From SUKESUKE

Excerpts from an essay by Toyo Ito

1 Fluid Transparency:

To stand before a giant fish tank at the aquarium is to experience the curious sensation of being two places at once. With only a clear wall in between, 'here' on this side is dry land surrounded by air, while 'over there' on the other opens an aquatic world. Not so long ago, aquarium tanks were relatively small affaird, peered at through windows like openings in the wall.

Today's aquariums, however, have impossibly huge tanks where awesome volumes of water press at us with awesome force through layers of acrylic tens of centimetres thick.

To see through walls like this represent a major paradigm shift, as different as architectural elevations and cross-sections. When looking through a window, the view beyond is inviolate, self-contained. Not so with a transparent wall: an environment that ought to permeate everywhere suddenly cuts off at an invisible boundary, leaving its sheared face fully exposed. A visit to the aquarium in days gone by was like going to the circus; now one is fully immersed in the experience.