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1_CONSTRUCTED SPACE [gaze, commodity, technology, context]

Tokyo urbanism and branded space

I. Edo and the depatoII. 1920s and female shopperIII. 1960s Harajuku and Omotesando Fashion StreetIV. 1980s the bubble, Lolita, technologyV. 2000s post bubble

2_IMAGE [gaze, appropriation, commodity]

From Ende to Bow: Tokyo Architecture, its image, and its now

I. National Diet BuildingII. The MetabolistsIII. Postmodern condition Saran Wrap CityIV. Pet architecture

3_AESTHETIC [materiality, technology]

Explorations of postmodern Japanese Design: Collapsing the Material and the Haptic

I. Kenya Hara: Haptic and EmptinessII. Definitiontial collapsing of material and immaterialIII. Toledo Glass Pavillion, 2003 (SANAA)

4_REPRESENTATION [gaze, appropriation, materiality, context]

The problem of Frampton’s critical regionalism in the work of Tadao Ando

I. Frampton and Critical RegionialismII. Three Stories of the Koshino House: Frampton, Mastuba, and AndoIII. Implications 5_Public Private Projects

I. Sendai Mediatheque, Toyo Ito, 2001II. Shinanome Canal Court, Riken Yamamoto, 2003III. Sarugaku, Akihasa Hirata, 2007IV. House H, Sou Fujimoto, 2008V. LLove Hotel, various, 2010

histories

+

theories

space + representation

Studies in Re_imaging Japanese pre|postmodern Architecture

Tokyo

retail area cited architecture

gaze

materiality

context

commodity

technology

Studies in Re imaging Japanese pre|postmodern Architectu

3_

1_

1603-1868 1920

hitecture

5_

4_

2_

1960 1980 1990 2000 2010

Introduction

Originally a samurai settlement known as Edo until 1868, the capital city

of Japan, Tōkyō, has experienced cycles of destruction and reconstruction due

to natural disasters and air raids. The 1920s, in particular, were a time of great

change for the city. When the 1923 Kantō Earthquake struck, destroying over 60

percent of the city due to fires, the city was faced with reconstruction. When air

raids during WWII decimated a quarter of the city and population decreased sig-

nificantly, the city was once again faced with reconstruction. By the 1960s, Tōkyō’s

economy was improving again due to agricultural and economic reforms. In a city

where a building’s lifespan is typically forty years due these periods of destruc-

tion, reconstruction, and a now desire for newness, Tōkyō is a city defined by

change.

From images of Tōkyō in movies from Lost In translation to Tōkyō, Tōkyō

is also a city that drives technology, fashion, design, architecture, and a human

experience steeped in what architects Yoshiharu Tsukamoto and Momo Kaijima

of Bow Wow Atelier call “a complex intertwining of people, the flow of things, ele-

ments of environment and time, which can never be obtained from a bird’s eye

view…an urban micro system.” (Kajima et al. 36).

The following studies cover the Japanese postmodern city, architecture

and design today by covering the concepts and themes outlined in the table of

contents, diagram, and map, attempting to re-image Japan in the postmodern

discourse of architecture.

1_ CONSTRUCTED SPACE

Tōkyō Urbanism and Branded Space

Consumer, branded space and buildings for consumption have long been

part of the trajectory of Japanese urbanism and the consumer experience, often

co-opting into one another. To understand how the urban space of Tōkyō has

developed as spaces for consumption and spaces of consumption ranging from

flashy billboards, atelier architecture, to boho neighborhoods, one must look at

the evolution of the shopping experience as the Japanese urban experience be-

ginning in the Edo Period (1688-1703) to postmodern Tōkyō. This beginning study

will examine urban space as consumed space, starting with the Edo Period, con-

tinuing into the 1920s, 1960s, and 1980s, and ending in the 2000s. Each of these

jumps in time demonstrate the evolution of a 2D marketed, urban space to a full

on 3D development of urban space and architecture driven by Tōkyō street fash-

ion culture, trend, and commodity.

Edo and the Depato

Edo Architecture can be characterized according to the settlement pat-

terns of the low city, or shitamachi, and high city. Within the low city, the machiya

or teahouse was used by commoners as residential and retail spaces, and the

nagaya, or row house, were occupied by the lower class samurai, located at the

periphery of the daimyo settlements. Machiya were typically only 5.4 to 6 meters

wide and owned by merchants.

Architectural Historian Hidenobu Jinnai notes that many of these nagaya were

located strategically on corner lots to attract buyers because of their visibility

within the dense streetscape.

When ruling power was returned to the imperial family in 1603, the sam-

urai class gradually became part of the merchant class. This sudden growth of

this social class, who already owned and operated much of the retail spaces in

Edo, precipitated the development of Japan’s first department store, translated in

Japanese phonetically as depato in 1673. Echigoya (fig. 1.1) sold kimono fabric in

an unprecedented way. Instead of home calls and customized orders, the depart-

ment store sold fabric by the yard in a public place. This change in buying goods

affected the way people began to experience the city because it enabled social

and economic exchange outside the home.

To attract consumers to this new buying experience, Echigoya, followed

traditional characteristics of Edo Architecture, a blurring of outside and inside

boundaries with the streetscape and interior space of the store, vertical signs

around the store’s periphery, and signage indoors to further choreograph the

shopping experience. Spatially, the potential consumer pedestrian could see di-

rectly into the store and the possible goods for sale and be invited into a new

experience of buying and socializing (fig. 1.2).

Furthermore, the company also engaged in marketing practic-

es that were tightly related to the urban activities of Edo, such as theatre.

Echigoya employed the practice of kanban, traditional Edo signs, in the kimonos

it provided for actors on stage. By creating a direct relationship between market-

ing, culture, and commerce, Echigoya evolved the use of 2D print onto the body

periphery of the daimyo settlements. Machiya were typically only 5.4 to 6 meters

wide and owned by merchants.

Architectural Historian Hidenobu Jinnai notes that many of these nagaya were

located strategically on corner lots to attract buyers because of their visibility

within the dense streetscape.

When ruling power was returned to the imperial family in 1603, the sam-

urai class gradually became part of the merchant class. This sudden growth of

this social class, who already owned and operated much of the retail spaces in

Edo, precipitated the development of Japan’s first department store, translated in

Japanese phonetically as depato in 1673. Echigoya (fig. 1.1) sold kimono fabric in

an unprecedented way. Instead of home calls and customized orders, the depart-

ment store sold fabric by the yard in a public place. This change in buying goods

affected the way people began to experience the city because it enabled social

and economic exchange outside the home.

To attract consumers to this new buying experience, Echigoya, followed

traditional characteristics of Edo Architecture, a blurring of outside and inside

boundaries with the streetscape and interior space of the store, vertical signs

around the store’s periphery, and signage indoors to further choreograph the

shopping experience. Spatially, the potential consumer pedestrian could see di-

rectly into the store and the possible goods for sale and be invited into a new

experience of buying and socializing (fig. 1.2).

Furthermore, the company also engaged in marketing practic-

es that were tightly related to the urban activities of Edo, such as theatre.

Echigoya employed the practice of kanban, traditional Edo signs, in the kimonos

it provided for actors on stage. By creating a direct relationship between market-

ing, culture, and commerce, Echigoya evolved the use of 2D print onto the body

and its stores into a sophisticated form of lifestyle branding (fig. 1.3). Through the

kanban, sales and the latest fashions were disseminated to the mass public.

1920s: 2D Print Media and the Female Shopper

Following World War I, a change in government attitude occurred. This

was largely precipitated by economist Morimoto Kokichi’s published works Bunka

Seikatsu Kenkyū, Culture Life Research, (1920) and mass market magazine Bunka

Seikatsu, Culture Life, (1921). As the economy grew after the war, particularly in

Tōkyō, the phrase bunka seikatsu (culture life) evolved in its relationship to mass

consumption instead of rationalization. By the mid 1920s, bunka seikatsu had be-

come associated with the phrase modan (modern), new products, and images

from the West relating to fashion and lifestyle.�

Among these images from the West was the department store. Originally

known as Echigoya, Mitsukoshi became a key destination for family entertainment

and shopping in the 1920s in new ways after observing its success in London and Paris.

Mitsukoshi created a marketing research group and hired one of the most re-

nowned graphic designers of the time, Sugiura Hisui. From its incipience in

1914, the magazine’s covers featured women and nature or both, appealing to

its target female audience and establishing itself as a trendsetting magazine.

As the term bunka seikatsu and connotations with the West

took greater hold and personal wealth increased, Japanese wom-

en began to look to Mitsukoshi and its magazine for lifestyle ideas.

However, housewives, or shufu, began to feel anxious about the so-

cietal pressures of being the ideal shufu by the late 1920s. Mitsu-

koshi recognized this growing apprehension in its advertisements.

In contrast to the domestic space in which housewives were mostly fea-

tured in domestic lifestyle magazines, Mitsukoshi began to feature the housewife

differently in its magazines (fig. 1.4). The mother and child are shown outside

the home in front of a Mitsukoshi Department Store in Ginza, the most fash-

ion forward area in Tōkyō at the time. The mother is fashionably dressed in a

kimono, reflecting the spring season’s flowers, wearing a “flapper” hairstyle.

She appears to bare no burden of the housewife lifestyle with her well be-

haved and well dressed child, and is enjoying the vibrant street life portrayed in

the background near the department store. This representation of the house-

wife outside the home with her child demonstrates Mitsukoshi’s desire to tar-

get these housewives to believe that Mitsukoshi could be a day out, an es-

cape from household responsibilities in contrast to the Shufu no tomo covers.

In implicitly addressing the concerns of the housewife by removing her from her

domestic sphere, Mitsukoshi successfully began to target the shufu as consum-

ers within in urban space and provide alternatives to the shufu’s self identity.

At the same time, the modan girls also became a target-

ed consumer, or as some have suggested, more a marketing ide-

al than an actual facet of Japanese female identity in the 1920s.

Regardless, the modan girl was another female representation in print media of

the 1920s in the same way the housewife came to be. Barbara Sato states, “Ginza

was home to many of the defining elements of consumerism: the department

store, the café, the dance hall, and the modern girl”. (49)

Unlike Japanese housewives, these women were targeted more aggres-

sively outside the home and in the urban public space of Tōkyō (fig. 1.5). This

mobility of city life and a difference in socio-demographic status (marital status

and single income earners) between the shufu and modan girl led to differences

in their media portrayal and media constructs. As a result, they were often photo-

graphed, walking the streets of Ginza or in working in cafes or dance halls. Taka-

hashi Yasuo notes: “As the gas technology emerged in the beginning of the Taishō

period (1918-1926) and electricity followed in the Shōwa Period (1926-1989), the

atmosphere in the city was a continued to be a stage space—the dance hall, the-

ater, display case, the purpose was to be seen.” (75) As the modan girl appeared

everywhere in parts of the city landscape, she also appeared in cosmetic, tobac-

co, and liqueur ads related to the dance hall and café lifestyle. Her appearance

and lifestyle revolved around meanings, activities, and the physical urban space of

Ginza, establishing their identity through retail space within an urban landscape

(fig. 1.6-1.10).

As Japan moved into the late 1920s, portrayals of the shufu and modan

girl became less contrasting in their uses of spaces in print ads. The women fea-

tured below in the ads for Mitsukoshi department store, light bulbs, and the

Women’s Club magazine appear to target both the housewife and modan girl,

and the department store becomes an all out shopping destination for the family

as many rail lines and suburban developments are developed coming into the city.

Living the depato life was a catch all for the urban experience; take the

train, buy the goods, decorate the home, and garner self identity that is “urban”

through the most fashionable clothing to be seen in. As a result, print media be-

came crucial to the development of the depato and branded urban space in the

1920s as a key destination within the city, rather than part of a larger cultural

network. Image of the city and its reality become more conflated in the same

way that the shufu and modan girl did as gendered, sexualized spaces. In imaging

the city through fashion, Mitsukoshi arguably precipitated the development of

fashion street culture that would translate into the Harajuku fashion of the 1970s.

1960s and 1970s: Harajuku and Omotesandō Fashion Street Culture

Since the 1960s, the area of Harajuku and Omotesandō have been two neigh-

borhoods, both different in size and scale of the street, yet adjacent to one another,

that are known for their cutting edge fashion. Omotesandō meaning “Front Street”,

was designed to lead to the Meiji Shrine, and Harajuku, meaning, “Stop at field,”

suggest two very different understandings of the two areas. Harajuku is most likely

the location where visitors would stay upon visiting the shrine while Omotesandō

was the grand approach. Both names are imbued with the size of the streets and

their proportions today. The smaller side arterial streets developed with respect to

the local topography, a characteristic of traditional Edo period city development.

The difference in size and lot parcel has led to different projects, and different

types of urban spaces.

The main cross streets of Omotesandō and Meiji Street are about 30 me-

ters while the smaller, arterial streets in Harajuku, Takeshita Street and Cat Street

are 10 meters and their block sizes also range from 50 meters to 35 meters, mak-

ing it consistent traditional Edo block sizes. The smaller scale blocks in Harajuku

allow for cheaper rent for the emerging designer. In contrast, the large avenues

of Omotesandō and Meiji Streets have ample sidewalks, and cafés that spill out

into the street (fig 1.11).

As areas such as Ginza had already established themselves as primary shop-

ping districts within Tōkyō due to the work of British architects in the 1800s, the

growth of Harajuku and Omotesandō in the 1960s was largely due to the efforts of

lifestyle producer, Hamano Yasuhiro. Many of his projects created opportunities for

the relationship he sees as important to public space in Japan: fashion and society.

The First Building in 1975 in Aoyama (fig. 1.12-1.13) was one of Hamano’s

first projects in the area to attract a younger, creative urban dweller. With Hama-

no’s efforts, the building represented “organic living” and “fashion” in Aoyama be-

cause it introduced the concept of working and living at home, an atelier workshop.

This project considered how architecture and a creative lifestyle could positively

affect street life, demonstrating Hamano’s commitment to fashion and the city.

Hamano also opened the 200-day shop, a second hand shop selling items

mostly made by hand (fig. 1.14). It was only open for 200 days (December 15,

1968-July 2, 1969). By creating commodity through demand of a store only open

200 days, Hamano piqued the interest of trend seeking shoppers, attracting a

specific demographic to the area, including punk rockers, Lolita fashion, and other

fashion conscious youth, interested in design (fig. 1.15-1.17).

Along with Hamano’s efforts, the Mori Company also developed and built

the shopping complex known LaForet in Harajuku. This Harajuku site began to de-

velop in the 1970s along with the Omotesandō due to the increasing youth street

fashion in the area. LaForet capitalized on these bourgeoning fashion trends with

its open floor plans and half skip floors to maximize each meter of its 15, 671 me-

ter squared site, a hall, and its museum that continues to target emerging design-

ers. The installation art in front of the building also serves as a meeting area for

young shoppers (fig. 1.18-1.20). LaForet arguably represents a physical threshold

between the back and front relationship of Harajuku and Omotesandō. Its build-

ing footprint is comparable to the larger flagship stores along Omotesandō, while

its target demographic, including its art museum, is the youth street fashion of

Harajuku. In the 1970s, it was about fashioning the Tōkyō street through fashion

itself.

