Final Review, Osaka, Tokyoooo

A lot has happened since my last post, so I'll break it up into a few posts while I wait in the airport for my flight to Beijing. On a side note, I am waiting for about 6 more hours than I was supposed to thanks to my brother and I both missing our respective flights this morning - it was my fault as i was the one with the alarm. We were pretty terrified that it would cost us both the rest of our savings for the trip, but his ticket had no charge fee and mine was only a hundred dollars. We got pretty lucky on that one!

So last Monday was our final review for the term (pictures here). This was a group studio project so I worked with three classmates and the other groups had anywhere from 4-6 members. One of my partners is a landscape architect student in his final year, and the other two are architecture students. It was a pleasure working with them and we ended up with a nice project. We all added something different to the group, but the best part was that we were able to communicate with each other rather effectively. It was a great group dynamic. For our design we focused on an important intersection in downtown Kyoto called Shijoomiya and developed it with a planting design, urban park space and commercial center to connect the existing transportation and commercial fabric to the street level. This used to be a pretty busy hub for commuters and businesses, but a train stop was removed several years ago which has caused the area to lose its appeal.  Our group found a lot of inspiration from the Lotus flower (which is obvious when you see the boards). We presented six boards showing our design:

The students on the floor, professors and visiting reviewers in chairs

Professor Ron Lovinger during another group's review

The first four boards

The last two boards

A detail of the first board - an introduction to our presentation. I painted this to reflect the style of scroll paintings in Japan and China. Everyone responded so positively to this painting, especially to the koi. After dabbling in art on and off since high school, it was the first time that one of my pieces triggered such a visible, positive emotional response in such a large audience. It was a really nice way to cap off the term and the work we had been putting in during the first four weeks. 

This was our final board, after the plans and sections were presented. We decided it would be a good idea to show the impact of our design by creating a comic strip that responded to the Japanese culture of Manga and Anime. The board illustrates a narrative of the four group members taking different routes of transportation to the center of this intersection. The main idea of our design was to create a meeting place for people, a recognizable center for Kyoto amongst the different modes of transportation (a center that the city is currently lacking). The comic really helped show this idea. Michael Bowles drew the whole thing up over the course of about a week (which was pretty amazing if you ask me), then we all traced it onto the paper and the two of us water colored each character's journey in a different color. The response from the students and professors was inspiring. I really enjoy the idea of representing architecture in a non-traditional manor. Often we are taught very limited methods of representation to capture the feeling of a building such as doctored photographs, realistic renderings, plans and sections. Architecture is such an emotional, artistic and imaginative response to a given set of circumstances that in order to communicate a proposal there must freedom of expression and interpretation. I'm not saying it has to be completely abstract or on the other hand without any of the practical components, but my favorite presentations include both the realistic details as well as the conceptual motivations. 

Our professor Daisuke translating for our guests


Caitlin's group presenting their project


Peter Baker and Ali McQueen


Quin and his group's boards



Ron explaining something about a Cheetah?

Off to Beijing! More to come, probably not until I return to the States!

Final Media Review

This summer term is broken down into three classes, one is studio, one is a special studies class and one is a media class. The media class consisted of daily water coloring class as well as individual lessons from two of our professors. We had our final on Monday and we were expected to have about 14 completed paintings. 

One of the main reasons I chose to come here was to develop my water coloring. After spending about 6 weeks focusing on it last summer I knew I would not get much better unless I dedicated a large chunk of time to it. I have been a little frustrated because I am not improving as fast as I wanted, but we are only half way into the trip and I think I am starting to see signs of the improvement I was looking for. 

I took pictures of all the work I showed at our final which you can see if you click here. 

They chose 3 paintings from everyone to show at school in the fall and these are the 3 they chose of mine:

We made this stop on the way back from Nara

This is a view of the Katsura River in Arashiyama. This place is so beautiful when the sun goes down. My friend Caitlin let me borrow her camera and take some pictures after I painted:

Caitlin working on a masterpiece!

This one is on the way up to the top of a mountain that overlooks Kyoto. 

