Space and Time
pioneering design
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departments 6 Editor’s Note 8 on my mind Is building tall enough?
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10 Showroom Outdoor fire sparks new styles 12 Market Watch Stylish solutions you can see through 14 Expert’s Corner Peter Grueneisen of nonzero/architecture 16 workbook Building in the sky
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40 image 8 seconds in Dubai
features
27 Space A New Frontier for Architecture
By michael webb
32 Time, Space & Existence An Interview with Arata Isozaki
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By Karlyn De Jongh, Sarah Gold & Valeria Romagnini
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Editor in Chief Alexi Drosu alexi@formmag.net Advertising Sales Jerri Levi jerri@formmag.net 818.726.1765 Art Direction + Design studiofuse.biz Office Manager/ Sheila Mendes-Coleman Production Coordinator sheila@formmag.net Digital Editor Lisa Bingham Dewart lisa@formmag.net Contributing Writers Michael Webb Lisa Bingham Dewart Andrea Cohen Gehring Printing
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Reprints Peter Shamray Navigator Cross-media 626.222.5646 peter@navcm.com FORM magazine
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FORM: pioneering design
512 E. Wilson Avenue, Suite 213, Glendale, California 91206 818.956.5313 | FORMmag.net form (ISSN 0885-7377) is published bimonthly by Balcony Media, Inc. Principal Office: Balcony Media, Inc., 512 E. Wilson Avenue, Suite 213, Glendale, California 91206. Š Balcony Media, Inc. 2014. All rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part without written permission is prohibited. FORM and the FORM logotype design are protected through trademark registration in the United States. Printed in Korea. subscription: The basic rate for a one-year subscription to FORM is $35 (AIA/LA, USGBC-LA and IIDA So Cal members subscription included in membership). Single copy price $6.95. Subscribers: If the Postal Service alerts us that your magazine is undeliverable, we have no further obligation unless we receive a corrected address within six months. Postmaster: Send address changes to FORM, 512 East Wilson Avenue, Suite 213, Glendale, California 91206. We make a portion of our mailing list available to reputable third parties. To request that your name be removed from our mailing list, please visit our website or contact our office. submissions: Unsolicited editorial material, manuscripts, photographs, transparencies
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Imagination knows no bounds. And, as Michael Webb points out in the feature Space: A New Frontier for Architecture, writers have been fantasizing about galactic civilizations long before we had the scientific Perhaps in the near future, we’ll be able to take a Virgin Galactic flight to knowledge and the moon and stay overnight in one Norman Foster’s lunar habitations engineering skill of (p.27) that have been built using 3D to travel and live printing technology. Building in the sky, however, is also a terrestrial in outer space. pursuit. Our Workbook projects (p. share the challenges of building But, it sounds like 16) skyscrapers that break all boundaries technology and of height, while AIA/LA President Andrea Cohen Gehring (p.8) fantasy are finally questions whether building tall has a short shelf life. Her thoughtful essay looks at how a skyscraper can stand the test of time. Similarly, intersecting. Arata Isozaki (p. 32) ponders time, space and existence in an interview with the leaders of the Global Arts Foundation. Isozaki believes that every 25 years or so, we see a shift in design paradigm, and perhaps, today, we are on the brink of a transformation.
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Alexi Drosu Editor in Chief
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on my mind
Does Height Really Matter?
Tall: adjective. Of great or more than average height, especially relative to width. By Andrea Cohen Gehring, FAIA, LEED AP
The Flatiron’s unique classical facade and contextual triangular floor plan is only six and a half feet wide at the vertex. So acute is the angle, that it has been known to create strong wind currents in its vicinity. But it’s that sharp point that makes it a glorious experience to see. The building’s impact goes far beyond its footprint as it inspired the neighborhood around it to be known as the Flatiron District. Although controversial at the time of its construction, it remains one of the world’s most iconic skyscrapers. This month’s issue of FORM addresses the challenges of building in the sky as it showcases tall building projects. It is an exciting proposition to design the next “tallest building in the world”. But, looking back, is height the most important thing about a building? It’s certainly newsworthy, but then what? I think “tallness” is a factor that has a certain shelf life, until technology and market forces allow the next architect to push that edge beyond known boundaries.
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Andrea Cohen Gehring is a Design Leader at DLR Group and this year’s AIA/LA Chapter President.
