Exploring Japan - A Visit to Tadao Ando's Water Temple on Awaji Isl...

I came to realise that there’s nothing worse than photographing concrete architecture on an overcast day. With your own eye it doesn’t make that much difference, but when you're photographing this type of architecture with your camera the problems with white balance and exposure are real. I tried my best when I visited the ‘Water Temple’, real name Shingonshu Honpukuji, on Awaji Island in Hyogo Prefecture.

To find this temple without a car is quite a mission! While following my GPS I was led in to two farmer’s fields and felt as though I was going in completely the wrong direction. When I finally arrived it was a nice experience walking around and down in to this temple designed by Japanese architect Tadao Ando and completed in 1991. The setup is a little peculiar due to the rural location, but I think the most iconic part of this temple are the stairs that cut through the middle of the pond on top and offer an entrance in to the circular shrine below.

Inside I was taken aback by the red used inside the shrine that contradicts the concrete below. Did you know the colour red is very important to Japanese. For example the colour of the sun is considered yellow here but in Japan they consider it as a red circle (hence the Japanese flag, white with a red circle, and the "land of the rising sun" name assigned to Japan itself). As you walk around the circular temple you arrive in the middle of the circular tube itself where you can find a statue of buddha. What’s fascinating about this temple is the shard of light that shines directly on the Buddha at around 3 or 4pm (depending on the season).

Overall I really liked this temple by Tadao Ando, and as a fan of architecture I thought it was worth visiting. The only thing I regret is actually getting a picture of this temple from above, but it’s near on impossible to capture as it’s quite confined. I tried my best with the photos above and below. I hope you like them and will visit Awaji when you travel to Japan, it's a nice island.

Exploring Japan - A Visit to Tadao Ando's Water Temple on Awaji Island