I knew I would enjoy water coloring, but I also want to be better at freehand sketching, so I have been trying to capture some of these places with quick sketches. I really enjoy the way these have been developing:

This one is inside our temple complex at night

The temple garden at Kongbuji - in Koyosan

This is my favorite of all the work I have done here. I used my ink pen, a little bit of water, and then added some color at the end. It is at the entrance of Daishen-In.

Koyosan and Nara

Hellooooo,

It has been a while since I have posted anything because A) they have kept us very busy and B) I don't know how to possibly narrow down everything into one post at a time. Instead, I have been posting pictures every few days and waiting to write about specific topics or themes as they build up in my head. We had our midterm review on Friday, which means we were in the temple for four days working to put together our presentation, but then we got the weekend off so I caught up on some water coloring, sleep and Karaoke!

Last week our professors and the head monk at Daishen-In took us to Nara for 3 days. On the way we were privileged to a night in Koyosan which is the headquarters of the Shingon sect of Buddhism. Koyosan is a town of only about 4000, 2/3rds of which are monks in training. The head monk, Osho, trained here as a child before changing sects. We left Myoshin-ji at 6 in the morning in order to get to Okunoin by mid morning. Okunoin is the largest cemetery in Japan, and it surrounds the mausoleum of the founder of Koyosan, Kukai. 

This was truly one of the most beautiful places I have ever seen in my life. The trail leading up to the mausoleum is 2 km long and dates back over a thousand years.  Yes, the scale was impressive, the textures and colors were intense and the sense of history was overwhelming but the timing was the most powerful part of the morning. We were so lucky to see this place in the most dramatic setting imaginable. Fog had moved in and deepened as we progressed to the mausoleum so that each grave, tree, fountain and offering was more emotional than the one before it. On any given day this place would be beautiful, but that day was a once in a lifetime experience. Every person I talked to that night felt emotions they had never felt before. 

Here are some pictures from the morning:

The beginning of the trail, before the fog really moved in. The trees in this cemetery were some of the largest and oldest I have ever seen.

The bibs are used in prayer of children who have died, or to protect the living 

This might be the best picture i have ever taken. 

towards the end of the trail

When we reached the Mausoleum we walked into the main temple where a monk was leading a chant, then gathered with Osho in back of the temple where he led us in a chant of prayer and thanks in front of Kukai's tomb. I was not allowed to take pictures back here, but it was a moving experience that made several people on the trip lose it. At this point I was more in shock than anything else or I'm sure I would have done the same. I watched a sparrow fly down from above, right through the Torii gates leading to Kukai's tomb.  It was the first time I have ever been so moved by a piece of architecture. Had the gate not been there it would have just been another bird following a seemingly random path. Thanks to her route from directly above us, through the middle of these gates to the other side (a side forbidden to all of us), she represented something much more meaningful and put the final touches on an experience I will never forget. The emotional response to architecture is something I have yet to really understand, but it is the primary reason I want to study it. I know happiness can be created by architecture, but it can never just be about the building. The context in which the building is experienced has to be valued just as much if not more than the building itself. Or maybe there should be no differentiation between the two? The minute the two words are separated they become isolated elements. Anyway, This guy has a nice write up about Koyosan, including some great pictures. I don't know him but he has some good info about Buddhism and the town. 

After we loaded back onto the bus we headed to Nara for the next two nights. Nara was really fun but I will save the writing for tomorrow after we have our final review for media. We need to have 14 water colors done, and 40 by the end of the trip, so I will probably start posting some pictures of that stuff. 

I Just want to leave you with some highlights of Nara:

Freakishly small deer 

The largest wooden structure in the world

More cute Japanese kids (mostly for Kaitlin :0) )

Tea ceremony with a view of the city in the background and the garden in the foreground

Ok I'm off to bed, but I hope people are enjoying these pictures. If you really like any of them, or want me to explain any of the ones in my albums, email me!

 Love you all and Happy 4th of July!