The 80s: The Bubble

By the 1980s, Tōkyō had become a center of economic activity. It was the

world’s leading creditor, and 14 out of the 15 largest banks were in Tōkyō in the

80s. With height restrictions has been removed in 1963 in Tōkyō, the Central Busi-

ness Districts of Shibuya, Shinjuku, and Roppongi attracted high-income workers

to live in high-rise residential towers. The high cost of these areas cut down the

size of homes from 57 sq. meters in 1980 to 49 sq meters in 1983, to 46 sq. meters

in 1987. �

Due to the ease of borrowing capital, buildings were being built

through out Tōkyō in the 1980s and 1990s at a fast rate. With its gross produc-

tion at 13% in the 1990s, second to the U.S., the country was producing rapidly.

Large corporations such as the Takenaka Corporation and Nikken Sekei employed

a number of architects, contractors, engineers, planners, and financial managers

to produce some of the most technologically advanced buildings through thor-

ough research and efficiency.

Known as Bubble architecture, this building trend surfaced in the 1980s

and reflected the postmodern aesthetic in architecture at the time. The Asahi

Beer Company commissioned Philip Starck and Nikken Sekkei to design and build

two buildings for its headquarters in Sumida, Tōkyō. One building represents a

glass of beer. The second building represents the Asahi Flame of the beer brand

(fig. 1.21), and was built using advanced submarine construction techniques. The

literal representation of the building’s brand into a designed form demonstrates

a shift in architecture from image to reality. The buildings become objects within

the Tōkyō urban landscape to visually consume.

The Tōkyō Dome, known as “the big egg”, was completed in 1988 by

the Takenaka Corporation. It is the world’s largest roofed baseball stadium

with an air-supported membrane (fig. 1.22). Air is constantly blown into the

dome by a pressure fan, keeping the air pressure inside the dome some 0.3%

higher than that outside, thus holding up its covering membrane. This pres-

sure difference is equivalent to that between the 1st and 9th floor of a build-

ing and is hardly detectable by the human body. While this project is not a

physical form of any brand, it is part of a larger branded development known

as Tōkyō Dome City, housing a spa, amusement park, mall, and hotel (fig. 1.23).

Rather than an emphasis in the urban design of these types of complexes, the

focus is on the technology developed for these built projects and their retail earn-

ing potential.

Post Bubble

As with any other large city, Tōkyō’s real estate is at a high price due to

demand and lack of space due to its large population density. In Tōkyō, however,

this urban landscape operates at an entirely different level because of differences

in zoning and building code. Visual branding, therefore, of a building is just as

part of its location and economy, making major its major players flagship stores.

Below are just a few of examples of flagship stores, turned architecture projects,

that infuse Tōkyō’s landscape with an architecture that has clearly shifted from a

2D representation of marketing desire to a 3D representation for visual consump-

tion in Tōkyō.

In 2004, Toyo Ito designed the Tod’s Building in Omotesandō (fig. 1.24-

1.25). As a tribute to the Zelkova trees that have historically lined Omotesandō,

Ito decided to abstract the shape of the Zelkova tree branches as both the struc-

tural support and the façade of the space. As a result, varying triangular shapes

created openings, including the entrance that face out into Omotesandō Street.

Instead of using a Brand logo as part of the building façade, Ito used the site to

drive a design of context, the street.

Built in 2003, the Louis Vuitton Roppongi Hills façade utilizes over 28,000

circular 10 cm glass pieces sandwiched between two sheets of glass, and sus-

pended by two stainless, brown panels. The interior space, salon, and retail area,

are a massing of circular pieces. The exterior wall takes on the brand logo of Louis

Vuitton, catching and reflecting light through the angles of the circle (fig. 1.26-

1.27).

Completed in 2004 by architects Kazuyo Sejima and Ryue Nishiza-

wa, the Dior Building is located in Omotesandō (fig. 1.28). Similar to Ao-

ki’s Vuitton project in Roppongi Hills, the project involves a double skin fa-

çade of glass and acrylic. The name “Dior” stands on the 7th floor window.

The result is a translucent white glow, with some instances of opacity, day

or night that hide the building’s contents. This disconnect between the ex-

terior of the building and its interior spaces is intentional and was designed

to develop an alternate form of continuity between the city and architecture.

For Tōkyō street culture, architecture has begun to play a role

as fashion to be seen as much as the modan girls in the 1920s and to-

day’s Lolita girls. When discussing his Louis Vuitton Projects in a recent in-

terview, Jun Aoki noted the Japanese tradition of wrapping with furoshiki

in Barthes’ Empire of Signs, “This is a very interesting insight about Japanese no-

tions of reality. In this case reality is an insubstantial object. The wrapping method

itself becomes the reality of the present.“ (Brownell 155) Façade as furoshiki, the

traditional Japanese art, operates at the scale of architecture as an image, a 3D

wrapping. Still, what becomes clear is also the narrative of trend in the Tōkyō

urban experience that is no fast rendering video game, but a city mashed into

the 3D. With its Edo origins, steeped in two-dimensional print art, the marketing

of urban space and consumer culture has translated literally into the fashioned

three-dimensional.

2_IMAGE

From Ende to Bow Wow: Tōkyō Architecture, its image, and its now

This second study in re-imaging Japanese postmodern architecture will

examine the history of Tōkyō and its image as a city by examining key architectural

projects and movements from the Edo Period (1688-1703) to the 2000s, again

making specific jumps in time as they relate to Tōkyō ’s changing urban form, its

architecture, and its image that will situate Tōkyō, as it is now, an urban micro

system.

As explained in the previous study, the capital of Japan was known as

Edo prior to the Meiji Restoration (1868-1912). The city of Edo was the brought

to prominence under the ruling of the famous shogunate, Tokugawa Ieyasu. Due

to his efforts, road development flourished because the shogunate worked with

the existing topography of Edo. As a city, Edo formed between ridges created by

the seven mountains surrounding the area that Japanese architectural historian

Hidenobu Jinnai notes was a “combination of intersection and plateaus”. Archi-

tect Fumihiko Maki also notes that the Edo T and L shaped blocks were designed

to connect streets and alleys (Fig. 2.1) within an irregular topography.

This organic growth based on the land’s topography formed a cir-

cular ring of upper ridge settlements by the ruling class. The area be-

low these settlements, where commoners resided, became known as shi-

tamachi, or low city, and the area above was known as the high city.

In order to ensure access between these areas, a simultaneous development of

ring shaped roads and arterial roads occurred between the high and low areas

to ensure transportation between daimyo estates and to the shitamachi below.

When the Meiji Restoration occurred, power was returned to the imperial power

of Japan. Along with this governmental change, there was also concentrated fo-

cus on the demands of Admiral Perry that Japan open its Nagasaki Port to allow

for increased contact with the West. As result, this shift in focus placed heavy

emphasis on the development of Tōkyō as capital city and its image internation-

ally. This was particularly evident in the National Diet Building.

The National Diet Building

The National Diet Building in Tōkyō, Japan was built in 1920. How-

ever, its debate over construction had begun almost 40 years earlier. The Na-

tional Diet Building marked a nexus of issues, such as modernity, political

power, and national identity. It is not the beginning of architecture in Tōkyō,

but rather part of a larger search for national identity and a perceived interna-

tional identity as the U.S. sought entry into the country following Samurai rule.

Consequently, historian Jonathan Reynolds notes that the search for the proper

architectural style was a heated debate:From the time of the earliest stages of planning in the 1880s, people recognized the future Diet Building’s potential to represent a vision of Japa-nese national identity both domestically and in-ternationally. Yet no consensus was ever reached on how the Diet could most effectively fulfill that role. The protracted debates over the Diet’s design testify to the complex cultural contradic-tions generated by the process of appropriation through which Western ideas were incorporated into Japan as part of the ambitious project of modernization. (Reynolds 38)

As part of this debate, there were two calls for competition, in 1880 and

1920, the first only to foreign architects, and the latter to Japanese architects

with an option to invite foreign architects in case submitted designs were not

sophisticated enough. The choice for a foreign architect was equally a “national”

choice. The Diet believed that a foreign design would demonstrate the country’s

acceptance of modernism, rooted in Western, German traditions.

The first two architects commissioned for the project were German archi-

tects Wilhelm Bockmann and Herman Ende in 1886 and 1887. Two plans were

drawn up for the building, the first plan (fig. 2.2) being a masonry building with

a central dome and two capped wings over each house of parliament. The plan

called for other details such as mansard roofs, attached columns, and pedimented

windows. The second plan (fig. 2.3) involved more building details that were “Jap-

anese”: bow-shaped gable (karahafu) and a plover gable (chidorihafu), the central

pavilion was a multistory tower with spired pinnacles and more plover gables. Art

Historian Jonathan Reynolds argues that this second plan was due to a combina-

tion of factors: a sincere admiration for traditional Japanese building, a building

ethos of foreign artists and writers in Japan at the time who were arguing for a

preservation of traditional Japanese culture, and to avoid any mounting hostility

for being chosen as foreign architects of a national project.

In the late 1880s, Ralph Adam Cram, an American architect, proposed a

design after being contacted by an American Unitarian minister in Japan who was

not happy with the German proposal. Cram proposed Prime Minister Ito what

he called an “Oriental Dream” (fig. 2.4). However, his design was never realized

when Ito’s cabinet fell apart shortly after. Ultimately, only one part of the Wilhelm

Bockmann and Herman Ende plan was built due to indecision on the final build-

ing design, and was accepted as “temporary structure”. The plan was closer

to earlier versions, with a central entry and wings for each house of parliament.

The windows were roman arched and covered with gable roofs. It stood until a

fire destroyed it 1891. A second temporary replacement (fig. 2.5) was designed

by Ende’s associate, Oscar Tietze and Japanese architect Yoshi Shigenori, so the

debate over the Diet building continued:In May 1910 the Architectural Institute (Kenchiku Gakkai) sponsored a panel discussion on an ap-propriate future architectural style for the na-tion. Although the panel discussion was couched in general terms, the timing was such that the style of the future Diet was on the minds of all participants. Opinions varied dramatically. One participant advocated a purely Western style as the most appropriate choice for a modern nation. Another took a more traditionalist posi-tion. Several panelists proposed forging a new style that would draw on both Western and ear-lier Japanese architectural forms. 22 speakers agreed that the choice of style mattered, since Japan’s future public architecture would commu-nicate something about its national ideals. The panelists could not agree, however, on a single, clear vision of Japan’s community identity. (Ibid 43)

In 1920, the Diet made its second call for proposals. Out of 118 entries,

Japanese architect Watanabe Fukuzo won. When the construction was completed

(fig. 2.6), it was a combination of a number of the entries submitted and appeared

very similar to Ende and Hockmann’s first plan: The new Diet was constructed with a steel and reinforced-concrete frame faced with gray gran-ite…Its overall disposition is strikingly similar to Watanabe’s competition entry, and it is likely that the commission drew heavily from that de-sign in the development of its own. The Diet has a stouter tower and a stepped pyramidal roof that the commission probably borrowed from the third place entry by Takeuchi Shinshichi. The massing of the building is vaguely neoclassical in feel, but lacks the extensive neoclassical detail-

ing that characterized Watanabe’s work. At the time of completion, sources described the build-ing as “modern style” (kinseishiki). It is likely that the designers arrived at this modern style through a process of suppressing potentially problematic European and Japanese historicizing detail rather than out of a positive affirmation of simplified form in line with contemporary mod-ernist thought. The resulting stripped classicism has intriguing affinities with the work of the Nazi Albert Speer, as well as contemporary public ar-chitecture in the Soviet Union, the United States, and other countries in the 1930s.

As Reynolds notes, the end project result was a conglomeration of vari-

ous entries that was not any affirmation of modernism, but rather a negotiation

of history. However, this reading also suggests that this building and its search for

identity, located at the country’s capital, deals with modernity as a figurative and

literal construction of national identity. This dual construction of identity was be-

coming important in the changing urban form of Tōkyō into the twentieth century.

As noted in the previous study, the city of Tōkyō underwent a pe-

riod of immense change due to modernization and industrialization coupled

with a massive two million-person population increase by the mid 1920s.

With this increase in population, department store companies, such as

Hankyu, began to build privately owned rail lines and suburban develop-

ments with stops to their flagship stores. This economic relationship be-

tween consumerism and transportation encouraged travel into Tōkyō.

Spaces within the city, such as the department store became heavily marketed as

city destinations. The National Diet Building also became part of this destination

marketing into the city:The Diet was described as a modern building produced by means of the latest technology. One government publication went into great length

documenting the large size of the structure and offered a chart in which its dimensions were compared with those of other great structures in Japan and elsewhere, including the Great Bud-dha Hall at Todaiji, the Pyramids, and the Graf Zeppelin. This was clearly an appeal to national identity through pride in Japan’s technological accomplishments. Instead of asserting national identity by distinguishing Japan from the Other, this was a claim for including Japan among the great builders of the world. This interpretation of national identity was much more in line with such Meiji modernizers as Inoue, who first began the search for a Diet design. (Ibid 45)

Reynolds’s observations illicit a key issue that continues to define space

in Tōkyō today. As with any large city, space is a commodity. Located within the

high city, its physical footprint is much larger than the traditional Edo block (50

m). However, selling identity of the National Diet Building as a legitimately mod-

ern, political building within a changing urban landscape of Tōkyō became key to

its status as a symbol that would be seen and consumed visually. Though its end

result seems to be a mix of architectural details or arguably a cladding of Western

styles and materials and Japanese ornamentation, its role within the city of Tōkyō

becomes symbolic of a Japanese construction of national identity. Therefore, the

value in the building is not so much in the building design and its details, but in its

behavior as a sign, a national symbol in national and city image.

The Metabolists

The period following the WWII was one of recovery and

modernizing the Tōkyō urban landscape. In 1955 the Tōkyō econ-

omy was booming, and the city was looking toward the future.

The 1964 Olympics provided Tōkyō the opportunity that it moved forward as a

city and country after World War II.

By 1960, Tōkyō ’s population surpassed ten million.

As a result, decentralization of the city became a key issue as rent rose. However,

the city did not lose its general daily population because of the role of privately

owned railway companies, who continued to develop suburban developments

and a larger network of railway lines.

However, a group of Japanese architects, emerged, disenchanted with

the direction of urban planning and architecture in Japan. These architects called

themselves the Metabolists. A number of them proposed large scale, utopian

like projects for Tōkyō. These projects were driven by Metabolist principles with

strong roots in a Buddhist understanding of space, biological processes, such as

organic growth, synthesis, metabolism, technology, and a larger to desire to situ-

ate the identity of the modern Japanese city following World War II. Architect

Kisho Kurokawa once explained that war had helped him discover Japanese cul-

ture after seeing Nagoya in ruins.

In short, two key concepts shaped Tōkyō in the 1960s: the desire for

a new postwar identity in architecture and urban form in Japan following WWII

and an expanding economy. These two concepts engendered major reactions to

architecture in Tōkyō and its image as a city.