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A skyscraper that seeks to be worthy of consideration for the next National Historic Landmark must do much more than break the latest “tall building” record. It needs to be memorable and create a positive impact to its site, which continues to evolve through time. It needs to address context and scale, and be bold in its concept, which may at times be controversial, by exceeding those boundaries. The dynamic shape and exquisite proportions of the Flatiron Building continue to move me, no matter how many times I visit that building. And, its height never crosses my mind.
Originally called the Fuller Building, the Flat Iron’s signature shape quickly took over as a moniker.
Courtesy of iStockphoto.
Like the prow of a big ship, the Flatiron Building in Manhattan appears to be in perfect motion as it commands the intersection of Fifth Avenue, Broadway and E. 22nd Street. One of my favorite tall buildings of all time, it’s not so tall anymore, standing at a mere 21 stories. When it was built in 1902, however, it was one of the tallest buildings in New York due to its innovative “steel frame”. Designed by Daniel Burnham, it has become one of the world’s most iconic skyscrapers and achieved National Historic Landmark status in 1989.
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Expert’s Corner
Peter Grueneisen, FAIA Principal and Founder of nonzero/architecture
Grueneisen believes it’s important to take a comprehensive approach towards architecture, one that integrates the project with art and technology, but is grounded in functionality and sustainability. Perhaps this is one reason why so many musicians and film composers are keen to work with the firm. “The creation of stimulating structures and spaces is a primary aspiration, while economic realities, social dynamics and limited natural resources demand a thoughtful and conscious approach to design and construction,” he adds. What are some of your current projects? We’re finishing up a building complex called Remote Control Productions; it’s a group of film composers [that work with] Hans Zimmer. When we started, they owned quite a few buildings— eclectic light industrial buildings—some were converted into studios others into office space. It’s a whole campus. The latest building was ground up, 16 smaller studios and two larger suites. In the new building, the studios are dark, no windows, floating rooms in the building. But when you come out, all the hallways on the upper floors have large skylights. There is also a balcony with cantilevers. You have screens that can move to regulate the shade; it’s very connected to the environment. How do you begin your design process when working with musicians or artists? We do research on the work that they do, not just on a technical level, but also their views on design and environment. On the one hand, the space has to be relatively neutral so different people can [work]. It must be conducive to creative work. On the technical side, they have to be isolated from sound and light. So there is a balance between creating public spaces that are connected and the private spaces that allows them to be creative.
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Tell me about new technology that you are incorporating. On the studio side, technology has become easier; everything is shrinking. We’re experi-
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menting with LED lighting. Color can create different moods for a musician. Changing the color of the whole space gives them a range of ambiance, rather than creating a room that never changes. Climate, lighting, louvered shades are being integrated into one system. Lutron for lighting; Crestron as an overarching system. The goal is always to make it easy and simple. We also use computerized fabrication to [design] exterior screens, basically a combi-
nation of privacy shade and sun shading, that are [mounted] outside on the glass. They are inspired by an image that is important to the client and we distort it into the pattern. As an architect you appreciate quality design. Do you admire any products? What we are looking for is something that is well designed, functional, economical, and sustainable. For example, we always used Macs because we thought [the computer] was more intuitive and an elegant way of working. Tesla is another example that relates to how we try to work. Maybe it’s a problem that’s been around for a 100 years, but something comes along that changes how we work. Doing things the way they are always done is easy. Finding new ways to address old problems is hard. Any new innovations in soundproofing? Some of the drywall companies are making boards that dampen sound from the outside. We’ve been able to use the materials and cut down on labor costs and space. For sound absorbing or interior acoustics, we have been using a lot of cotton panels made from recycled denim, Ultratouch by Bonded Logic. It’s healthier for the environment. A lot of the acoustic elements are about diffusion. With new design methods using computerized manufacturing, we’ve been trying to put together new diffuser methods.
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workbook
Building in the Sky Designs that challenge height
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For Workbook credits, please see page 38.
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Century City Center
Verde II
Johnson Fain Scott Johnson, FAIA, Design Partner Los Angeles, CA Website: www.johnsonfain.com
As Founder and Design Partner at Johnson Fain, Scott Johnson is focused on an integrative approach to a holistic end. This integration stretches not just to disciplines and technologies, but to the anticipation of an architectural future concerned with sustainability and a better way of city life. Does technology drive the architecture or vice versa? Technology is opening up the design process to a vast store of data and design team iteration. It re-contextualizes the architect’s role, perhaps still the conductor, but making choices from a wider array of inputs, infusing the project with more content. The pursuit of the tallest buildings will continue, a place with a vista, a place of privilege and protection. I believe this drive exists within us and we are now beginning to come full circle with our desires matching our needs: densifying our cities to achieve a better live-work balance, building more sustainable neighborhoods, paying for the municipal infrastructure bills.
