When tasked with building a worship facility to surround the 1,500-ton stone Buddha that sits at the center of one of the largest cemeteries in Japan, architect Tadao Ando took an unconventional approach: “Let’s bury it!”
Taking inspiration from the cave temples of Ajanta and Dunhuang, Ando designed an elaborate concrete structure to surround the Buddha at the heart of Sapporo’s Makomanai Takino Cemetery so that from a distance only the head is visible. “What awaited me in the depths of these cloistered spaces were great stone-carved statues of the Buddha that shimmered in the faint light that entered from holes bored into the rock,” he wrote in The Brooklyn Rail, an independent arts magazine. “I wanted to recreate the wonder of those spatial experiences in the grand landscape of Hokkaido.”
Atop the newly constructed hill, Ando planted 150,000 lavender shrubs and laid out labyrinthine pathways that slow the visitor’s advance toward the monumental Buddha. He presents this path as a way to invite visitors to adopt a spirit of reverence and contemplation as they transition from the “everyday realm” to the transcendent.
“No matter how far visitors advance, they cannot see the full figure of the Buddha that awaits them,” says Ando. “They must first emerge from the tunnel, step out into the circular space harboring the Buddha, and tilt their heads back before they can finally see the face of the Buddha under the light streaming down from the heavens.”
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