Influenced by activities of Team X, an offshoot group of CIAM, and the

search for a new postwar identity of Japan following a grave defeat, architects

Kisho Kurokawa, Tange Kenzo, Kiyonori Kikutake, Fumihiko Maki, Masato Otaka,

Kiyoshi Awazu, and architectural critic Noboru Kawazoe formed a group named

the Metabolists. They presented their work at the 1960 World Design Conference

in their book Metabolism 1960- the Proposals for New Urbanism:We regard human society as a vital process, a

continuous development from atom to nebula. The reason why we use the biological word me-tabolism is that we believe design and technol-ogy should denote human vitality. We do not be-lieve that metabolism indicates only acceptance of a natural, historical process, but we are trying to encourage the active metabolic development of our society through our proposals. (Kikutake et al. 3)

In his book, Rediscovering Japanese Space, Kurokawa describes the key

principles of the movement in Japan further as: diachronicity and synchronicity,

symbiosis of exterior and interior, symbiosis of part and whole, symbiosis of his-

tory and present, and symbiosis of man and technology.

Kurokawa does not emphasize any of these points over the other and

stresses that all the members could not agree on the fundamental points of me-

tabolism uniformly. However, the final point of symbiosis of man and technology

begins to suggest alternative readings for architecture, city, and technology in

Tōkyō that are embedded in images of Tōkyō today.

For the Kurokawa, urban life evolves with the acceptance that the city is

always changing, like a biological organism, a quality that can be facilitated by a

building’s spatial and technological adaptabilities. In introducing his project, the

Nagakin Capsule Tower (fig. 2.7), Kurokawa analyzes the capsule in the modern

city.The capsule is a cyborg architecture. Man, ma-chine and space build a new organic body, which transcends confrontation. As a human being equipped with a man-made internal organ be-comes a new species which is neither machine nor human, so the capsule transcends man and equipment. Architecture from now on will in-creasingly take on the character of equipment. This new elaborate device is not a ‘facility’ like a tool, but is a part to be integrated into a life

pattern and has, in itself, an objective existence.

Completed in 1972, the Nagakin Capsule tower consists of two intercon-

nected concrete towers, respectively eleven and thirteen floors, which house 140

prefabricated module, or capsules. These capsules are each self-contained units

that cantilever from a main shaft. Each capsule measures 2.3 m (8 ft) × 3.8 m

(12 ft) × 2.1 m (7 ft) and functions as a small living or office space. These spaces

were designed for the salary man working long hours who was unable to catch

the last train home. Capsules can be connected and combined to create larger

spaces (fig. 2.8).

Each capsule is connected to one of the two main shafts only by four high-

tension bolts and is designed to be replaceable. Building maintenance happens

on site, while fabrication of capsules occurs off site. Capsules can be removed

individually without affecting neighboring capsules, providing adaptability and

growth to the overall project, among the key Metabolist principles at work in this

project. The Nagakin Capsule Tower captures the postwar efficiency of living and

building in the city. Specifically, it demonstrates how methods of standard pro-

duction in a post Fordist, Japan city can work through the economy of a building

and how its inhabitants, coming and going, are as much a result of its production

and growth.

The state of confusion and paralysis in metro-politan areas is forcing us to make these propos-als.... The huge city of Tōkyō is diseased. She is even trying to conceal her illness and to justify present conditions by relying on the adaptability of her inhabitants. --Kikutake Kiyonori

Tōkyō Plan 1960 (Kenzo Tange)

While Kurokawa arguably focused on relationship between architecture

and the individual in the Nagakin Capsule Tower, Kenzo Tange focused on the city

due to its rapid increase in population and housing shortages in 1960 (fig. 2.10).

Specifically, Tange’s plan called for a re-visioning of the structural and transporta-

tion infrastructure of Tōkyō and was arguably the most developed Metabolist pro-

posal that covered long term growth, transportation, and housing (fig. 2.11- 2.13).

Tange proposed that the city become an armature into Tōkyō Bay that

would shift from centripetal urban planning to axial urban planning as Edo had

formed centuries earlier. By raising the city 200 meters above water through sus-

pension bridges and towers, the plan proposed for a systematic type of growth

according to human needs that was inspired by vertebrae organisms, who grow

linearly. This infrastructure of bridges and towers allowed for this flexibility

through the modularity of bridge and tower, and connection into the existing ur-

ban transportation system of mainland Tōkyō.

Helix City, 1961 (Kisho Kurokawa)

Inspired by the helix structure of DNA, Kurokawa’s Helix city structure

functions as a space frame. Its biomorphic form promotes horizontal and verti-

cal growth in a spherical helix structure through perforated openings with points

of contact occurring organically as 3D clusters. Bridges from land connect these

towers and the residential spaces are located in between the bridges and public

spaces (fig. 2.14). Built on man made land with direct transportation in and out

of Tōkyō, the helix structures can be repeated at length as the population as a

response to ongoing population growth in Tōkyō during the 1960s.

Ocean city, 1960 (Kikutake Kiyonori)

To relieve the infested city of Tōkyō, Kiyonori proposed a city of 500,000

on artificial land on Tōkyō Bay. The city would form in two rings that would be

tangent at points: the outer ring for production and the inner ring for housing.

Housing would be in movable blocks that were triangular, and pivoted around a

central “mast”. Individual housing units would have partitions to allow for flex-

ible use. Tangent points of the two rings would be administrative sites. Water

between the outer rings would be used as fish farms and water between the in-

ner ring for entertainment. Once the population reached its limit, the city would

multiply similar to biological growth in cells, allowing for adaptability and replace-

ablity (fig. 2.15).

While the Capsule tower enabled a dynamic relationship between man

and technology, the large scale plans for Tōkyō by numerous Metabolist architects

also suggested a utopian view of Tōkyō that was a response to the apocalyptic

erasure of war and the booming economy shaping the Japanese identity. The

Japanese Metabolist movement works at many scales within the proposals for

Tōkyō, facilitated also through organic processes of city, individual, and technol-

ogy, all while questioning its very image for identity.

Saran Wrap City

As noted in the previous study, Tōkyō had become a center of economic

activity by the 1980 that enabled easy borrowing, or the bubble economy. As a re-

sult, architecture projects abounded through out the city (in addition to the Asahi

Beer Headquarters): Tōkyō Daiichi Bay Hotel (1988), Yamato International, Tōkyō

(1986), and Parthenon Tama, Tōkyō, (1988) were just a few of these projects built

and mark what was a shift from utopian city proposals to buildings as part of a

larger system as commodities (fig. 2.16-2.18). Accordingly, Japanese architecture

developed a stronger relationship with branding and consumerism due to the

bubble economy.

However, some saw this type of architecture as problematic to the de-

velopment of postmodern Japanese architecture. Toyo Ito, a renowned architect,

began to develop projects that were critical of the city Tōkyō was becoming. He

likens city life to one wrapped in saran wrap, something that appears perfect, but

is actually a simulated city:Today’s city inhabitants collect information. Be-fore people would gather around a fireplace at home, now they gather around a television. On one hand, the media has progressed in homog-enizing the body, life, and space. On the other hand, this homogeneous space makes a place, and space is dissimilated…However, today’s architecture recognizes collected information of people’s surroundings, and establishes an ephemeral screen around them based on this in-formation. (Ito 18-19 Simulated City)

The bubble city is a simulated space, constructed by image and informa-

tion with architecture becoming its screen. For Ito, this existence begins to take

on a critical outlook.

In 1985, Toyo Ito designed the Project Pao The Urban Nomad I (fig. 2.19).

The project was a small, scale egg like structure that functioned more like a tent.

Collapsible, it could be anywhere in the city. Its inhabitant was a woman, whose

private and public life, had no boundaries:

After wandering about a city pervaded with signs and codes, she returned to her small egg and drank coffee by herself…She completely lost her small egg. Inside and outside, individual and so-ciety, real and unreal, She was totally separated from that barrier. Through transparent walls, she is completely living a life, body to the world. (Ito 12)

The transparency of the shell material, size and scale of the egg to one ur-

ban nomad woman, and isolation of her own activities suggest multiple readings

of gender and the city, placelessness, and lack of sense of self. This postmodern

project is no longer utopian like previous Metabolist projects. Instead, it is a criti-

cal study of individuality and mass consumption within the city.

In 1989, Toyo Ito designed the Project Pao The Urban Nomad II in an-

other study of postmodern bubble life (fig. 2.20-2.21):

The egg of Winds in River City 21 was originally intended as the image model of a future house, but as it took too much money to create the shell, it ended up just being the egg. What was origi-nally intended to be seen through the air was a new style of life in a simulated city. The Egg of the Winds in Brussels was named Pao: Dwelling for Tōkyō Woman which was the image model of a city house for me. It depicted the image of ur-ban life which daily loses reality in proportion to the rate of visualization in city life. What is com-mon in the two eggs is that they are containers implying a new life. I wanted to show that the loss of reality in a city is another side of the coin to the image like architecture.

Through these projects, Ito takes on the image of Tōkyō and its image as

simulated. The Tōkyō Nomad Woman drinks coffee by herself in her egg, but it is

actually no different from the simulation of drinking in a coffee shop that looks

like someone’s living room. For Ito, private life is lived in public and public life is

lived in private in the bubble city of Tōkyō. However, other opportunities exist for

architecture to work within the “simulated city” that creates its own fiction within

the simulated city. For Ito, image in/of the city and image in/of architecture are

the paradox of Tōkyō in the 1980s that continues today, as can be noted in the

Tod’s Building.

Pet Architecture and the Mixed Use Mega Brand

In 2010, Tōkyō ’s population surpassed 13 million people with a

population density per square meter of 5, 937 (roughly 3.8 square miles).

Consequently, space today in Tōkyō is at a one of the

highest premiums compared to other global cities.

Therefore, alternative possibilities for space have developed out nothing but a

crucial need, shaping how Japanese postmodern architecture continues to de-

velop in the local conditions of Tōkyō today.

Established by Yoshiharu Tsukamoto and Momoyo Kaijima in Tōkyō in

1992, Atelier Bow Wow has published multiple publications and produced work

focused mainly single-family residential homes in Tōkyō with some larger scale

public spaces. In Made in Tōkyō, Atelier Bow surveys Tōkyō ’s hybridized buildings

through a series of categories that have developed out of the necessity of Tōkyō

’s zoning and demands by its population: Even in the landscape of Tōkyō, which is so of-ten claimed to be “chaotic”, a certain environ-mental coordination made of categorical crosses between architecture, civil engineering, and geography, can be found. There is a clear logic in the way that differing activities are brought together by physical convenience such as scale and adjacency. We can see that part of Tōkyō ’s

dynamisms is ordered through physical terms rather than categorization of contents. We start to recognize the unexpected interdependence of activities by looking at Tōkyō in this positive way—as a cross category match of urban pro-duction. (Kajima et. al 23)

Some of the projects such as, “warehouse court”, a warehouse+tennis

school, park on park, a park on top of a parking structure, and golf taxi building

(Fig. 2.22), a taxi office and parking garage with a golfing range on the roof, are

just a few of the examples that Atelier Bow Wow cites within the rich urban fabric

of Tōkyō. In situating these projects through simple isometric line drawings and

photos and cross categorization, the image of Tōkyō begins to move beyond signs

and to key relationships with site, use, and city.

In Pet Architecture, the firm also surveys much of Tōkyō ’s through a

coined term “Pet Architecture”:When we walk on the streets of Tōkyō we find amazingly small buildings between streets, along widened roads and in the spaces between tracks and streets. Most of these buildings are cheaply built, and therefore not spectacular in design, and they do not use the forefront of technology...As a result, we have decided to call small buildings “Pet Architecture”; those that are smaller than ‘rabbit houses’ (a term used to make fun of small houses in Tōkyō) and bigger than doghouses. We allow the existence of pets in the jungle of build-ings, as there are pets in the worlds of human beings. By giving this title, we aimed to establish one new category in urban structure by giving them a certain name and not by negatively con-sidering them as openings and fragments. (Tōkyō Institute of Technology Tsukamoto Architectural Laboratory & Bow Wow Atelier 9)

Tsukamoto categorizes examples of pet architecture in his book Pet Archi-

tecture by studying the city of Tōkyō and its urban morphology (fig. 2.23). While

decades and centuries have passed since the Diet Building Debate and Metabolist

proposals for megastructures, this proposal for an urban structure is an accep-

tance of the Tōkyō Parcel within an Edo city lot that is not based on technological

trends, but market trends and local site.

The relentless typology that Tsukamoto chronicles in his book demon-

strates the results of a post bubble economy, population increases, its consum-

ables housed in small parcels, or life in the city that Ito became critical of in the

1990s. In many ways, Ito’s Pao I and II are precedents to pet architecture as an

urban structure. However, pet architecture is now located between buildings, at

irregular geometries in a street, narrow roads, and residual patterns of old city

blocks that are firmly rooted in a local urban fabric.

The Kirishima Florist Shop in Minato-ku Tōkyō, for example, is 4.0 x 2.7x

6.5 meter shop that is pocketed between two large high rise buildings (fig. 2.24).

For the owner of this chain flower shop, there is a strategy picking these small lots

for business, “We are trying to sell flowers at dirty places, like garbage dumps. To

open a flower shop at such a place that has been regarded as filthy will improve

the people’s image of this place.” (Tōkyō Institute of Technology Tsukamoto Archi-

tecture Laboratory and Atelier Bow Wow 44).

Pet Architecture follows a similar size and scale to early Edo planning, as

responses to local topography at a scale hypersensitive to the pedestrian. The

projects are not as glamorous as the high-end projects found in other parts of

the city. What we are left with, however, is no nostalgic desire for Edo, but one

that shows a rich conglomeration of spaces, driven by economy of space and real

estate, and is the urban fabric of Tōkyō and its neighborhoods.

At the same time, however, another change has been occurring in Tōkyō:

the mixed used mega brand. Consisting of green space, housing, retail, and office

spaces, the mixed-use mega brand has emerged as powerful developers such as

the Mori Company or Mitsui Group. By collaborating with well known architects

such as Jun Aoki and Jon Jerde, these corporations operate differently than large

architecture corporations, such as Takenaka Company because they aim to create

spaces that move beyond cutting edge building technology, but sell the mixed use

project as urban dweller’s cultural destination within the city that is enabled by

informed urban design and architecture.

Roppongi Hills is a Mori Company project that has gar-

nered much respect in the Urban planning community.

At 729,000 square meters, the Roppongi Hills (fig. 2.25) is a mixed use complex

designed by Kohn Pedersen Fox Associates, PC, and the Jerde Group. Completed

in 2003, the development houses a Mori art museum, residences, offices, Asahi

television studio, gardens, club, restaurants, retail spaces, a movie theater, hotel,

and a temple (fig. 2.26).

The Tōkyō Midtown project (fig. 2.27-2.29), developed by the Mitsui

group, and designed by SOM, sits half a mile away from Roppongi Hills. At 569,

900 square meters, the development contains offices, residential, commercial,

hotel, and leisure spaces and is the tallest building in Tōkyō.

Similar to the Suntory Art Museum at Roppongi Hills, Tōkyō Midtown also

houses Design Sight 21_21, a gallery/workshop created by fashion designer Isse

Miyake and architect Tadao Ando. The split-level concrete structure includes a

hand-sanded steel roof (whose design was inspired by Issey Miyake’s A-POC) and

14-meter (46 ft) long glass panels. For Miyake, the space is intended to be not just

a gallery space, but also a place to test new ideas and design. �

Like the National Diet Building centuries before, these projects have ag-

gressive marketing campaigns that are about selling place, trends in design and

technology, and a new image of a city within a city (fig. 2.30). They are also argu-

ably challenging the traditional parcel and lot size of Tōkyō, ultimately changing

Tōkyō ’s urban fabric. Comparatively, pet architecture and the mega mixed use

project seem contradictory, yet both are attempting, the former through a grass

roots trend, and the latter, through aggressive marketing and selling of a new city

image to be what is Tōkyō today.