Leopalace 21
You’ve stated that “sustainability and energy management are among the areas in which tall buildings can excel.” How so? [Among other things, the walls of our] LEED Platinum tower for JMB Urban in Century City Center are designed in response to different solar exposures. The westerly wall, which attracts the greatest solar heat gain, is a double glass wall with a vertical plenum naturally ventilating the wall. The southerly wall has horizontal sunshades while the east and north are yet again different. We have designed a 2-acre green roof atop the parking structure, which will dissipate heat and collect gray water for irrigation throughout the project. At the ground level plaza, a Metro Purple Line station will tie the building to the public transit system. Images and renderings courtesy of Johnson Fain.
FORMmag.net
Shizheng Tower
Do these parameters vary geographically? Technology is somewhat globally available, part of an ongoing international conversation in the community of skyscraper architects, [but] the important program elements that define a successful skyscraper in various cultures is quite different. An aspirational culture that wants a super-tall tower as a symbol of state pride may be very different from a mixed-use tower, which creates vertical neighborhoods in traditionally high-rise cultures such as those in Asia. In the US, I believe there will be an increase in mixed-use towers in an attempt to develop vertical neighborhoods in more sustainable cities… low-rise and mid-rise areas will achieve higher densities while the centers of cities and areas around public transportation will become more vertical.
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Kohn Pedersen Fox Associates David Malott, Principal, KPF, and Trustee, Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat New York, NY Website: www.kpf.com
Addressing the trend of migration into cities, David Malott, KPF Principal, well experienced in Far East projects, describes height as “an affirmation of renewed interest to participate in the urban experience”. Height seeks to resolve the conundrum of providing and sustaining an optimal human environment within a dense urban context. What are some challenges of building in the sky? The loss on September 11 compelled us to design tall buildings with greater resiliency to limit ‘progressive collapse’ of a structure. The Shanghai World Financial Center, for example, was designed with a concrete and steel mega-structure capable of re-distributing force around a damaged area in the tower. ‘Refuge floors’ separating the tower into vertical compartments allow phased evacuation. Shuttle elevators, normally used by visitors to the observation deck were modified to serve as ‘lifeboats’ in a catastrophic event. How do you test materials to ensure they perform well in soaring vertical structures? With the aid of the computer tools such as finite element analysis and thermal modeling, engineers are able to predict results with greater accuracy. Still, it is crucial that the construction industry relies on physical tests for major building materials. Building construction relies on the skill and integrity of the contractor and each worker involved. A computer simulation simply cannot predict everything. The Shanghai World Financial Center symbolizes the heavens and the earth through its bisected square geometry. What role does nature play in KPF’s approach? While increased urban density has many advantages, it also leads to greater pressures [which] we are looking to relieve [by opening] up our buildings once again. KPF has tested this concept in a few highly innovative projects, notably Hysan Place in Hong Kong, and Oriental Financial Center in Shanghai, [where] the heart of the project is occupied not with concrete, but with an outdoor space inviting the user to participate in the joyful experience of the tall building. The building plays the role of shelter, but without confinement, allowing nature and humanity to move freely.
