped by a maddened landslide.

And depict the struggle of the house, in its difficult attempt to protect itself. Indeed, how would the house react, if it was anthropomorphically invested…? What would it do…?

Depict the house’s reaction.

Design A HOUSE WITH A LANDSLIDE, tormented by the unusual encounter. A House that struggles to free itself from an abusing, tormented earth that refuses to recede.

Send us ANY work, ANY size and ANY format that responds to the theme. We will publish all the works received on our website.

Thank you, 

ICARCH Gallery

A HOUSE FOR A STONE

What is a stone…?

And what is a house…?

Usually a house is MADE of stone, either real, or not.

But to make a house FOR a stone, to DEDICATE a house to a stone is unusual.

Indeed, stones are not considered any longer possessing a soul.

The very word “soul” is not even whispered, in many schools of the world. It is too soft, too sentimental, too “old fashion.”

Often only when death strikes us, we remember it.

Like in the recent tragedy in Japan.

And the stone we would like to ask you to design a house for, IS in Japan.

The text incised on it is a warning about tsunami.

And apparently there are many stones like these, on the northern coast of Japan, warning of death, warning of the possible devastations of what we call “tsunami.”

So how would a house for such a stone look like...?

Of course, the stone might not even be located within the house… the idea is to create a house that is connected with such a stone in deep ways, to reflect its spirit, to create, together with is, a homogenous architectural reality. To tell a story that does not neglect the story of the stone itself.

There is Death inscribed on this stone, through human letters.

A warning.

A marker.

A reminder.

Probably only great suffering would erect such stones, that is, would make them stand up like this, with a message that is for all to see.

Design the HOUSE OF REMEMBRANCE.

Design the HOUSE OF THAT WHICH DOES NOT NEGLECT THE BEYOND.

A HOUSE AND A TOMB.

A TOMB AND A HOUSE.

Life and Death.

House and Stone.

Man and his / her non-existence.

Please send us ANY work, ANY size and ANY format that responds to the theme. We will publish all the works received on our website.

Thank you,

ICARCH Gallery