“The image of the nineteenth century state was expressed by the “archi-tecture” of its capital. In the twentieth century, the metropolis itself becomes the lead actor, and architecture began to be absorbed by the metropolis. In short, the “city” became the image. “

As observed above by architect Arata Isozaki, the Japanese city has be-

come the image for its identity. For Tōkyō, capital of Japan, its image has become

layered. While a Western presence has existed at times physically within the city

and as an external gaze following postwar contexts, Tōkyō has emerged in her

own postmodern condition that is a combination of larges scale visions for the

future, such as the mega branded mixed use, and the small neighborhood “pet”

architecture that adjusts to site and zoning in a densely packed city. Like many

cities, Tōkyō has not just one image.

However, the mix of traditional with the postmodern suggests no losts

in translations, but a richly layered city driven by design and its image, both real,

unreal, and the hybrid that is marked by transitions in economy, war, and archi-

tects who are committed to what their Tōkyō should be. Through these multiple

projects across time, built and unbuilt, the urban micro system of Tōkyō emerges:

a city that is driven by its people, flows of things, processes, and relationships that

are constantly changing. However, this urban micro system operates in paradox:

its image is as real as it is simulated. Things disappear as fast they appear: Takoya

could be gone by now with a tire shop in its place. As recovery begins following

the recent tsunami and earthquake, Tōkyō ’s image of a city will further evolve as

Japanese architects continue to engage its challenges and shape what is Tōkyō as

a city.

3_AESTHETIC

Explorations of the immaterial and material in Japanese De-sign: Collapsing the Empty and the Haptic

Materiality and Immateriality are concepts that have been an integral

part of Japanese design. While these terms can suggest a variety of meanings and

approaches to studying and understanding design, they have influenced the tra-

jectory of design in Japan. In order to fully understand what may be driving mod-

ern Japanese design today, one could turn to the work of graphic designer Kenya

Hara. Known for his work at the Nippon Design Center, as a graphic artist, creative

director for the MUJI brand, and director of many collaborative exhibitions be-

tween artists, architects, and engineers, Hara is arguably shaping conceptions of

materiality by challenging others to examine how people experience design.

This study will examine Kenya Hara’s theorization of materiality through

the lens of his two key terms: “haptic” and “emptiness” and their relationship

to the material and immaterial as revealed in his work. Through an examination

of the terms immateriality and materiality, their relationship to the concepts

mentioned above, and an analysis of the Japanese approaches to materiality, as

framed by Hara and other earlier discussions, an analysis of the definitional col-

lapsing of the terms materiality and immateriality in the work of the Japanese

architecture firm, SANAA, and its implications will then be discussed.

In his book Designing Design, Hara covers a breadth of his work, including

the 2004 “Haptic” exhibition that involved collaboration with architects such as

Toyo Ito and Kengo Kuma to name a few, his work as a graphic designer in print

media, and as a professor at Musashino Art University. In his discussion, Hara ap-

proaches materiality in two distinct ways: as the “haptic” experience and through

the vehicle of what he calls “emptiness”. Hara defines Haptic as: ...the term...indicates an attitude that takes into consideration how we perceive things with our senses. While dealing with shape, color, mate-rial, and texture is one of the more important aspects of design, there is one more: it’s not the question of how to create, but how to make someone sense something. We might call this an awakening of human senses. A human being is a bundle of senses working hard to perceive the world. Eyes, ears, skin, and others are called sen-sory receptors, but the images carried by these words are much too passive for sensory organs. Human sensors are boldly open to the world. They aren’t “receptors”, but active, positive or-gans. An unlimited number of invisible sensory tentacles sprouting from the brain are exploring the world. Let’s think about human beings with this image in mind. Taking that realm as a field of design, we came up with an experiment call the HAPTIC Exhibition...I asked various creators to design an object not based on form or color, but motivated primarily by “haptic” considerations”. (Hara 68-69)

From the kiwi juice box designed by Naota Fukusawa, to Ito’s high five gel

door knob that greets you with a high five, and to the pachinko box and dehumidi-

fier by Hara himself, each of these objects invites touch on a daily level (fig. 3. 1-3.7).

In encouraging this level of touch, it also provokes conversation amongst peo-

ple—whether the object is at a home or at the “Haptic” design exhibition. The

hesitating questions that result from the sensory qualities Hara describes above

are part of a design experience itself that is framed through materiality. For exam-

ple, is that juice box really made out of kiwi? Will that juice box feel and taste like

a kiwi? Or how would the cool, soft grass feel in those shoe compared to the usual

shoe? While this may seem intuitive, the questions suggest that design can and

should begin with a visual perception that beckons touch, sight, and even taste.In his discussion of these projects, Hara moves beyond the five senses

asserting:

A human being is like a rubber ball wrapped in an extremely delicate membrane. Different areas on the ball’s surface elicit different senses. Our image of the world is based on the multifarious stimuli that are perceived on the membrane and transmitted to the ball’s nucleus, the brain. De-sign is a service for these sensitive membranes. In a way, the five senses are interrelated. (Ibid 159)

Through his work at the Haptic Exhibition, Hara has established what

might almost be a blatant connection with humans and design. We do not just

see or observe design; we experience it. What’s more is that this experience can

be highly enriched through the development and application of materiality in ev-

eryday things. This is where Hara’s work with MUJI comes in, but at a deeper

level Hara is also urging those in the design profession to take on this service he

describes above as part of our work. As simple and intuitive as this sounds, it is

quite challenging in architecture, a field whose influences today range from Rem

Koolhaas to Tadao Ando, that is heavily and rightfully in some ways form oriented.

This is arguably due to the result of modernist architecture; however, Hara is con-

tending that experiencing design should move beyond form and into a personal

experience of materiality.

This is not to say that materiality should be prescriptive in design, but that

it is phenomenological. Hara is calling for a steeper use of materiality based on all

five interrelated senses. The Haptic exhibition illustrates this in the array of proj-

ects, because they each demonstrate how materiality can affect form to prompt

an experience of materiality that is unprecedented in design.

Some may argue, however, that these projects are successful, but it is

because the Haptic projects were on a smaller scale. However, Hara’s Matsuya

Ginza Department Store demonstrates the ability for materiality to succeed at a

larger scale (fig 3.7-3.9). Though he did not design the department store space, he

is largely responsible for the store’s façade and its interaction with public space:I was not involved in the building itself, but the front of the finished building is plated with glass. Applied to the back of the glass are aluminum panels, painted white, whose surface is covered in regular and tight array of convex dots. The only thing I proposed was this design tool of pro-truding dots, to help stir up tactile perception. The glass exterior walls are set top and bottom with lights, which are switched on at night. To effectively reflect the light, the white exterior walls required the installment of some sort of concave-convex reflector, but these hemispheri-cal dots play the same role. Comprised in these dots, then is an interrelation between the archi-tecture and the overall design. (Hara 174-177)

Hara’s proposal is an example of how materiality can play a role in archi-

tecture, specifically in a public space. The area of Ginza in Tokyo, Japan is the home

to many atelier architecture projects, where façade plays a key role in branding

and brand image. In effect, the facades are an extension of the brand image for

most of the stores competing for a consumer’s attention on an urban street scale,

making Hara’s proposal consistent with the surrounding areas. Instead of using

LED lighting and/or glass curtain wall facades similar to the Jun Aoki Louis Vuit-

ton Building or the Renzo Piano Hermes Building (fig. 3.10-.3.13), Hara’s design

proposal for a tactile design façade suggests a different way for architecture to

interact with the consumer from the streetscape; Hara’s design proposal invokes

more than just the visual sensory perception through light and massing of materi-

als, but also that of texture.

Hara’s efforts on an urban scale were not limited to the building façade.

The tactility of the posters covering the urban scaffolding during construction of

the store also functioned on a perceptual level (fig. 3.14-3.16). By mimicking the

use of materials, such as a zipper, the passerby is prompted to think of touching a

zipper and the action of unzipping something open out of curiosity:Because we envision the department store as distinct from a virtual retail space, in which we directly experience shopping by setting foot in the store, another important touchstone of our design proposal is the valuing of the texture or feel of materials, which yields a wealth of stimu-lation to the visitor’s sense of touch. One of our operational examples is the dot pattern used for the walls on the front of the building, for shop-ping bags, and for cards. The posters for the opening announcement are also designed to im-press the audience with a tactile presence by us-ing embroidery and zippers. (Ibid 177)

Through zippers, thread, and the visual movement of a zipper across the

urban scaffolding, Hara’s design concept invoked the concept of haptic at an ur-

ban level. Instead of settling on the building’s façade as a way to capitalize on

the renewal of the Matsuya department store, Hara literally pushed the haptic

experience to the street in a skillful and subtle way by using materials to perceive

a visual “opening” of the store.

This point of perception and sensory experience is a key design moment

in Hara’s work and is defined by the term “emptiness”:When a fragile beauty is hidden inside, we hesi-tate to touch, for fear of spoiling or breaking it. At that moment of hesitation, we perceive the ob-ject a little more sensitively and delicately than usual. I believe it’s important to communicate so that I allow the other person to experience this perception, because given the chance, we

will try to precisely understand even a message delivered in a whisper… The concept of “empti-ness” is one of my methods of communication design. I don’t launch a message at my viewers, but instead provide an empty vessel. In turn, I expect them to deposit something there, their own messages or images. This is an important aspect of communication, accepting what the other has to say. Neither the Mukau pamphlet nor the Hakkin bottle is aggressively expressive, and each carries less “information” than the usual pamphlet or bottle, but because of their intervention, images well up in the minds of the viewers, and the designs are ready to accept and hold these images. (Hara 143)�

When considering Hara’s work, particularly those presented in this pa-

per, materiality plays a crucial role in the design that he is advocating and creat-

ing, making emptiness seem inconsistent with his design philosophy. However,

the emptiness that Hara is describing above is created precisely through the use,

and furthermore, experience of materiality. By designing something as a sen-

sory experience related specifically to the idea of touch, emptiness becomes a

vehicle for a personal experience of materiality that is unique to each viewer.

That is, as Hara describes above, one perceives how he or she may interact with

an item before actually touching it based on their own images or concepts of the

material, making meaning open to the viewer. It is at this moment that the design

becomes an interactive tool and readily accessible. By appealing to the universal

senses of touch, smell, taste, sight, and sound, the material of an item can in-

stantly become personal, and more so, experienced, because it is not prescribed.

It simply is. Therefore, Hara’s concept of emptiness is rich in meaning.

This concept of emptiness, however, is not new to modern Japan, but

something that Hara argues has been present in traditional Japanese arts such as

the tea ceremony and Noh drama:Exchanging images via the medium of emptiness is a characteristic common to all art forms of the time, from the religious thought of Zen to the lyrical Noh Drama established around the time of the tea ceremony, but in the birth of the tea ceremony, this trait is particularly striking. The tea utensils Rikyu used and the teahouses he designed seem astonishingly simple to our eyes. The tearoom in particular is extremely small, with no theatrical or dramatic ornamentation....The space is big enough only for the master and his guest to sit face to face. A tearoom is, after-all, a small theater. In it there are no pretentious fixtures. A mere picture scroll is hung, flow-ers are arranged. There, the master boils water and serves tea to his guest. They drink. This is all. Precisely because it is the smallest cosmos, a whisper of production generates the greatest image. For instance, if the master displays a flat vase full of water and spreads cherry blossom petals there, he can thus place the guest under a cherry tree in full bloom...Because a tearoom is a simple space unfixed to any particular loca-tion, the consciousness of those who share it for a time becomes so receptive that the smallest bit of ingenuity will engender in their minds the richest image.(Ibid 276-278)

Therefore, the concept of emptiness is garnered through perception and

image, a relationship that has been studied much by physcologists. But how does

this perceptive experience, facilitated through the haptic experience of material-

ity translate beyond façade and into the spaces of modern Japanese architecture?

In an attempt to answer this question, a brief discussion of materiality and

immateriality as it is been theorized in Japan and in the U.S is necessary. There has

been a great deal of discussion regarding immateriality in the western discourse

of architecture since the 1980s as postmodernism began to take hold. While this

discussion is still being framed, a number of examples of materiality and immateri-

ality in architecture by Frank Lloyd Wright, Mies Van der Rohe, Herzog de Mueron,

and Zaha Hadid. However, some of the most compelling examples lie also in Japa-

nese architecture. The role of materiality in Japanese culture is one that is under-

studied, and compelling. Jonathan Reynolds has touched upon this in his 2004 ar-

ticle “Ise Shrine and the Modernist Construction of Japanese Tradition” regarding

the ritual of building the Ise Shrine and its relationship to the materiality of wood.

Blaine Brownell is also doing compelling work in this area in his work Transmate-

rial I and II in his study of materials, specifically in the work of Japanese designers

and innovators.�

However, along with materiality, the concept of immateriality is not neces-

sarily new to Japanese culture either. According to Webster’s dictionary, Immateri-

ality can be defined as “without material form or substance; “an incorporeal spirit.

This idea of the non-corporeal is consistent with Buddhist principles and beliefs;

the temporal nature of things can be observed in the Japanese attention to sea-

sonal changes as touched upon by Hara in an earlier passage in his description of

the tearoom experience. This idea of the fleeting or changing is arguably related

to the idea of immateriality; the tangible of what is temporary as an experience

that can be framed through seasonal flowers, wall hangings, and the view from

the interior space into the Japanese garden are consistent with traditional Japa-

nese values, such as wabi sabi, mono no araware, and shibusa, that Hara men-

tions in his discussion of emptiness. However, how does this relate to design in

our postmodern era?

In the 1988 article, Design and Immateriality: What of It in a Post Indus-

trial Society?”, Abraham Mole argues: Affecting more than the workshop activity alone, the trend toward immaterialism includes all projectional conception in a concrete model, a process which used to depend on a situation

of permanent interaction between conception and construction. The dialectic game between the abstract (the idea, the mental vision) and the concrete (the struggle with the material and disparate tools and appliances) is giving way to work done essentially with computer-integrated functioning at the desk... In this respect, our senses of the close range of those affecting us by contact (touch, smell, sensitivity to temperature, vibration, and balance) remain a relatively unex-plored area of human sensorality. We lack the means to evaluate objectively certain aspects of the real, which we could call transduction (to transform messages from one medium to anoth-er) or interfacing (to set up a partition of illu-sions for projection of tale-images for example, a screen, tactile sensor, a sonorous background, a simulated landscape, or a virtual actor.) The im-mense technological structure proposed by the postindustrial society seems precisely to have to fill this quickly this gap. It is becoming the func-tion of design to examine this new field of “programmed sensualizations ...(Mole 25-32)

Though this article maybe outdated in its discussion of technology, Abra-

ham’s discussion of materiality subtly touches on Hara’s discussion of the hap-

tic and its relationship to emptiness. In proposing the ideas of touch to exam-

ine images of the real in immaterial design, Abrahams is aligning himself with

Hara’s idea of emptiness or vice versa. By allowing constructed images that are

immaterial in nature of what could be real to stand in for what is real or material,

Abraham calls for a new field of “programmed sensualizations”. This new field is

closely related to Hara’s discussions of “haptic”, the idea of perceiving something

through a sensory experiences so that image identification, though vague and

broad at first, becomes palpable due to the sensory perceptions of the very indi-

vidual experiencing the image, making the immaterial material. In other words,

based on Abraham’s analysis of materiality and immateriality, Hara is suggesting

that immateriality is materiality. The emptiness or immateriality is experience and

understood through the materiality of the haptic. Through Hara’s concepts and

Mole’s suggestions in discussions of materiality and materiality in postmodern-

ism, definitions of materiality and immateriality in Japanese design begin to blur.

