LSA 220- Introduction to Landscape Architecture

Guest speaker
The Visible and the Hidden by Kris Yao
Chris Brocher
October 21st

Kris Yao is an architect from Taipei Taiwan. Although his name is known all across the world, his
accomplishments back home has made him an icon in his homeland. After studying Architecture at The
University of California, Berkeley, he received his Masters in 1978. On October 21st he came to Syracuse
and spoke to his audience about some of his work and the inspiration behind it. He spoke about these
two very opposite terms, Taog and A. Yao explained what these meanings meant and how he views
them in an architectural aspect. The term Taog refers to the direct, explicit, tangible, and visible
aspects of a design structure, where A is the deep, implicit, intangible, and hidden side of design.
During his presentation he discussed his design process and inspiration behind some of his wellknown work. When designing the Palace Museum he based his concept off Chinese calligraphy which is
a 3 stroke painting method, one brush soaked in paint, one dry brush, and one watered down stroke
which then create all kinds of smooth and wavy shapes. After seeing seeing the painting, you could see
the concept translated into his design. The first thick stroke represented the main building, the second
thin stroke illustrated public spacing, and the gentle third stroke used was used to portray an inclined
bridge.
His conceptual process was only a piece of his lecture, he also spoke about his inspiration in
nature and how he loves to emphasize it in his design. When discussing the Watermoon Monastery he
focused a lot on the sunlight and the beauty it brought to the site. He designed one of the walls to have
cut outs of large texts from an important scroll and he used the natural light to project these cut outs
onto the interior wall. In the meditation dhyana he used the water to create a reflection of the Temple.
There was a lot more that he spoke of and I'm very great-full that he willing to share his
knowledge and life with us. He mentioned a funny story about when he was going back to visit the
Wuzhen-Theater a year after it had opened. He was taking a little boat from a village right behind the

theater where he had the most beautiful view, and as he was at it the man rowing the boat started to
explain the whole design process of the theater not knowing Kris Yao was the man who designed it. It
was a great story because that's a part of my inspiration and it's a reality that I would love to experience
one day.