TalkTuesday 9 April 2013
6:00pm – 7:30pm
The Ise Shrines: Cyclical Narratives in Architecture
Drinks reception from 8:00pm
13/14 Cornwall Terrace, Outer Circle, London, NW14PQ
Organised by The Daiwa Anglo-Japanese
Located in the city of Ise in Mie Prefecture on the eastern coast of Japan, the Ise Shrines are among Shinto’s holiest sites and a place of pilgrimage. There are two main shrine complexes, an Outer Shrine (Gekū) and an Inner Shrine (Naikū), located about six kilometres apart. The Shinto shrines are dismantled and rebuilt from scratch on an adjacent site to exact specifications every twenty years. In this way, the buildings will be always new, but also always ancient and original. The tradition of reconstruction and relocation has taken place since 690AD and will occur again for the sixty-second time in 2013. The ceremony, known as Shikinen Sengū, enables traditional technologies to be preserved, along with an architectural style that would otherwise have decayed and disappeared long ago.
Chiara Hall told the story of the Shikinen Sengū, accompanied by her drawings, which portray the rituals of four social groups that are part of the ceremony within the landscape – pilgrims, priests, festival-goers and construction workers. Her drawings are based on research into the aesthetics of twelfth-century Japanese narrative handscroll paintings. Structured like silent films, the stories of the shrines are represented by a series of static scenes, combined with scenes incorporating movement through axonometric and horizontal projection. Chiara explained the methods she used, whilst highlighting ideas about continuity and impermanence.
About the contributors
Chiara Hall
Chiara Hall was born in London in 1986. She completed her BSc and MArch in Architecture at the Bartlett School of Architecture, University College London, graduating in 2012. She has worked for a number of architectural practices and art galleries in London and has produced models of the Hayward Gallery for exhibitions. She has been part of group exhibitions in London and Tokyo and enjoys painting and printmaking.
Her thesis proposed the cyclical model of storytelling, as a representative tool in architecture to allow an architect to tell a story of a place. The story of the reconstruction ceremony of the Ise Shrines every twenty years was the basis for her research through drawing. The work is currently in the process of being edited into a book and translated into Japanese, and will be published to coincide with the sixty-second ceremony in 2013.
Isabelle Priest
Isabelle Priest (Chair) graduated from the Bartlett School of Architecture, University College London, with a Distinction in MA Architectural History. She undertook her BSc in Architectural Studies at the same institution. She is a content producer at the Architects’ Journal, and a freelance writer and architectural historian. She writes regularly for A10 New European Architecture magazine and The Modern House, and she has previously worked for Architecture Today.