The collapsing of these two terms is now becoming critical in studying

postmodern Japanese Architecture. Space is no longer atmospheric, but both

phenomenological and ontological in nature and suggests greater complexities

and subtleties to the experience of the space itself. As suggested earlier, these

complexities and subtleties are imbued with pre-modern Buddhist aesthetics,

and warrant further examination in understanding Japanese postmodern space.

The Japanese aesthetic terms wabi sabi, mono no araware, and shibusa

have their roots in Buddhist monk Tsurezuregusa Kenko and his Essays in Idleness,

written sometime between 1330 and 1332. Today the Japanese aesthetic term,

wabi sabi, can be translated separately as “humble, simple” and “weathered,

rustic”, but has evolved to collaboratively mean “a quiet simplicity with subdued

with refinement”. Mono no araware can roughly be translated as “a sensitivity to

things” or “the awareness of nature’s transience”. Shibusa is a “quiet austerity”.

These aesthetic terms began to shape the literary and artistic landscape in the

Azuchi Moyomachi (1568-1603) and Edo Periods (1603-1868) as urban popula-

tions in Japan increased and the mass culture had more time to engage in ike-

bana, ukiyo-e, calligraphy, poetry, and the tea ceremony. However, their episte-

mological origins lie in the 243 short, thoughtful essays by Kenko:A house, I know, is but a temporary abode, but how delightful it is to find one that has harmo-nious proportions and a pleasant atmosphere. One feels somehow that even the moonlight, when it shines into the quiet domicile of a per-son of taste, is more affecting than elsewhere.

A house, though it may not be in the current fashion or elaborately decorated, will appeal to us by its unassuming beauty –a grove of trees with an indefinably ancient look; a garden where plants are growing of their own accord, have a special charm; a verandah and an open-work wooden fence of interesting construction; and a few personal effects left carelessly lying about, giving the place an air of having been lived in. A house which multitudes of workmen have pol-ished with every care, where strange and rare Chinese and Japanese furnishings are displayed, and even the grasses and trees of the garden have been trained unnaturally, is ugly to look at and most depressing. How could anyone live for long in such a place? The most casual glance will suggest how likely such a house is to turn into a moment of smoke. (Kenko 10)

Are we only to look at cherry blossoms in full bloom, the moon only when it is cloudless? To long for the moon while look on the rain, to low-er the blinds and be unaware of the passing of the spring—these are even more deeply moving. Branches about to blossom or gardens strewn with faded flowers are worthier of our admira-tion…The moon that appears close to dawn af-ter we have long waited for it moves us more profoundly than the full moon shining cloudless over a thousand leagues…And are we to look at the moon and the cherry blossoms with our eyes alone? How much more evocative and pleasing it is to think about spring without stirring from the house, to dream of the moonlit night though we remain in our room! (Ibid 137)

The two excerpts above demonstrate an attentiveness to Buddhist

themes, such as nature, impermanence, epheremality, life and death, and beauty.

Kenko muses about the experience of beauty: a house that is not overly deco-

rated and simply lived in, faded cherry blossoms on the ground, and concept of

dreaming of a moonlit sky while in a room. Through Kenko’s meditative style, his

excerpts display a critical relationship between beauty and perception of time-it

can be imagined, unreal, or real as it is experienced in its multiple stages of life

and death or times of growth and death. This relationship of beauty as a per-

ceived experience becomes critical in shaping the terms of wabi sabi, mono no

araware, shibusa, and is translation becomes manifested in concepts of mate-

riality and immateriality today in Japanese postmodern design, beginning with

graphic designer Kenya Hara. With time as a framing device, immateriality and

materiality operate as aesthetic terms with clear ontological and phenomenologi-

cal attributes through the lens of Hara’s haptic. It is with this understanding that

postmodern Japanese architecture can develop a deeper, more complex trajec-

tory of study within the discourse of architecture.

The work of SANAA, headed by architects Ryue Nishizawa and Kazuyo

Sejima, captures this collapsing of materiality and immateriality. Their numerous

projects range in scale and site, and continue to challenge concepts of immate-

riality and materiality. The 21st Century Museum in Kanazawa, Japan (2004) and

the Zollverein School in Essen Germany (2006), for example, are key projects that

demonstrate an attention to materiality that move beyond the atmospheric. How-

ever, the Toledo Glass Pavilion is arguably the strongest example of Hara’s discus-

sions of haptic and emptiness within the trajectories of immaterial and material.

Located in Toledo, OH across from the University of Toledo Center for

Visual Arts building designed by Frank Gehry (1992) and a number of other civic

buildings, the Toledo Glass Pavilion was designed by SANAA in 2006. The museum

consists of rounded corner spaces with circulation paths integrated between each

space to create a flow between specific parts of the program, perhaps a metaphor

for the action of blowing glass. As with any museum space, air circulation, tem-

perature, and sound are important elements of the exhibition and enjoyment of

art. In the Toledo Glass Pavilion project, there is little visibility of HVAC, lighting,

and sound work. The most significant parts of the program are the glass blowing

demonstration area and glass display area.

As shown in the floor plan (fig. 3.17), the glass blowing room and glass

exhibition rooms face each other and are visible to the street. Therefore, the inte-

rior glass walls become performative in framing the interior activity of the spaces,

such as glass blowing, and visitors taking in the art collection. The exterior glass

walls (as part of this double skin façade system) also simultaneously frame the

exterior street activity (fig. 3.18-3.20).

The different activities of the floor plan illicit different sounds as well. As

a result, sound quality and control, as well as air filtration due to glass blowing is

critical. SANAA was attentive to this, allowing for the visitor in the glass room to

watch a demonstration but hearing very little of it once the doors are closed. This

controlled sound and smell is not coincidental but a demonstration of arduous

planning and research. However, while walking through the space, visitors may

not realize this at first because of the experience of seamless visual movement

from one space to the next.

This visual absence of the mechanics of the building could be argued as a

masking or hiding what is truly part of the space’s materiality (fig. 3.21). However,

this absence is also an example of how the materiality of glass activates the space

by engaging the haptic because the visitor sees what is accessible to the eye.

While much has been written about the phenomenological and material quali-

ties of glass, glass, at its most basic level, exposes the contents of space and its

inhabitants that creates an open and fluid space or absence of material, leaving

the program to enrich the varied spaces.

The “hiding” of the building’s mechanics and their resulting materiality

suggests an alternative materiality produced by the effects of technology that

prevents ductwork and electrical work from ever being seen. This alternative ma-

teriality created by explicit qualities of glass and the technology enabling it at its

most minimal is an inversion of what is real, what is material. This inversion of ma-

teriality, therefore, results in the experience of immateriality. In other words, the

careful use of glass as a visual framing of program, in its abstract minimalism of

materiality points to the role of immateriality itself in the space. Visitors may not

notice that the HVAC and electric connections are hardly visible, but the openness

of the space, facilitated through glass is an example of this interplay between the

very materiality of glass itself and immateriality it produces in conjunction with

the visual, yet unreal absence of the building’s mechanics.

Therefore, this interplay of materiality and immateriality becomes of

a collapsing of the two terms into one another as a collaborative definition of

space: materiality or glass through which the building is experienced visually and

programmatically results in the immateriality of the space due to the untrue ab-

sence of the space’s own building mechanics or corporeality. The space becomes

a vehicle of emptiness allowing for its users to inhabit in how they perceive it.

Directions through out the building are few with some signage on the flooring,

but as with any museum space, the project is realized visually, a key part of Hara’s

Haptic discussion. Therefore, the space in its materiality of immateriality becomes

experiential and definitive. You experience what you see, want to see, and do not

see. It is up to the user to engage the space based on how the art, gift shop, glass

blowing space, engages him or her.

Just as the zipper visually re-opened the Matsuya Ginza store or Toyo Ito’s

gel door knob greets with a high five, the building becomes a visual and interac-

tive tool for program by collapsing materiality and immateriality into one experi-

ence. Through the “haptic” and “emptiness”, the phenomenological experience

of materiality and immateriality no longer exist as two separate moments, but as

two intertwined, interrelated parts of the design experience, and the idea of lo-

cality or place in architecture becomes part of its own inversion or placelessness,

that design can feel unique to anyone anywhere. Consequently, Hara’s definitions

of emptiness and haptic suggest further readings of space that move beyond dis-

cussions of form.

As Abrahams noted in the 1980s, a gap between the sensory and tech-

nology needed to be filled, and Hara’s discussions of materiality and immaterial-

ity through the human senses and the concept of emptiness could arguably be

the emergence of this answer. As shown in the SANAA project, the materiality of

glass, through haptic experience of the visual, becomes part of the immateriality

of the mechanics of the building, as a vehicle for emptiness.

Modern and Postmodern Japanese Architecture has long been admired

for its blurring of interior and exterior boundaries, but what seems to be emerg-

ing now is an attention to the blurring of materiality and immateriality and its

larger place within Japanese concepts of space. As the two seemingly opposite

terms begin to collapse into one another through the experience of perceiving

materiality that is steeped in Buddhist aesthetics, how design is experienced and

developed will become a large part of the engaging users on a deeper level that

is participatory and engaging. Work by Japanese designers such as Kenya Hara

and SANAA will continue to inform architectural education and discourse, and are

just the beginning of continued and deeper study of design as it no longer just

perceived, but experienced.

4_REPRESENTATION The Problem of Frampton’s critical regionalism in the work of Tadao Andō

Orientalism is not a mere political subject mat-ter or field that is reflected passively by culture, scholarship, or institutions; nor is it a large and diffuse collection of texts about the Orient; nor is it representative and expressive of some ne-farious “Western” imperialist plot to hold down the “Oriental” world. It is rather a distribution of geopolitical awareness into aesthetic, scholarly, economic, sociological, historical, and philologi-cal texts; it is an elaboration not only of a basic geographical distinction (the world is made up of two unequal halves, Orient and Occident)… In-deed, my real argument is that Orientalism is—and does not simply represent—a considerable dimension of modern political-intellectual cul-ture, and as such has less to do with the Orient than it does with “our” world. (Said 13)

This statement by literary theorist Edward Said from his landmark book

Orientalism captures the challenge and paradox of studying a culture that is for-

eign, the non-native. In the production of orientalism, there are multiple nuances

to the resulting knowledge and the varying power structures that are embedded

within this knowledge. What Said emphasizes most, however, is that scholarship

is the act of editing knowledge, and has more to do with “our” world than the

true subject at hand. Orientalism, therefore, still holds a powerful role in the

study of culture today, but is especially understudied in the discourse of Japanese

postmodern architecture.

This study covers the work of Kenneth Frampton and his prolific study

of Japanese architect Tadao Andō through his concept of critical regionalism. To

engage in this critical analysis and its implications, this chapter is organized as an

introduction to Frampton’s critical regionalism, its implications, and three stories

of one of Andō’s projects, The Koshino Residence (1981) by Kenneth Frampton,

Matsuba Kazukiyo, and Tadao Andō himself. The implication of this study is not to

further reinforce the dichotomy between West/non west or West/East, but rather

to understand how Orientalism is still problematic in the dialogue of postmodern

Japanese architecture today.

Frampton and Critical Regionalism

“Towards a Critical Regionalism: Six points for an Architecture of Resistance”

was published in the book The Anti-Aesthetic: Essays on Postmodern Culture, ed-

ited by Hal Foster in 1983. In the essay, Frampton outlines critical regionalism, a

term first introduced by architects Alexander Tzonis and Liane Lefaivre through

6 points: culture and civilization, the rise and fall of the avant garde, critical re-

gionalism and world culture, the resistance of place-form, climate versus nature:

topography, context, climate, light and tectonic form, and the visual versus the

tactile.

In the section titled “Critical Regionalism and World Culture”, Frampton ar-

gues:The case can be made that Critical Regionalism, as a cultural strategy is as much a bearer of world culture as it is a vehicle of universal civilization. And while it is obviously misleading to conceive of our inheriting world culture to the same de-gree as we are all heirs to universal civilization, it is nonetheless evident that since we are, in principle subject to the impact of both, we have no choice but to take cognizance today of their interaction. In this regard the practice of Criti-cal Regionalism is contingent upon a process of

double mediation. In the first place, it has to “de-construct” the overall spectrum of world culture that it inevitably inherits; in the second place, it has to achieve through synthetic contradic-tion, a manifest critique of universal civilization. (Frampton 21)

Frampton refers to civilization as universal, and one that can operate in

a simultaneous deconstruction and a critique of itself through the strategy of

critical regionalism. However, the examples of two critical regionalist works that

Frampton offers are both within Europe, limiting the scope of what is ‘universal’

to a Eurocentric context. Furthermore, as a bearer of world culture and vehicle

of universal culture, critical regionalism becomes the champion for the modern

project: form follows function, differences are erased, and typology is exacted.

According to Frampton, critical regionalism as a cultural strategy with-

in architecture offers further readings that become geographically site specific.

Noting the fundamental opposition of universal civilization and autochthonous

culture, Frampton explains that the modernist tendency to raze a site for a new

project operates similarly. A razed site that once consisted of irregular topog-

raphy now works universally; anything can be built on site, negating any local

connection to the site. At the same time, the site could be terraced, as a way of

re-engaging local conditions, making the architecture somehow local to the site.

While Frampton recognizes the tension between universal civilization and

local culture through the treatment of a project site as either an act of place-

lessness or cultivating the site, he suggests that critical regionalism is a one-way

force working in architecture. That is, the architect works unilaterally with the

site, either acknowledging local conditions, or completely erasing them by liter-

ally razing the site. The architect is the bearer of world culture and vehicle of

universal civilization. He cites Jorn Vtzon’s Bagsvaerd Church in Copenhagen as an

example of achieving a synthesis between universal civilization and world culture

because of its building construction, materiality (precast wall concrete units) and

its pagoda roof:While the reinforced concrete shell vault has long since held an established place within the received tectonic canon of Western modern ar-chitecture, the highly configurated section ad-opted in this instance is hardly familiar, and the only precedent for such a form, in a sacred con-text, is Eastern rather than Western-namely, the Chinese pagoda roof, cited by Utzon in his semi-nal essay of 1963. “Platforms and Plateaus.” Al-though the main Bagsvaerd vault spontaneously signifies its religious nature, it does so in such a way as to preclude an exclusively Occidental or Oriental reading of the code by which the public and sacred space is constituted. (Frampton 22-23)

According to Frampton, the Bagsvaerd church is an example of how build-

ing typologies and organizational tactics can be used to design a space influenced

by critical regionalism. However, there are further implications to this reading of

Utzon’s project. Utzon’s reference to the Chinese pagoda in the vaulted space of

the church is not based on any existing or accurate pagoda typologies. Instead, it

is an interpretation by Utzon, re-appropriating something from a foreign culture

to describe something within his own culture, to invoke sacred space.