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TOP LEFT: Photo by Tim Giffith TOP RIGHT: Photo by Grischa Ruschendorf RIGHT: Courtesy of Kohn Pedersen Fox
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Shanghai World Financial Center Ping An Finance Center
Hysan Place
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Gensler Olivier Sommerhalder, Design Director Los Angeles, CA Website: www.gensler.com
As Design Director with Gensler’s L.A. office and Lead Designer of L. A.’s Metropolis project, which will redefine, not only the skyline, but the urban fabric itself, Olivier Sommerhalder describes the potent interweaving of multiple aspects and trends in the architectural crucibles we call skyscrapers. You define beautiful buildings as the integration of motion, culture, and technology. What is a successful example? The rising, twirling Dragon’s tail shaping the Shanghai Tower has positive effects on how the wind interacts with the structure…[The buffering] outer sky lobbies around the seven different stacked programs inside, give an ephemeral, veiled quality to the serpentine outer atriums, increasing a very nice ecological aspect which is very hard to achieve. What are some innovations in sustainability? To build a super efficient exterior wall in Pittsburgh’s PNC tower [due for completion in 2015], a doubleskinned wall that can breathe… we created a very large solar chimney [like historic North African structures] that essentially cuts back on mechanical power. We wanted the feel in the workspaces of actual air coming from the outside when you open the windows. People feel better. From a technological standpoint, it has not been done on this scale and it’s quite amazing. [Also] in the PNC tower, going beyond a focus on primary energy efficiency, the interior thermal skin that people operate is all made out of Pennsylvania White Oak. A renewable material, supporting healthy forestry, almost carbon neutral, with an ecological human aspect. You say that a building incorporates not just the object itself but everything that goes into or out of it. What is the broader impact of high-rises? The investigation of new technologies to reaching beyond allows us to go higher. If you want to go higher you also drive the research for those technologies, benefitting others through a trickledown effect. Breaking new ground in multiprogram towers benefits many other sectors…it builds communities, supports neighborhoods. The horizontal infrastructure is the supply chain…the taller you go, the more of a challenge.
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Images and renderings courtesy of Gensler
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Metropolis Shanghai Tower
Studio Daniel Libeskind Yama Karim, Principal New York, NY Website: www.daniel-libeskind.com
Yama Karim, Principal at Studio Daniel Libeskind, quotes Daniel as saying that “our interest is never to become experts in anything.” With this in mind, we delve into the rich undergrowth of an ever-changing challenge. You’ve stated that a high-rise is a ”very tight sweater” in which you look for “that little bit of room to create something dynamic.” How do you succeed? The common strain in all our projects is always trying to figure out how to create a sense of place, create and give identity, address the individual within the masses. The skyscraper is a particularly challenging typology because it’s driven more by technology and repetition, so there’s less freedom to create variety or overly sculpted structures. In Archipelago 21, orientation of each floor in the Dancing Towers is slightly different than the one above or below, like a pinwheel with the floor plates rotating around the core…a real challenge to make the structures sound and the cores line up while using movement to vary [exposure and views]. The same with our Singapore towers that are bent in a curve while the practical aspects have to shift in a very systematic way to make the planning work. Does bringing open spaces up into the sky support differentiation and individualization within a relatively rigid framework? Bridge courtyards, sky terraces, and gardens in Singapore offer private and public spaces. The New York Tower’s [asymmetrically carved out] garden spaces end up creating a penthouse typology throughout the building, bringing the outer space in, within a dense urban setting… completely engineered, absolutely resolved and totally feasible. Bringing 30 columns through the building underneath, four main penetrations in the basement below, which branch out and in as they go upwards, like a pulse.
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How do you reconcile the upward necessities of vertical building with the urban existence below? Height has always been an infatuation, like landing on the moon. Ego, a political statement, a sign of wealth and prosperity, but also the humanistic endeavor to see how high one can go. Size is also driven by physics, infrastructure requirements, and programming. One reason our Master Plan for Ground Zero was selected is that it could be phased. Daniel was very keen on making the master plan feel complete for the pedestrian experience, with or without all the towers, [so we first] created a street wall with retail and public spaces that could be part of the urban fabric [right away].
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Renderings courtesy of Studio Daniel Libeskind Image courtesy of Keppel Bay Pte LTD.
One Madison Dancing Towers
Reflections at Keppel Bay
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Skidmore, Owings & Merrill Craig W. Hartman, FAIA, Design Partner San Francisco, CA Website: www.som.com
Craig Hardman, Design Partner at SOM, sees highperformance towers as the essential modules of cities, fusing commercial and cultural aspects with the possibility of optimal environmental sustainability. Furthermore, he lauds them for their “surgically-precise placement of density where infrastructure and urban amenities can be leveraged for the highest social and environmental good”. SOM’s list of sustainable innovations is extensive. Would you name a few? We emphasize a collaborative interrelationship between all design disciplines. The Burj Khalifa (2010), designed to sway with a gentle 11-second period by Bill Baker, SOM’s Partner of Structural Engineering in Chicago, is inherently safer. We have developed patented steel structural systems, which, in earthquakes, deform, dissipate energy, and return to their original position, as well as the Sustainable Form Inclusion System that inserts pre-engineered bundles of post-consumer, non-recyclable inert material into concrete slabs to achieve long spans with reduced concrete weight and reinforcing steel. Through the Center for Architecture Science and Ecology (CASE) research collaboration between SOM and Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, we have developed a Phytoremediation Wall System that uses plants to organically purify air and reduce energy consumption. You emphasize public interaction at street-level as critical to urban integration. 350 Mission (2015) is a new kind of post-9/11 American office tower, combining access to mass mobility, open space, and human amenities. A 40-foot-tall video wall, to which the public can connect with personal mobile technology, wraps the building’s core [situated] within a 50-foot-high first level public space where folding glass walls completely open the interior to the street. An amphitheater stair and seating connect the grade level to a mezzanine terrace supported by curated food venues. Towers are no longer inert objects, but rather organic, breathing extensions of their urban environments.