Off to Nara

Hey all,

I uploaded a few more pictures from yesterday.  They are from the temple we are staying in (six of us from the University are staying here while the other 20 or so are staying at Daishen-In, a different temple in the Myoshin-Ji complex). Highlights include our jacked priest, Taka, our meditation room, paintings on the walls, and the gardens of the temple which are really beautiful. 

I will be in Nara for 3 days without internet, but will be back with another post sometime next week. I hope everyone is enjoying summer! I miss you all. 

Temples, nightlife, rivers and vending-machine Sake!

The last few days have been unbelievable! I don't have a lot of energy to do a full post thanks to our first night in downtown Kyoto (and the Kama River at 4 AM), so I am just going to put up some pictures with captions. I'm not sure how much I am going to be able to blog just because we are constantly on the move and we will be doing a studio project soon, but I will definitely be keeping up my picasa album. 

So far we have toured a few temples and gardens, water colored on the Kamo River, swum in the Kamo and the Katsura Rivers, ridden bikes all over the city and walked through a bamboo forest. It's tough to decide which things I share on this blog because the whole trip has been so exciting. 

This is a room in the temple that most the students are staying at, Daishen-In. 

The buddhist breakfast served to us on the first two days was delicious.

Part of a ceremony that only happens once a year at Miyoshin-ji

Bicycles are the main mode of transportation in Kyoto. It's great seeing the wide variety of bicyclists on these roads. The style of riding is so much different than at home. It's a really strange, organic chaos on the streets. Despite the speed, the number of riders/drivers and the lack of proper bike lanes, I feel very safe riding around because no one feels entitlement to their specific path and everyone is very aware of their surroundings as they ride. 

No real purpose to this photo, I just like the colors and the funny character. 

One thing we can't quite understand is their process of putting completely random words in English on their bikes. Some of our favorites are "Feel Garden", "Parsley", and "Hand Clap!!"

The group swimming in the Katsura River after a long, hot day. Only Westerners swim here and it is really funny to see the locals' reactions as they pass by on the river. 

Wow Asian babies are cute.

The best vending-machine sake in town. It also doubles as a perfect water cup for painting! 

This is the Komo River. It runs right through the heart of Kyoto and is home to dozens of local fish, birds and animals. At any given spot along the river there are several bird species (cranes, egrets, herons and hawks) flying around overhead or fishing the river. We sat on the banks and painted here for a while, then a few of us came back for an early morning swim after going out downtown. 

This is a picture of The Time's Building designed by Tadao Ando. I don't know if I've ever been more impressed by a building before. I will probably do a separate post on the Ando buildings that I visit while in Japan. 

This place is fun!!

KYOTO!

Hey everyone! After a few days of traveling from LA to the Narita Airport, to the train ride into Tokyo Station, to the overnight bus ride into Hanzano station in Kyoto, to the full day of wandering aimlessly around the downtown area and figuring out the bus routes, I am sitting on my bed in my 16th century, air-conditioned, Zen Buddhist temple, connected to the wireless internet. Something about all this seems not quite real? Maybe it's the irony of the accommodations, or it could be the novelty of my first few days alone in a foreign (very foreign) country, or the new found adventure of traveling as a vegetarian, or the fact that the last few days were not organized by someone else so I had to find my own way around in a place that has a lot less English than I expected. Whatever it is I have had a fun 72 hours but I don't think it has quite sunk in yet. I will miss Oregon and already do miss Kaitlin, but this should be an amazing 7 weeks. Right now I am having an Asahi beer from a case that our host priest, Taka bought for us and looking forward to the rest of the students' arrivals and the program starting up tomorrow morning. 

So I wanted to settle in, catch up on some email and start posting pictures because I will probably get backed up pretty fast. Click on any of the pictures below to go to the full album:

All I saw of Tokyo while I was waiting for my bus. I will be heading back with Andrew during the 6th week of the trip.

The Hanzano Station after an 8-hour journey (7 of which I slept!)

The entrance path into Myoshinji - A large complex of several individual temples

A Detail of one of the temples 

The entrance to the Skinkyogoku Covered Arcade

Some of the food on display at this covered market

 Some more of the food

Pretty colors

More pretty colors and food

Old versus New is a common theme here in Kyoto