Though Frampton addresses building technology and materiality as part

of the universal civilization in architecture, critical regionalism can also lie in the

visual and tactile experience of a space that opposes the “Western” interpreta-

tion of the environment that is based solely on perspectival terms:According to its etymology, perspective means rationalized sight or clear seeing, and as such it presupposes a conscious suppression of the senses of smell, hearing and taste, and a conse-quent distancing from a more direct experience

of the environment. This self-imposed limita-tion relates to that which Heidegger has called a “ loss of nearness.” In attempting to counter this loss, the tactile opposes itself to the sceno-graphic and the drawing of veils over the surface of reality. Its capacity to arouse the impulse to touch returns the architect to the poetics of con-struction and to the erection of works in which the tectonic value of each component depends upon the density of its object hood. The tactile and the tectonic jointly have the capacity to tran-scend the mere appearance of the technical in much the same way as the place-form has the potential to withstand the relentless onslaught of global modernization. (Frampton 29)

Frampton cites Alvar Aalto’s Saynatsalo Town Hall (1952) as an example

of visual versus the tectonic because of the change in material from outside of the

hall to inside the chamber hall, consequently triggered by different auditory and

tactile responses. Frampton argues that the building is no longer scenographic

because of Aalto’s use of materials as programmatic cues. In this example, Framp-

ton relies on critical regionalism to explain the experiential qualities of a space. In

both examples, critical regionalism is a cultural strategy in studying the qualities

of a space remains a central point for Frampton.

So how does critical regionalism as a cultural strategy work within Framp-

ton’s study of Japanese architect Tadao Andō, and what are its larger implica-

tions relative to Orientalism? And what do these implications reveal about the

discourse of postmodern architecture today?

Frampton Situating Andō’s work

To answer these questions, an initial look at how Frampton culturally

situates Andō’s work is necessary. In his book entitled, Tadao Andō, Frampton

explains how he believes Andō’s work operates as an occidental/oriental dyad:The occidental/oriental dyad constantly crops up in unexpected ways through out Andō’s archi-tecture...This disjunctive principle is made even more explicit in the Chapel on Mt. Rokko, built in Kobe, Hyogo in 1985-1986, as part of a resort-hotel complex. Here, two countervailing notions of the spiritual are juxtaposed side by side, so as to affect an abrupt contrast between the signifi-cance of the crucifix and the empty silence of the void; to oppose that is, the sign of the West with the non-sign of the East. (Frampton 15)

Although Frampton analyzes Andō’s work in terms of materiality and role

of light, his terms occidental/oriental dyad immediately suggest the problematic

dichotomy of the east and the west. However, Frampton does not see it as a prob-

lematic. Instead he feels this “confrontation” is in fact the essence of Andō’s work

itself. By establishing the binary relationship between West and East as dyads, and

equating architectural forms, “the empty crucifix” and the “empty silence of the

void”, as Western and Eastern signs, Frampton is suggesting that Andō’s work can

only be interpreted relative to Western architectural forms.

Without this dyad, sign or non-sign, a clear understanding of Andō’s work

is therefore not entirely possible. In other words, Andō’s work cannot be studied

entirely with respect to itself. The analysis here then is no longer about Andō

himself or his work. Instead, the excerpt above demonstrates that an Orientalist

framework is Frampton’s working method of analysis. Frampton’s logic functions

in a fundamental relationship of understanding the “other”, Japan, relative to the

West, and demonstrates how he situates Japanese architecture in the postmod-

ern discourse.

In his 1983 essay “Prospects for Critical Regionalism” published in the

Yale Journal, Perspecta, Frampton expounds on his theory of critical regionalism.

Calling critical regionalism a paradox, Frampton argues that local values and im-

ages always operate within a larger framework that is defined by what Frampton

calls, “alien sources”. This paradox becomes problematic when a regionalist cul-

ture is faced with an overall construction of identity.Whence the paradox: on the one hand, it has to root itself in the soil of its past, forge a national spirit, and unfurl this spiritual and cultural re-vindication before the colonialist’s personality. But in order to take part in modern civilization, it is necessary at the same time to take part in scientific, technical, and political rationality, something which very often requires the pure and simple abandon of a whole cultural past. It is a fact: every culture cannot sustain and ab-sorb the shock of modern civilization. There is the paradox: how to become modern and to re-turn to sources; how to revive an old, dormant civilization and take part in universal civilization. (Frampton 148-149)

Through the use of geographical based terms such as “regionalist”, “alien”,

“autochthonous”, and “universal”, Frampton is further predicating a value system

that is based on the binary, dichotomous relationship of an exterior, hegemonic

culture that makes its way into a local context, functioning simultaneously and

similarly to the oriental/occidental “dyad” in Andō’s work. Implicit to Frampton’s

argument for critical regionalism is universal modernism as a Western phenom-

enon, based on Western rationalism, rooted in a history of colonial rule.

This fundamental relationship between modern-

ism and the West been noted by German sociologist and philoso-

pher Jurgen Habermas and further emphasized by Naoki Sakai.

In the essay, “Modernity and Its Critique: The Problem of Universalism and Par-

ticularism”, Naoki Sakai states:

Historically, modernity has primarily been op-posed to its historical precedent: Geopolitically it has been contrasted to the non-modern, or more specifically to Non west…As a matter of course, this does not mean either that the West was never at pre modern stages or that the non west can never be modernized; it simply excludes the possibility of a simultaneous existence of the pre-modern West and the non-modern west…The West must represent the moment of the universal under which particulars are subsumed. Indeed the West is particular in itself, but it also constitute universal points of reference in rela-tion to which recognize themselves as particu-larities. And in this regard, the West thinks itself to be ubiquitous. (Sakai 94-95)

The idea of universalism as a western, modern project is not unique to

Frampton, and has been a persistent issue in studying postmodern culture. Ac-

cordingly, critical regionalism begins to reveal more about Frampton and an Ori-

entalist bias that has become problematic in the discourse of postmodern archi-

tecture, and specifically problematic in the study of architect Tadao Andō’s work.

THREE STORIES: THE KOSHINO RESIDENCE

story I_ The Koshino Residence (Kenneth Frampton)

In the same essay in Perspecta, Frampton cites Tadao Andō’s Koshino Res-

idence (fig. 4.1) as an example of critical regionalism because of tension in Andō’s

work between the process of universal civilization and the idiosyncrasy of rooted

culture:What Andō has in mind is the development of a trans-optical architecture where the richness of the work lies beyond the initial perception of its geometric order. The tactile value of the tectonic components are crucial to this changing spatial

revelation, for as he was to write of his Koshino Residence in 1981:

Light changes expressions with time. I believe that the architec-tural materials do not end with wood and concrete that have tangible forms but go beyond to include light and wind which ap-peal to our senses…Detail exists as the most important element in expressing identity…Thus to me, the detail is an element which achieves the physical composition of architecture, but at the same time, it is a genera-tor of an image of architecture.

That this opposition between universal civiliza-tion and autochthonous culture can have strong political connotations has been remarked on by Alex Tzonis…(Frampton 159)

In his essay “Thoughts on Tadao Andō”, written in conjunction with Andō’s

Priztker Prize (1995), Frampton further describes the Koshino Residence:This feature, combined with vertical slot win-dows in the flanking concrete walls, was seem-ingly derived from the architecture of Luis Bar-ragan, as was the use of zenithal light in the living room. This canonical house was further enriched by other transcultural gestures, such as the built-in dining table that by virtue of a change in floor level permitted one to adopt an oriental or oc-cidental sitting posture at the same table. Of more decisively Japanese provenance however was the exposed skeleton frame of the bedroom wing. The flat roof was capped by a steel rail in such a way as to suggest a traditional dry garden, just as the dimly lit corridors within, evoked the traditional dark interiors…(Frampton 1)

Frampton’s analysis of the Koshino Residence in the excerpt above and in

the book 1991 Tadao Andō (fig. 4. 2- 4.5) operates on two levels: critical regional-

ism as a literal reading into the site and critical regionalism as a cultural strategy

for situating the work. In his first reading of the project, Frampton cites Andō’s

observation of the light’s temporal effect in a space as a local site condition to

the Koshino Residence. He uses this to conclude that the rectilinear, geometric

forms of concrete are universally modernist and the light on site, representative

of autochthonous culture, are in opposition to one another. Frampton considers

that opposing forces of critical regionalism are at work: an imported universal

modernism that influences Andō and Andō’s reaction to local site conditions.

In his second reading, Frampton uses critical regionalism as an abstracted

form of understanding the “other”, the Japanese postmodern architect, in a sin-

cere desire to understand how the work of Andō can be positioned in postmodern

architectural discourse. His latter description of the house relies on details that

further his East/West framework of analysis because of his terms “transcultural”,

“oriental” and “occidental” as a way of describing behaviors within the space.

While the word “transcultural” suggests some sort of hybrid identity of the house,

the terms “oriental” and “occidental” implies a dichotomic reading of the work

rather than a practical response to a change in ground plane onsite.

story II_Koshino House (Matsuba Kazukiyo)

In his two-part book titled, Andō: The Ideas and Work of Tadao Andō,

Matsuba Kazukiyo, a renowned architectural critic in Japan, chronicles his twenty-

year relationship with Andō and then critically analyzes his work. In his reading of

the Koshino Residence (fig. 4.6-4.7), he states:The grey concrete, compared to the green sur-roundings, is especially beautiful. Andō’s severe geometry amidst the natural environment is a

gorgeous form that differs from the dense city zone. There is a slope on site, and the entrance is placed at the highest point at the side of the road. From there, the building form takes on the shape of the descending slope and the residen-tial living space opens up. When I stood at the side of the road, I wondered how the splendor of this form could be. Andō made this pedestrian entrance in a semicircular shape of beaten concrete, and laid the green lawn in a circle. Next to the lawn, the upper half of the linear concrete can be seen. Because of the showering sunlight inside the space, the concrete emits radiance, and looks nothing but divine. Beyond the abstraction of this individual shape, the strength of the architect is nothing but obvious...If you were to go to the West, you would come up with a number of houses designed by the modernist architect. These houses are directly emulating the modernist geometry of the Koshino Residence, and the number of structures designed at a similar scale is not small. Indifferent to climate, this modernist form of barely any restraint achieves an ideal scene, and flourishes with no concern. If you compare this with the Koshino Residence, I think the form of the Koshino Residence stands out. (Kazukiyo 162)

Like Frampton, Matsuba analyzes Andō’s work through the establishment

of an east/west relationship. However, this connection is to point out Andō’s in-

fluence in the West, rather than situating Andō’s work in Western modernism.

Furthermore, Matsuba’s discussion of the Koshino Residence directly takes into

account Andō’s sensitivity to the site’s local climate conditions, the effect of con-

crete as a material, and relentless insistence of Andō’s geometry. In other words,

he analyzes the Koshino Residence with respect to itself. While he may insist that

Andō’s work is copied in the West, but never fully achieved, the crux of his analy-

sis lies in treating the project as a part of a larger body of work that is and only

Andō’s.

story III_Koshino Residence (Tadao Andō)

In 1982, the Japanese magazine, Kindai no Kenchikuka or Contemporary

Architect, featured an entire issue on Tadao Andō. In this issue, Japanese

architectural critics and architects such as Fumihiko Maki commented on the

architect’s work while the remainder of the issue was left to Andō himself.

Published at the time that of Frampton’s essay �Towards a Criti cal Region-�Towards a Critical Region-

alism: Six points for an Architecture of Resistance�, Andō explains the Koshino

Residence as two inorganic boxes that are half buried on a deep green slope. One

of the volumes contains two levels, the upper level for the master bedroom and

lower level with a double height living room, kitchen, and dining room. The other

volume contains 6 rooms for children, a tatami room, lobby, and bathroom, all in

a row. A courtyard is in the middle of the two boxes and follows the slope of the

site (fig. 4.8-4.4.18):...the stepping of the courtyard is the symbolic representation of the intrinsic nature of the sight. The courtyard is the outdoor living room, and the wide stairs receive and reflect light trickling through the trees and serve as a stage on which the living unfolds…The weather conditions in this area required the building to be equipped with a defense mechanism for severe coldness…The inorganic concrete walls and the light which acts upon them are the source of my architectural inspirations. The regularly placed concrete formworks and the traces of ties, the smoothly finished surfaces and the sharp edges—however, my preference is not the bold and plastic space with material emphasis, seen in the later works of Le Corbusier. I would rather treat concrete as a serene, inorganic material with a strong potential hidden within… the narrow corridor between

two walls exists within the building and acts as the generator for the various encounters of light and shadows in the dim space…In my opinion the detail holds a prominent part in architecture in that it manifests the creative intention of the author…I have not been able to grow out of my long training in manual art; and therefore I cannot detach a single compositional part from its whole…the detail is an element which achieves the physical composition of architecture, but at the same time, it is the generator of the image of architecture. (Andō 14-15)

In his explanation of the Koshino Residence, Andō speaks of building

details, forms, materiality, and site as a way of engaging the existing local

conditions and dealing with public and private space within a domestic setting

as a “stage”. More importantly, he points to the role of authorship in his work;

how his training in manual arts has impacted how he sees materiality, detail,

and composition within his work. He swiftly compares his use of concrete to Le

Corbusier, but it is not to emphasize a consciousness of his work in regards to

the French architect. Instead, it is to emphasize how he authored the building

as a response to local conditions, particularly sunlight. Though this is the same

passage cited in the Perspecta essay, taken in context, its tone and message, are

different than cited by Frampton and his argument for critical regionalism.

Furthermore, there is no reaction by Andō by how critics have received

the work, which is not necessary in a project explanation, particularly because

Frampton’s �Towards a Criti cal Regionalism: Six points for an Architecture of Re-�Towards a Critical Regionalism: Six points for an Architecture of Re-

sistance� had just been published with no mention yet of Andō. However, Andō

does become aware of Frampton’s analysis of his work and discusses it in his 1999

book Kenchiku wo Kataru or Architectures Tells a Story:In 1980 I met Kenneth Frampton while in the U.S. for an architecture conference. He is British,

but at the time had begun working at Columbia University. He had proposed the essay “Critical Regionalism”, criticizing modern architecture as obstructed. He immediately came to Japan, and saw many of my works, such as the Koshino Residence. When he actually visited the buildings, the Koshino Residence, in its modern materials, construction, and form, he sensed how the feeling of a Japanese person could be experienced. He considered the surrounding environment, particularly the site and its existing trees. He really understood that in his analysis, and it was the first work of mine that he positioned as critical regionalism...

Critical regionalism is organized along the following points:

While modernization is critical, the progressive inheritance of modern architecture is taken up and is reflected in its peripheral practice. It is rooted in place. Architecture is affected by climate. Architecture is capable of constructive truth. Architecture appeals not only to sense of sight, but all 5 senses. It is not a non-critical adaptation of regionality, but a practice of modernism reflected through an explained regionality. The practice of architecture achieves a positive critique of current architecture.

