Temple of the Columns
Naoshima Island, Japan
Opera study
2024
The Temple of Columns is a space built for suspension and measure.
It is not dedicated to a cult or a specific symbolic form. It is a place where human presence confronts time, verticality, and silence.
Nine columns emerge from a body of water.
Their arrangement doesn't represent, but orders: it marks a distance, establishes a rhythm, introduces a relationship between body, space, and reflection. Water is not a decorative element, but a surface of subtraction, which multiplies perception and slows the gaze.
In the center, a hypogeal volume, collected and measured, is inscribed in a wooden grid.
The shapes present do not function as signs to be interpreted, but as presences to be traversed. Their arrangement does not indicate a meaning, but rather establishes a state of balance and concentration.
The Temple does not invite symbolic contemplation, but permanence.
It requires no adherence or interpretation. It allows everyone to move through space at their own pace, without hierarchies or prescriptions.
In this setting, architecture does not mediate between man and the sacred.
It simply builds a place where measure, silence, and verticality make a form of listening possible.









