23 April 2009

Our day trip today, which was planned for Kobe and Ibaraki/Osaka, began at 9am. We met Don at Kyoto Station in order to take the JR Line to Kobe. It took about 45 minutes to get there. Once in Kobe, we began our trip at the Hyogo Prefecture Art Museum. This was done by Tadao Ando. We also paid the admission fee to go into the museum and experience the space as it was meant to be experienced. It was strange, but we were allowed to take photographs of anything in the permanent exhibit. There were some really cool sketches and models from Ando’s office, so most of us hung out in that area of the museum mainly. After visiting the museum, we walked through Nagisa Park to get to our next destination. We stopped briefly to look at an Ando-designed restroom, and the walk was very peaceful and scenic along the water.
The highlight of today’s trip was visiting Tadao Ando’s Church of the Light and attendant Sunday school building in Ibaraki. It is probably one of the most famous churches in the architecture world, and I never would’ve guessed in a million years that I would have to opportunity to visit it. It was truly a moving experience, yet it was still different from how I thought it would be. I don’t think pictures can ever actually depict the true feeling and atmosphere of that space. After heavily photographing the Church of the Light, we headed back to Kyoto since our final project is due tomorrow, and most of us have a lot of work to do. Trudy and I ended up working on our final project until 6:30am. We got about 2 hours of sleep, but it definitely wasn’t enough. I am satisfied overall with the way it turned out though, so hopefully Don will like it as well when we present tomorrow in class.