I have recognized these points within the discourse of Kenneth Frampton, but I have formulated my own point of view of regionality consciously when I met him...I believe the art of Japanese architecture does not necessarily differ from that of the West. Most of my architecture utilizes concrete, and is a constitutively and geometrically spread thing. So whatever may be said, it plays up Western rationality. However, it is strange why other countries always say, “it’s Japanese like”. This is a little unexpected because I personally do not think my architecture is Japanese. However, the mental climate of Japan is one of dimensionality and material brought

on by a sense of touch. Or it could be that my own physicality has evolved. I think about architecture as an interesting phenomenon more than regionality in architecture. (Andō 42-44, 46)

Andō appreciates Frampton’s praise of his work, but he does not see

critical regionalism in a one to one translation with Frampton’s. Instead, he

appropriates what he sees from the term and how it functions in his work. As a

result, it can be argued that Frampton sees Andō’s work in critical regionalism as

a cultural strategy while Andō sees critical regionalism as a strategy for practicing

architecture. For Andō, his architecture is not in a double mediation of universal

civilization and authothconous culture, but a way to practice architecture that

mediates local site conditions and design decisions that are ultimately integrative

to one another (fig. 4.19-4.21).

Furthermore, Andō does not see his work as “Japanese”. He believes it is

not that far away from “western rationality”, which is likely influenced on his trips

to Europe to study the architecture there early in his career. However, he does

recognize that the Japanese aesthetic relies heavily on the haptic, a value that is

important to his work as an architect as well. Most importantly, Andō does not

think about regionality in his work, but his architecture as an evolving practice, a

phenomenon that engages the local conditions per project through the ongoing

use of concrete and its translations in different contexts.

As a result, Frampton’s analysis of Andō’s work as an example of critical

regionalism in architecture is problematic because he relies on a binaries,

dichotomies, and east/west orientalism to understand Andō’s work within the

postmodern discourse by misappropriating Andō’s comments on his practice and

theories within architecture as examples of critical regionalism when they are

part of larger issues regarding Andō’s approach to his practice of architecture.

Through this series of misappropriations, Frampton participates in what

postmodern Japanese architect and critic, Arata Isozaki, calls the “gaze”:From its inception the problematic of “Japan-ness” has belonged to an external gaze, that gaze directed toward Japan from beyond this insular nation. It has not emerged causa sui…In the mid-nineteenth century the West developed a passion for collecting japonaiserie—exotica…another shelf on the cabinet of the West’s exoticists cabinet…Roughly a century has passed since infatuations began, yet Japanese tastes persists, except that the focus seems to have shifted from material objects to the concepts perceived to underlie their production—simplicity, humility, purity, lightedness, and shibusa (sophisticated austerity)…With respect to Japanese architectural design in particular, an identification of Japan-ness began in the twentieth century, most intensively of the 1930s—the critical juncture of the country’s modernization. (Isozaki 3-4)

Isozaki’s comments situate the problem of exoticization of Japan,

particularly in the study of architecture, and coincide with Said’s study of

Orientalism. His comment regarding a shift in an infatuation from material

objects to concepts perceived line up largely with Frampton’s theoretical and

conceptual positioning of Andō’s work through the use of his terms “trans optical”,

“transcultural”, and “animistic” for example, shaped by critical regionalism.

However, Andō appears to have enjoyed the critical acclaim by Frampton,

who has published and edited numerous monographs on the architect. It is

unknown whether the two have discussed Andō’s view of critical regionalism, but

what becomes clear is that “the gaze” and “the problem with Japan-ness” is not just

an external problem for the discourse of Japanese architecture in a postmodern

architecture. It is also an internal issue because it shapes how Japanese architects

are willing to allow themselves to be perceived by a non-Japanese speaking

audience. While Andō is clear on the authorship of the Koshino Residence, the

value of his work to non Japanese audience is different from what he may intend.

While some of this is beyond his control, notoriety becomes encased in issues

regarding representation and interpretation—and is more nuanced.

To return to the comments by Edward Said, “Orientalism is—and does

not simply represent—a considerable dimension of modern political-intellectual

culture, and as such has less to do with the Orient than it does with �our� world”

(Said 12). Consequently, Frampton’s analysis become much more about himself

rather than Andō at all. While Frampton’s work is not meant to be distilled as

autobiographical understanding of architecture, it appears to be increasingly out

of date in a world that is coming to rely on virtual connections and hybrid identi-

ties that impact the practice and discourse of architecture on a daily, hourly basis.

Moreover, Frampton’s work demonstrates that orientalism, the either/

ors, the us/other is problematic in studying any culture. This is not to say cultural

relativism is the answer, but that deeper histories and theories that are local--not

regional— are crucial to an analysis of space if they can transcend an “our” frame-

work. According to theorist Masao Miyoshi:“…the description of post modernity began to fit Japan remarkably well, as if the term was specifically coined for Japanese society…Modu-larity has been conspicuous in Japan’s architec-tural and literary productions. Visualization is the country’s specialty…Is postmodernism a histori-cal period or a cultural system? In the context of Japanese society, it is clearly not a periodic term: same traits seem to have been around much too long—under different economic and political cir-cumstances. And if it is a cultural event, it should be localized, and so treated, without essential-izing it.” (Miyoshi 148-149)

Miyoshi brings up two key points regarding Japan: that post modern is

not a temporal theory in Japan and post modernism presents local readings that

should be considered and analyzed, but not essentialized.

The idea of the local can also be further studied in the practice of archi-

tecture. By understanding how an individual architect practices architecture, the

study becomes about the work itself, as it may or may not have been intended,

and how it engages the local through design processes and the design outcome.

This begins to suggest that alternative modernisms and postmodernisms exist in

the local, contributing further to the discourse in architecture that moves beyond

the gaze.

5_

Public Private Projects

“There is no private space in Japan. It is all public. “—Riken Yamamoto�

The statement above by architect Riken Yamamoto is telling of the Japa-

nese city, particularly, Tōkyō. The assertion that there is no private space in Japan

implies that all private acts are lived or acted in public. This means love hotels

that allow discreet meetings at all hours for lovers, underwear is available at con-

venience stores 24/7 if you miss the last train home, or eating out at a restaurant

is just like eating in at home due to small homes in the city. Private life is lived in

public spaces.

Yamamoto’s statement does not imply that lewd, improper behavior is

accepted in Japan. It is quite the contrary—particularly when train lines go so far

as to diagram proper behavior in the train or even provide woman only trains for

the woman traveler who wishes to avoid be groped in the crowded daily com-

mutes into Tōkyō (fig. 5.1 and 5.2). Tōkyō’s reality is not as far from the saran

wrap, private/public nomadic city life that Toyo Ito suggested in the 1990s. Today,

in 2011, private and public spaces appear not only to be blurring, but changing

all together.

This concluding study will examine 5 projects in the 2000s by Toyo Ito,

Riken Yamamoto, Akihasa Hirata, Sou Fujimoto, and a collaborative exhibition be-

tween Dutch and Japanese Artists called “LLove”, a love hotel. Through the the-

sis concepts of appropriation, materiality, technology, commodity, and context,

these projects each engender and address public space in Japan, mainly in the

city of Tōkyō.

Sendai Mediatheque, Toyo Ito (2001)

Designed by architect Toyo Ito in 2001, the Sendai Mediatheque has

garnered much attention for its materiality and structure of open steel tubular

columns and glass curtain walls. Beyond these structural innovations, however,

is also an intimate interaction between users and Ito’s architecture mediated

through materiality in a public space. This can be particularly noted in the Sendai

Mediatheque project (fig. 5.3-5.5).

Would the Sendai Mediatheque been as successful if the façade and in-

terior space encompassing structural pipes were made of corrugated steel? Or

sensitiles? Most likely, no. While some materials may have suggested a public

interaction with the building by encouraging touch and texture, one of the key

reasons the Sendai Mediatheque is successful is because of the visual relationship

between its interior space and the public space of the street due to its transpar-

ent glass facade. In seeing a space with all of its contents exposed, available, and

accessible to the public, a viewer from the street is at a constant level of visual

interaction with Sendai Mediatheque. Within this visual interaction, however,

architect Ryue Nishizawa has noted certain spatial complexities:The bold twisting forms of the tube structures, the vertical movement of elevators, and the horizontal stratification—nearly every aspect of the building was visible to the exterior. This was no ordinary transparency, but something more physical and substantial...We normally think of transparency as something light and ephemeral, but this was different. The transparency was so direct and realistic that all of the structure’s de-fined parts—it’s thick glass panes, glaring stain-less steel elements, and heavy yet wildly twisting structural tubes—clearly appeared and revealed the building as an assembly of many objects. Lay-

ered scenes appeared and disappeared like cells of animation... This is the enigma of the Medi-atheque: although it achieves the most perfect transparency as a skin, it seems that more is ob-scured than revealed in this interface of interior and exterior. (Witte 24-27)

While there may be the complexities of cell animations, a change in noise

levels from exterior street space into an interior public space, this enigma that

Nishizawa posits is closely allied with the materiality of the Sendai Mediatheque

and its social implications. In other words, would Nishizawa’s enigma hold true if

the building was not made of any transparent material or maybe only luminous

material has proposed earlier? When a viewer is faced with seeing the entire con-

tents of a space from the street or the visitor inside sees the surrounding city

before them due to the transparency of glass, the experience of a public space

is both changed and impacted by the very people experiencing it. The result is a

building that functions as a visual and physical commodity for library patrons.

In considering the Sendai Mediatheque and the comments above by Ryue

Nishizawa, one can examine the social implications of materiality in public spaces

and how they reveal themselves in Ito’s subsequent projects. In a recent inter-

view, Ito said:More and more, however, such architecture strikes me as no environment for vibrant human life, so I’ve turned my attention to other pos-sibilities in architecture. I feel there’s a need to reassess the relationship between materials and people in order to reclaim a more fully human sense experience...Ever since Sendai, I’ve be-come increasingly aware of the incredible signifi-cance the process of creating architecture holds for me. How I interact with people, what discus-sions I have all bear greatly upon such creation. As with raising a human being, the act of creating buildings is very much a nurturing process. And

then, even after the buildings are completed, the process by which the user can go on nurturing and creating them is also important. (www.op-eracity.jp/ag/exh77/interview_e.html )

In drawing this relationship between people and materials, Ito is advo-

cating architecture’s role as a tool, even facilitator, of human and social interac-

tion, similar to Hara’s aspirations for the Haptic Exhibition. In a 2008 interview, Ito

stated, “I wanted Sendai to feel like a cultural salon...Because public and private

space is very blurred in Japan, the Mediatheque could feel private in some ways-

-like watching videos or reading… a real architecture”(Ito).

By designing a context similar to lived space, Ito seems to have achieved

his desire for privacy in some instances: visitors can be seen with their feet up,

shoes off, reading newspapers, or in one of the seated areas or watching a video

leisurely in the video resource area. While its damage due to the recent earth-

quake is unfortunate, the Sendai Mediatheque will return to being an important

part of public space within the urban fabric of Sendai due to its strong architec-

tural and cultural presence in the city.

Shinanome Canal Court, Riken Yamamoto+Field Shop (2003)

In 2003, along with a group of other well-known Japanese architects,

such as Kengo Kuma and, Riken Yamamoto co designed a block of apartments in

Tōkyō with Toyo Ito (fig. 5.6-5.8). Yamamoto describes the project:The main characteristics of this housing development are the common terrace’ which is a volume carved out of the residential building, the ‘foyer-room’ which can be used as a home of-fice, sunny center corridors, and sunny bathrooms. Placed randomly on each

floor, a common terrace of double height is surrounded with foyer-rooms. Connected to common terraces, people can use these foyer rooms as SOHO, nursery space, or hobby rooms. Each common terrace is surrounded by the ‘foyer rooms’ of eight housing units. One fourth of the units face the common terraces. The other units are separated from the center corridors with glass par-titions. Because of the terraces that oc-cur at intervals through out the project, these center corridors have the light and air circulation of an exterior space. Plac-ing the foyer rooms by the center cor-ridors can make the residential rooms open toward the corridor. To allow for large, square foyer rooms, bathrooms, and kitchens are by the outer wall. This blend of homes and workplaces is rather than home next to workplace. We tried to enlarge the potential of collective housing, putting function of office into housing. (www. rikenyamamoto.co.jp)

By mixing the exterior space with the interior, more private aspects of the

program, Yamamoto is working within the construct of the Japanese traditional

home. Yamamoto has re-arranged the entrance into the apartment unit by treat-

ing the corridor (6’) as a public threshold, but simultaneously maintained a layering

of public and private spaces in relationship to the primary entrance of the house.

As a result, the public corridor begins to function more like the engawa, or

threshold of the Japanese home and the garden spaces are re-appropriated into

F rooms or Terraces-work place or public spaces, respectively. Within the flow

of the open space from one room to the next, Yamamoto’s plan also suggests a

pixelization of public and private activities based on context. Though private and

public spaces are adjacent to each other, there are moments where semi public

program (kitchen) and private program (bathroom) are suddenly interacting with

on another.

In many ways, the Shinanome Canal Court project suggests a hybrid of

modern Japan and pre modern concepts of space that are based on Japanese

responses and re-appropriations of modernism and part of a continued construct

of traditional Japanese space. Furthermore, the project introduces a new non-no-

mad condition for the postmodern urban dweller in Tōkyō. Home and Work has

become a hybridized commodity that operates in context, the designed home,

with transparent glass windows, shared entrances, and common terraces.

Sarugaku, Akihasa Hirata (2007)

Completed in 2007, Sarugaku is a cluster of commercial buildings by architect

Akhihasa Hirata. Hirata designed the individual volumes as a mountain to feel like

a “big room in a valley that would overflow with goods and people like a secretion”

Located in the Daikanyama, Tōkyō, an boho shopping area in a hilly neighbor-

hood, the narrow site required Hirata to build vertically.

Openings for windows and doors between shops extend almost floor to

ceiling, creating a visual relationship between stores with direct access to the ex-

terior terraces (fig. 5.9-5.12). The result is a mix of private retail space and pub-

lic pedestrian space that allows for browsing, meeting, and shopping. Through a

series of scalar shifts, open terraces at the ground plane, sidewalk like terraces

at the second and third levels, and door and window openings between stores

visible from the ground to the upper levels, the project engages the idea of per-

foration within a commercial setting with basic materials: concrete (stamped and

trowled), glass, and resin mortar.

Window-shopping literally occurs from all directions. Similar to Ito’s Me-

diatheque, this public space suggests further implications for privacy in public

spaces: seeing someone at another store across the way enables a visual eaves-

dropping and surveillance: a store employee can never seem bored and a shop-

per’s choice of merchandise could be someone else’s fashion show. Sarugaku,

translated roughly as entertainment or theater, furthers a visual voyeurism in

Japanese public space. As with the many projects cited in study 1, commercial

space is urban space. However, Hirata does not allow for these retails spaces to

exist in isolation or privacy of one another as a typical store in a mall would. The

floor layout of each retail space is impacted by those surrounding it because of

physical and visual access, or as Hirata notes “secretions”. This flow of goods and

people are literally publicized through the act of shopping.

House H, Sou Fujimoto (2008)

Interested in what he calls “primitive forms”, architect Sou Fujimoto designed

House H as a response to the strict site regulations in Tōkyō and needs of his client.

Instead of using an interior courtyard to provide an interior privacy to the home,

Fujimoto used the concept of the cube as an entirely stacked volume to promote a

vertical integration of the typical program of a Japanese home: large bathing areas

for Japanese bathing, rooms for sleeping or relaxing, and kitchen (fig. 5.13-5.16).

