According to the dictionary (Iwanami Kogo Jiten) of ancient Japanese, “ma” originally means “space between things that exist near each other; it is the interstice between them (...) In a temporal context it is the time or pause that occurs between one phenomenon and another”. Literally ma means “between”. There is ma between people, between moments and between spaces. It is an emptiness, but full of sensations, filled with everything that happens if you pay attention. In Japanese culture, and particularly in the “noh” theater, the concept of “ma” is fundamental and architecture has had special relevance in its diffusion: ma is a singular conception of space and constitutes a part of a system or structure of Japanese culture. 

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This is manifested in various aspects of his life, from architecture, art, religion and even in the behavior between people. The word ma translates as “gap”, “space”, “pause”, an interval of time and space. This ideogram is formed by the association of two characters, “door or portal” and “sun” and is interpreted as the vision of the sun filtering through the interstice of a door. It suggests an action at a given moment in time and implies a certain space-time relationship; not only as a quantitative connotation, but as a relativity and a mode of sensory perception of space. Isozaki contributes to the diffusion of the concept ma in his exhibition: “Ma: space-time in Japan” . He defines it by expressing that “...the concepts of space and time have been simultaneously understood by a single word, ma. Ma, literally, is defined as the natural interval between two or more things that exist in a “continuum” or the interval between two things; the space that spans columns or screens, the natural pause or interval in which phenomena emerge through time... It can be said that space is recognized through the mediation of time... Space and time in Japan are omnipresent and mutually responsive parts.