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"View Slideshow\n\nA golden Buddha presides over a long, shadowy gallery, evoking the inner shrine of a revered temple. But first impressions are deceptive: This is the heart of a new house by a firm that employs the latest technologies in daring buildings around the world. The walls are dappled in light from backlit glass boulders embedded randomly in reconstituted stone. The glass blocks in the bronze grid at the end of the gallery were made from recycled cathode-ray tubes. And the red-and-black photographs displayed at right angles to the statue are by contemporary British artists Gilbert and George. The only elements that rival the Buddha in age and patina are the ancient Chinese floor tiles.\n\nThis serene yet surprising retreat is located on a leafy hillside in Kamakura, an hour's drive from Tokyo. It is the product of a 20-year relationship between a collector of Buddhist art and the architects from whom he commissioned a miscellany of boats and buildings, Foster and Partners. David Nelson, the partner who headed the design team, began working with the client soon after Norman Foster made the initial contact on a trip to supervise construction of the firm's early masterpiece, the Hong Kong and Shanghai Bank. Nelson became fascinated by the Japanese tradition of filtering natural light, layering space and raising buildings off the ground while firmly linking them to the landscape. \"It's a very humane architecture and relevant to our lives today,\" he says. \"We tried to capture its essence without lapsing into pastiche. You have to absorb it and let it slip into your subconscious.\"\n\n\"It was a beautiful site, and the more we eliminated, the more mysterious it felt,\" says Nelson.\n\nOne of his first ventures was a pavilion on the Izu Peninsula, a lightweight structure that seems to float above the sea. Kamakura demanded something more grounded, with an air of permanence. Eight hundred years ago this was the capital of Japan, and the giant bronze Buddha recalls that era of puissance and piety. As the site was cleared of debris and earth washed down the hill, it disclosed the foundations and retaining walls of early settlement. Samurai swords had been forged in caves that pierce a rock face, and a descendant of the family that made them keeps the tradition alive in a local workshop. \"It was a beautiful site, and the more we eliminated, the more mysterious and powerful it felt,\" says Nelson.\n\nThe design evolved slowly, in harmony with the land. Before Nelson began to sketch, there were long discussions about the sequence of spaces as you moved from darkness to light and from enclosed to open areas. The owner praised Frank Lloyd Wright's Fallingwater and requested places to display and store his art collection but provided no detailed program. He loved the exchange of ideas and participated actively in every decision. The placement of the building on the land was determined in part by a feng shui expert who identified strong lines of force running around the perimeter and by the architect's desire to incorporate a paved terrace between the house and the cliff face. A mature cherry tree was retained as a point of focus, along with an existing torii.\n\nGradually, the project took shape as a series of parallel masonry walls dividing and connecting a complex of spaces in the main house and a detached pavilion behind. The walls project to frame views, provide shade and screen out neighboring buildings. For lack of agreement on a natural stone, the architects decided to create their own. Foster was building a house on the Mediterranean (see Architectural Digest, October 2006), inserting a new structure between existing roughcast walls, and he saw how slicing them with a diamond saw revealed the rocks concealed within. That led to the idea of using chunks of glass to create a pattern and allow natural light to pass through, but the composite stone could be used only as a cladding for the poured-concrete structure, and it was necessary to install fiber-optic lighting behind the glass. Nelson likens the effect in the gallery to the flecks of gold on a lacquered Japanese screen.\n\nParts of the house were mocked up with scaffolding before construction began, to ensure that views from the master bedroom and other private spaces were artistically composed. The owner took charge of the landscaping in association with Shigemi Komatsu, a scholar of Kamakura art. Walking though the house is a voyage of discovery as you turn corners and shift levels. Dark gray ceilings underscore a sense of mystery in shadowy rooms that swallow you up and then release you into spaces that frame trees, rocks and works of art. One of the most surprising features is the shrine made of hinoki, or cedar, that fills an inner courtyard. The house serves as a sensual backdrop for leisure and work, from the indoor pool to the reed-canopied roof terrace and a boardroom for the owner's foundation. It is also a work of art that intensifies the experience of the pieces on display, generating feelings of timelessness and tranquillity."^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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