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Kyoto temple uses DuPont™ SentryGlas® Expressions™ safety glass interlayers
 
"SentryGlas® Expressions™ has the aesthetic and functional power to utterly transform the way we stage exhibitions" says Japanese architect Shin Takamatsu

When revered Japanese architect and Kyoto University professor Shin Takamatsu was offered the unusual honor of staging a retrospective of his work in the inner sanctuary or 'Koshibo' of a 1,200 year-old Thoji Temple, one of the holiest temples in the ancient city of Kyoto, Japan, he decided that DuPont™ SentryGlas® Expressions™ technology offered the only appropriate medium with which to do so.

In the architect's words: "Our design for the retrospective exhibition could never have been realized without DuPont™ SentryGlas® Expressions™ technology; it allowed me to showcase my own architecture in the context of an ancient Kyoto temple sanctuary with the appropriate humility."

Shin Takamatsu went on to say: "I believe SentryGlas® Expressions™ technology has the aesthetic and functional power to utterly transform artistic, photographic and other kinds of exhibitions as we know them today. The potential of laminating high quality images into laminated glass, especially with the proper lighting, are limitless.

"SentryGlas® Expressions™ technology is quite incredible! The physical spaces we had to work with were one narrow corridor or cloister and six tiny 'tatami' rooms (small rooms with straw matting on the floors and walls and sliding paper doors). SentryGlas® Expressions™ decorative interlayer for laminated glass is the only material, the only technology we know of that could unify those spaces and transform them in order to create a whole new space that could display my architecture appropriately. Without SentryGlas® Expressions™, we could not have staged the retrospective in the temple!

"I will certainly use SentryGlas® Expressions™ in my own work again very soon. I would like to adopt the technology extensively, and give it a leading role in my architecture."

The retrospective, which was highly critically acclaimed, took place in October 2005; the laminator of the SentryGlas® Expressions™ panels was Fujiwara Kogyo Co. Ltd. of Osaka.

Architectural photos framed in translucent panels of laminated glass Shin Takamatsu explained: "In a classic retrospective, my art and architecture should have been the immediate focus of the exhibition. However, I considered that the interior architecture of the Koshibo itself, a small detached building in Thoji temple that is usually opened once a year on the occasion of a personal visit from the Emperor of Japan (or his ambassador), and which was being opened to the public for the first time on the occasion of the temple's 1,200 year anniversary, needed to be treated with particular respect, given its overwhelming historical, religious and cultural value."

Virtually all the 'Shohji' (traditional paper doors) were removed from the six temple rooms and replaced with panels of translucent or transparent laminated glass measuring 190 cm (75 in) tall x 180 cm (71 in) long containing Shin Takamatsu's projects in photographic form, either as completed buildings or in construction, using SentryGlas® Expressions™ technology. Underfoot, the tatami matting had also been removed and replaced by laminated glass supplied by Asahi Glass Co. of Tokyo; underneath this clear laminated glass 1,000 working sketches of the architect were also safely displayed.

Finally, five large wooden models used by the architect, complemented by a number of traditional Japanese 'Fsusuma' paintings by well-known artist Insho Domoto, were shown directly behind the translucent and transparent laminated glass display cases containing photographs of Shin Takamatsu's architecture captured in SentryGlas® Expressions™ technology.

Shin Takamatsu summed up: "I wanted visitors leaving the exhibition to remember something more than my architecture or the Fsusuma paintings. I wanted them to have experienced space in a new way. My hope was to touch people's hearts with this exhibition, achieved by the innovative use of SentryGlas® Expressions™ technology."