Kengo Kuma Water/Glass House

Love that Frank Gehry threw this up in his blog, even though its a throw back. This house designed by Kuma in 1995 achieved a very specific goal. Kuma tried to frame space with only two horizontal planes - the floor and the ceiling and to generate between the planes, a transparent and fluid time-space.

In the Western architectural tradition, a building is primarily framed by means of walls and windows. That interposes a frame between the subject and the object. The subject is inevitably cut off from the object. The space becomes a painting in a frame (i.e. a static image); it becomes frozen. On the other hand, in traditional Japanese architecture, horizontal planes (i.e. the floor and the ceiling) are the dominant framing devices. This enables the subject and the object to coexist in a continuous space, without being cut off from each other by the frame. In such a case, the main concern of planning is the introduction of a sequence and speed into a continuous space. One cannot help but introduce into the building the parameter of time as well as the parameter of space. As a result, become inextricably entwined.