While Tadao Ando has built religious structures before--famously, the Church of the Light--he has rarely worked with figurative icons of religion, preferring a more abstract approach. This has changed with his open-air prayer hall in the Makomanai Takinoreien Cemetery in Sapporo, Japan, where a previously unsheltered statue of the Buddha has now been reverently housed in Ando's masterful design.

Prior to Ando, the 44-foot-tall statue had been sitting in a field for 15 years without any additional ornamentation. The scale and placement of the Buddha served less as a spiritual inspiration than a lonely beacon, prompting the commission of Ando to create a suitable home for the Buddha. The resulting open-air prayer hall both shelters the Buddha without disrupting its connection to the sky. 

From afar, visitors can't see the Buddha, only a landscaped exterior shell. Once they enter the temple, they are gradually drawn in and down, a journey that prepares them for their eventual encounter with the statue, what Ando refers to as "head-out Buddha." A halo of sky, created by the circular opening of the prayer hall, surrounds the Buddha, imbuing the locale with the reverence and reflection it was missing before.

Elsewhere, Ando's magisterial play between elements, in this case water bounded by long concrete walls and the blue sky, creates serenity and ample opportunities for reflection, both spiritual and literal.