For cross ventilation, Fujimoto created large windows in pairs flush with

the building concrete envelope that expose much of the private, domestic ac-

tivities to the view of the neighbors. The pairing of windows, 6 in total, is not

geometrically aligned, resulting in a break in time between activities as they are

happening and as they are seen from the exterior. Coupled with the materiality

of concrete, this exposure of the homes activities and its contents, such as parked

car or a child reading, powerfully displays what is private to the public that is the

neighborhood.

At an interior scale, the program’s visibility and its occupants operate at

a more intense level. Program is visible from different floors, beginning with a

glass ceiling between the second and third floors, openings between walls allow

for ample movement between spaces, and exaggerated staircases punctuate any

movement between spaces. There is no private space within the program and no

privacy from the public of the neighborhood. Subtle shifts in geometry explode

the house from inside out. The result is a house that lives in public, making con-

text irrelevant and visual access into the home some kind of free commodity.

LLOVE hotel (2010)

A collaborative exhibition featuring 8 emerging Dutch and Japanese de-

signers, Llove hotel opened in Daikanyama in October 22, 2010-November 23,

2010. Japanese architect, Jo Nagasaka, directed the exhibition. It featured 13

rooms that spatially conceptualized a stay at Japanese love hotel. Certain rooms,

such as the café, object bar, theatre, communal bathroom, and souvenir shop did

not follow the basic typology of the love hotel, with the usual discreet entrances,

anonymous choice of rooms, and no interaction with staff or any other guest (fig.

5.17-5.21). However, this change is consistent with Yamamoto’s statement: The

private act of making love is no secret in what has become “all public space” in

Japan.

Furthermore, it implies the transitional nature of Japanese city, cycling

back to the 1972 Capsule Tower by architect Kisho Kurokawa and pausing in refer-

ence to Ito’s Nomad woman. However, the isolation of the city is no longer the

prevalent issue, rather it’s enjoying things in pairs, in mass-from the café to the

communal bathroom with a total acceptance of the love hotel as a commoditiza-

tion of space.

309+310 Mis-understanding, 311+312 Overwriting, 313+314 Mis-inter-

pretation were three pairs of rooms designed by Nagasaka. Symmetrical to each

other, the room’s occupants unknowingly or knowingly mimic or follow each oth-

er’s presences through the spatial devices in the room such as the bed, desk or

sink to reflect the themes (fig. 5.22).

302 Buried, designed by architect Yuko Nakayama, is a room buried in

pebbles and trees (fig. 5.23). The sink and bed appear to be carefully integrated

to avoid disturbing the “existing” ground and trees. Nakayama felt this interac-

tion with nature, as choreographed by the architect as could be, would incite a

dormant connection between humans and nature, and the instinctive ability for

humans to adapt to their surroundings. This coupled with the act of staying in a

love hotel, an intimate decision on its own, forces private behavior to be engaged

by an architecture that exists a priori.

Each of the projects presented demonstrate a progression of Japanese

postmodern architecture and its role within the city. While the Sendai Medi-

atheque is not located in Tōkyō, it is arguably one of the first examples of a blur-

ring of public and private space through its use of materiality, technology, and

program. Sarugaku also demonstrates how public behavior, such as shopping, can

begin to operate in different ways when architecture itself precipitates it. The

Shinonome Canal Court Project proposes further implications for collective hous-

ing in Tōkyō: the work/home hybrid and sharing public space through the use of

materiality and further blurring of public, semi public, semi private, and private

space.

House H by Fujimoto is a visual trope of public and private space: the

building’s concrete envelope is no envelope, but instead a literal window into

the domestic, private activities of a home, with occupants aware, and neighbors

aware. The Llove hotel exhibition elucidates the art of deconstructed space in

Tōkyō as it is now, an exhibition for rent by the hour or night, that showcases

emerging Japanese and Dutch architects and their interpretation of private and

public in the Tōkyō landscape.

These five projects demonstrate that gaze is now operating differently

than Isozaki’s Western gaze. While the Sendai Mediatheque has received much

international acclaim for its building technology and materiality, little attention

has been paid to its architecture in context and its role in the larger trajectory of

branded space in urban Japan. With Sendai Mediatheque as a conceptual start-

ing point for the main concepts covered in these chapters, the four remaining

projects, demonstrate flows of commodity, context, appropriation of pre-modern

Japanese spatial concepts in postmodern Japanese design, technology, and mate-

riality that make up the Japanese city today.

So is Yamamoto’s opening statement actually true or a gross exaggera-

tion? Regardless, the idea of the public as private or no private space at all in

Japan begins to suggest further readings of architecture and its relationship to the

city, as image, as reality, or unreality, in postmodern architecture that is no longer

just about Japan, but about the postmodern condition itself.

Fig. 1.1. Sugura street in The Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji, 1966.

Fig. 1.2. Exterior view of Echigoya in Kidai Shoran, 1805.

Fig. 1.3 actresses with kanban Echigoya advertisements Tōkyō National Museum, 1992.

Fig. 1.4. Poster for Mitsukoshi Ginza Branch Opening, Japan National Museum of Mod-ern Art, Hisui Sugiura A Retrospective, 2000.

Fig. 1.5 Modan girls in the city in Mainichi Shinbun, 1928.

Fig. 1.6-1.10. Cosmetic and Café Advertisements in The New Japanese Woman Modernity, Media, and Women in Interwar Japan and in Japan National Museum of Modern Art, 2000 and 2003.

Fig. 1.11. Map of Harajuku-Omotesandō Area with uses in Zenrin Map, Shibuya-ku, 2001.

Retail Spaces

Train station

Omotesando Street

Mei

ji Stre

et

Cat S

treet

cultural facilities apartmentsdesign �rm

architecture project

Takeshita StreetYoyogi park

Meiji Shrine

entrance to park

local global brands

Fig. 1.12. New Urban Life Style, 1st Building in Team Hamano & Projects, 1960.

Fig. 1.13. Exterior, 1st Building Aoyama in Team Hamano & Projects, 1960.

Fig. 1.14. 200 Day Trip Shop Marketing Poster in Team Hamano & Projects, 1960.

Fig. 1.15-1.17. 200 Day Trip Shop in Team Hamano & Projects, 1960.

,

Fig. 1.18-1.20. Exterior view, exhibition advertisement, floor plan, and store window ac-cessed 21 April 2011.

Fig. 1.21. Asahi Beer Headquarters. www. flickr.com. 21 April 2011.

Fig. 1.22. Aerial view of Tōkyō Dome accessed 19 April 2011.

Fig. 1.23. Facilities diagram accessed 21 April 2011.

Fig. 1.24. Exterior of Tod’s Building in El Croquis #123, 2005.

Fig. 1.25. Section with street of Tod’s Building in El Croquis #123, 2005.

Fig. 1.26 façade of Louis Vuitton Building accessed 20 April 2011.

Fig. 1.27. Ground floor plan of Louis Vuitton Store in JA Yearbook 2003, 2003.

Fig. 1.28. Exterior of Dior Building in Japan Architect Space in Detail 54, 2004.

Fig. 2.1. Edo development patterns and city blocks, Tōkyō a Spatial Anthrolopology and Making of Urban Japan, 1999 an 2001.

Fig. 2.2. Version 1 Ende and Böckmann, Archives of the Architectural Institute of Japan, Tōkyō 1887.

Fig. 2.3. version 2 Ende and Böckmann, Deutsche Bauzeitung, 1891.

Fig. 2.4. Oriental Dream by Adam Cram, My Life in Architecture, Boston, 1936.

Fig. 2.5. Temporary National Diet Building by Tietze and Shigenori, Archives of Architec-tural Institute of Japan, Tōkyō 1891.

Fig. 2.6. Main facade, Special Diet Architecture Office, Treasury Ministry, Imperial Diet Building, Tōkyō, Archives of the Architectural Institute of Japan, Tōkyō. 1936

Fig. 2.7. Nakagin Capsule Tower in Metabolism in Architecture, 1977.

Fig. 2.8. Interior view of capsule in Metabolism in Architecture, 1992.

Fig. 2.9. Isometric Drawing of Capsule in Metabolism in Architecture, 1992.

Fig. 2.10. Tange’s research for in Plan for Tōkyō 1960, 1960.

Fig. 2.11. Aerial view of Tange’s Plan for Tōkyō in Plan for Tōkyō 1960, 1960.

Fig. 2.12. Section, Plan, and Model for Tōkyō in Plan for Tōkyō 1960, 1960.

Fig. 2.13. Elevation, site plan, and model of housing in Plan for Tōkyō 1960, 1960.

Fig. 2.14. Perspective of Helix City in Metabolism in Architecture, 1977.

Fig. 2.15. Axonometric of individual unit and Perspective of Ocean City in Kokusai Ken-chiku, 1959.

Fig. 2.16. Tōkyō Daichi Bay Hotel accessed 21 April 2011.

Fig. 2.17: Yamato International Building accessed 21 April 2011.

Fig. 2.18. Parthenon Tama accessed 21 April 2011.

Fig. 2.19: Pao The Urban Nomad Woman I in Simulated City, 1991.

Fig. 2.20: Pao the Urban Nomad Woman II in Simulated City, 1991.

Fig. 2.21: Egg of the Wind in El Croquis #71, 1995.

Fig. 2.22. golf taxi building in Made in Tōkyō, 2001.

Fig. 2.23. Pet Architecture Diagram in Pet Architecture, 2001.

Fig. 2.24. Kirishima Flower Shop in Pet Architecture, 2001.

Fig. 2.25. Roppongi Hills Schematic Drawing accessed 2 April 2011.

Fig. 2.26. Roppongi Hills accessed 2 April 2011.

Fig. 2.27. Roppongi Hills accessed 29 April 2011.

Fig. 2.28. Tōkyō Midtown Schematic accessed 21 April 2011.

Fig. 2.29 Tōkyō accessed 21 April 2011.

Fig. 2.30 Roppongi Hills Museum accessed 2 April 2011.

Fig. 3.1. Kiwi Juice Box (Naota Fukasawa), Haptic Exhibition 2001.

Fig. 3.2. Dehumidifier (Kenya Hara), Haptic Exhibition, 2004.

Fig 3.4. High Five Door Knob (Toyo Ito), Haptic Exhibition, 2004.

Fig 3.5. Remote Control that Snores when in “sleep” mode (Panasonic), Haptic Exhibi-tion, 2004.

Figure 3.6. Geta Sandals (Shuhei Hasado) Haptic Exhibition, 2004.

Fig 3.7. Matsuya Façade, 2000.

Fig. 3.8.Matsuya Façade, 2000.

Fig 3.9. Matsuya Façade, 2000.

Fig 3.10. Louis Vuitton Building (Jun Aoki) accessed 16 April 2008.

Fig 3.11. Hermes Building (Renzo Piano) accessed 16 April 2008.

Fig 3.12. Mikimoto Building (Toyo Ito) 21 April 2011.

Fig. 3.13. Matsuya Façade 2000.

Fig. 3.14. Matsuya Scaffolding, 2004.

Fig 3.15. Matsuya Poster, 2004.

Fig. 3.16 Matsuya Poster, 2004.

Fig. 3.17. Floor plan

Fig. 3.18 Interior Photo, 2007.

Fig. 3.19 Interior Photo, 2007.

Fig. 3.20 Interior Photo, 2007.

Fig. 3.21 Interior Photo HVAC , 2007

Fig. 4.1. Koshino Residence in “Propsects for Critical Regionalism”, 1983.

Fig. 4.2. Aerial view of Koshino Residence in Tadao Andō, 1991.

Fig. 4.3. Koshino Residence in Tadao Andō, 1991.

Fig. 4.4. Interior view and Floorplans of Koshino Residence in Tadao Andō, 1991.

Fig. 4.5.Koshino Residence in Tadao Andō, 1991.

Fig. 4.6. Koshino Residence in The Ideas and Work of Tadao Andō, 1996.

Fig. 4.7. Koshino Residence in The Ideas and Work of Tadao Andō, 1996.

Fig. 4.8. Koshino Residence in Kindai Kenchikuka,1991.

Fig. 4.9. Koshino Residence in Kindai Kenchikuka,1991.

Fig. 4.10. Koshino Residence in Kindai Kenchikuka,1991.

Fig. 4.11. Koshino Residence in Kindai Kenchikuka,1991.

Fig. 4.12. Koshino Residence in Kindai Kenchikuka,1991.

Fig. 4.13. Koshino Residence in Kindai Kenchikuka,1991.

Fig. 4.14. Koshino Residence in Kindai Kenchikuka,1991.

Fig. 4.15. Koshino Residence in Kindai Kenchikuka,1991.

Fig. 4.16. Koshino Residence in Kindai Kenchikuka,1991.

Fig. 4.17. Koshino Residence in Kindai Kenchikuka,1991.

Fig. 4.18. Koshino Residence in Kindai Kenchikuka,1991.

Fig. 4.19. Ando’s sketches of the Koshino House in Kenchiku wo Kataru, 1999.

Fig. 4.20. Ando’s sketch of the Koshino Residence in Kenchiku wo Kataru, 1999.

Fig. 4.21. Axonometric and Elevation of the Koshino Residence in Kenchiku wo Kataru,

1999.

Fig. 5.1. Japanese subway posters, Tōkyō Metro Subway. 2008

Fig. 5.2. Explanation for Women Only train, Tōkyō Metro Subway, 2011.

Fig. 5.3. Sendai Mediatheque in El Croquis #123, 2005.

Fig. 5.4. Interior of Sendai Mediatheque accessed 29 April 2011.

Fig. 5.5. Section of Sendai Mediatheque in El Croquis #123, 2005.

Fig. 5.6. Exterior view of Shinanome Canal Court Apartments accessed 24 April 2011.

Fig. 5.7. Floor Plan and Site plan of Shinanome Canal Court Apartments accessed 13 March 2009.

Fig. 5.8. Interior of Shinanome Canal Court Apartments accessed 13 March 2009.

Fig. 5.9. Sketch of Sarugaku in Animated, 2009.

Fig. 5.10. Line of Vision Diagram of Sarugaku in Animated, 2009.

Fig. 5.11. Exterior view of Sarugaku in Animated, 2009.

Fig. 5. 12. Section of Sarugaku in Animated, 2009.

Fig. 5.13. Exterior View of House H in Japan Architect, 2010.

Fig. 5.14. Section of House H in Japan Architect, 2010.

Fig. 5.15. Interior Shot of House H from blog accessed 17 April 2011.

Fig. 5.16. Interior Shot of House H from blog accessed 17 April 2011.

Fig. 5.17. Exterior view of Llove Hotel accessed 17 April 2011.

Fig. 5.18. Llove Café accessed 17 April 2011.

Fig. 5.19. Communal Bathroom of Llove Hotel accessed 17 April 2011.

Fig. 5.20. Llove Hotel Gift Shop accessed 17 April 2011.

Fig. 5.21. Object Bar of Llove Hotel accessed 17 April 2011.

Fig. 5.22. 309+310 Mis-understanding, 311+312 Overwriting, 313+314 Mis-interpreta-tion of Llove Hotel accessed 17 April 2011.

Fig. 5.23. 302 Buried of Llove Hotel accessed 17 April 2011.

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