Both small projects, both Ando in his most restrained mode, we were able to appreciate the attention to detail in the materials, particularly the concrete work, which, while excellent here, is not too far removed from standard practice in Japan, where the architectural concrete work is generally of superb quality. In a later discussion, I suggested that the overall quality of concrete formwork in Ando's work draws on the craft traditions of vernacular Japanese architecture, and that the modularity of the formwork panelization owes a debt to the proportions and arrangement of tatami mats... but this may be a facile comparison. Nonetheless, the attention to detail, craft, and material seems to be deeply imbued in the culture here: craft traditions seem to have retained relevancy despite major disruptions in history like the Meiji Restoration (and the subsequent embrace of European styles and building techniques) and of course the war and post-war search for a national identity and style stripped of xenophobic tendencies.