CHIAROSCURO

"The sun never knew how great it was until it hit the side of a building."--Louis Isador Kahn

"I do not believe architecture has to speak much. It should remain silent and let nature speak, in the guise of sunlight and wind."--Tadao Ando

Does form in architecture come from shadows?

In today's modern architecture, the world seems to be dominated by transparent skyscrapers that always require artificial lighting for its functions, leading to the obvious conclusion that light has eliminated the relevance of shadows.

As I started off with a quote by the great master Louis Kahn, we may try to understand his architecture which was definitely shaped by shadows. Kahn never created a pure dark space as he believed that dark shadow and light are naturally a part of each other. It was the glimpse of light, that, for him, enlightened the darkness. To explain in his own words, "A plan of a building should read like a harmony of spaces in light. Even a space intended to be dark should have enough light from some mysterious openings to tell us how dark it really is" It was this motivation that led him to device openings in his buildings in hidden and mysterious ways to focus on the effect of light and not on its origins.

PICTURE COURTESY (TOP TO BOTTOM): TAHAJUL, ANKUSH, ROHAN, FAHIM, PRIYANKA

The shadow that is mysterious also evoked silence and awe. For Kahn, it was the hand of the Architect that can evoke silence, a secret drama with the help of light and shadow to create a "Sanctuary of Art".

Light for Kahn was a central character to the dramas that enfolded in his architecture. Quoting him again, Light was the "giver of all presence".

"All materials in nature, the mountains and the stream and the air and we, are made of light which has been spent and this crumpled mass called materials, a shadow, and the shadow belongs to light." Kahn made it very evident in his works that Light was the maker of materials both physically and metaphysically and the material's purpose is to cast shadows.

As one walks through the sequence of openings of the SALK INSTITUTE porticoes, one cannot help but feel the dark silence of a cloister, albeit a modern one.

Kahn's details of precisely defined moulds of the massive concrete walls, create dark shadow lines and dark holes, offering a textural drama to them. He offers his white stone and grey concrete walls as a canvas for the play of ever-changing shadows.

As I speak of Light as a giver of form, I cannot, in good conscience, leave out another master who followed in the path of Kahn: Tadao Ando.

Le Corbusier once explained:"Space and Light and Order, those are the things that men need just as much as they need bread or a place to sleep." As an architect in the making on the other side of the globe, Ando understood and believed in it. He recognized Light as the source of all creation. Light breathes life into everything, even to bare walls of concrete.

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"Sunlight changes quality with the passage of time. It may gently pervade space at one moment, and stab through it like a blade at the next. At the same time, it is almost as if one could reach out and touch the light."

Tadao Ando's architecture will greet you with stoic materiality, yet he uses the elements to create architecture that enriches one's experience. In his Church of Light one may experience the simple yet powerful materialization of his concepts.

A rectangular box that encloses darkness amidst the daylight, is harshly punctured by a wall. As the congregation reaches the church guided by the puncture, they meet with the most powerful imagery of the Christian Church the crucifix in the shape of a sharp, austere cut in the bare concrete wall. As the sunlit cross slices through the darkness, it is bound to make even the hardest skeptic penitent*, even if it is for Ando's architecture and not the Holiness.

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*penitent, as used in this article, is not to be understood in its literal meaning, rather as an expression of veneration and awe.