Images des microcosmes flottants : nouvelles figurations architecturales japonaises

This research focuses on the premise that depiction is quintessential to the conception of an architectural project. The representation also provides insights regarding how the architects design the architecture. This thesis is intended towards understanding new forms and paradigms of design mediation that have emerged over the last two decades in Japan. It unravels and highlights the historical, theoretical aspects and analyses the evolution, convergence and major trends in the field of architectural representation. Based on bibliographical sources and exclusive, unpublished interviews with the prominent Japanese architects of the period under consideration, this work presents six cross-functional themes with the objective to identify and examine the critical tools that could be used in the conception and representation of the contemporary Japanese architecture. The understanding of the underlying techniques reveal a very hybridised landscape of digital and analog tools with a paradoxical objective of imparting a manual effect to the entire expression. The treatment of light in the images of the project is characterised by overexposure and dispersion that adds an elusory, unseizable dimension to the objects and spatial limits. In a similar fashion, the graphical limits, are either diminished or diluted giving an impression of a space with evolving outlines. The pseudo-naive expression of multiple images, achieved by the profusion of familiar objects, obliterates the orthodox hierarchy among the architectural elements and opens up the possibility of evoking and imagining tiny, soothing universes in an architecture which is otherwise radical to the beholder. The point of view used in images transcend the Euclidean realism, producing an imagery that seems to float in free space. Finally, the genealogy of relationship between masters and students permits the tracing of the lines of influence, how the craftsmanship changed hands and percolated down the professional world. The specificities in the Japanese representation are a testimony to the complex approach of the architects towards an architectural project, where all the attributes of space are questioned and redefined but still the undercurrent of tradition continues to have a pivotal influence.