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How high can they extend? The current physical limits to tower height are not structural. According to Bill Baker, the Burj Khalifa at a halfmile could as easily be designed to be a mile high given current structural system ideas that are being studied. The real question is purpose. Beyond the display of economic and political power along with technical prowess, extreme height does nothing for the human condition. The better use of intellectual and economic resources in this century is to focus on making cities of delight with broadly shared social and environmental equity.
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top left, bottom: © Skidmore, Owings & Merrill LLP | AJSNY 2014. All rights reserved. top right: © Skidmore, Owings & Merrill LLP | Tim Griffith 2014. All rights reserved.
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a new frontier for Architecture
Human imagination far outstrips
our physical capabilities and the laws that govern the universe. Visionaries conjured alien civilizations and space exploration even before the first terrestrial flight. In Earth to the Moon, Jules Verne described the odyssey of three astronauts launched from Florida, a century
before the first Apollo Mission did just that. Konstantin Tsiolkovsky, a Russian autodidact, penned the first scientific treatise on space travel in 1903, proposing a rotating wheel to serve as a space station, assembled by a fleet of shuttles. German rocket engineer Wernher von Braun refined that concept in a 1952 magazine
article, “Man Will Conquer Space”, before working to make it happen. Stanley Kubrick appropriated Braun’s wheel for 2001: A Space Odyssey. Reality and speculation feed off each other, but the present International Space Station is more a product of adhocism than the sleek images of science fiction.
FORMmag.net
Image courtesy of NASA
By Michael Webb
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Skylab, the first space station, was being designed in the late 1960s, engineers proposed a windowless capsule in which the astronauts would communicate via computer. The misbehavior of Hal in 2001: A Space Odyssey cast doubt on that solution. Astronaut C. Gordon Fullerton spoke for his peers: “Give me a window and binoculars any day over a high-tech solution.” Architects were brought in as advisors, a window was incorporated into the design, and gazing out at Earth was a major release for explorers cooped up for weeks in outer space. Dreams of breaking free from the pull of gravity have created a market for space tourism. A few fat cats paid up to $20 million to share the hostel-like accommodations of the Russian space shuttle; now, Virgin Galactic is offering a luxurious taste of weightlessness for a mere $250,000 a suborbital trip, and they commissioned Norman Foster, an English lord and passionate aviator, to design the first spaceport in New Mexico. Roswell, where a flying saucer may have landed in 1947, and the White Sands Missile Proving Grounds are a few hours’ drive away—appropriate symbols for a scientific frontier, and for the adventurers who will be joining Sir Richard Branson and his children on the first flight.
Photos courtesy of Nigel Young, Fosters + Partners
Courtesy of Foster + Partners
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As the film Gravity demonstrated, space presents unique challenges that fiction can safely ignore. In Le Voyage dans la Lune, French movie pioneer Georges Méliès showed top-hatted space explorers battling selenites with their umbrellas, an entertainment of 1902 that’s available on YouTube. Constructivist artist Alexandra Exter designed an angular palace for Aelita: Queen of Mars, a Soviet silent movie, and Orson Welles shocked America with his 1938 radio report of a Martian invasion. Thrilling as the success of the moon lander and Mars Rover were, they’ve destroyed our illusions. We already knew that the moon wasn’t made of green cheese and that Mars was not home to the predatory invaders of War of the Worlds. Now we are certain that both our near neighbors are lifeless, airless wastelands, hostile to humans, and plans for settlement are being tested in the Utah desert and on a remote Canadian island. There, scientists spend months in prefabricated cylinders, venturing out in pressurized suits and excavating the barren terrain as though they were on another planet. What role is there for architects, when the technical challenges are so far beyond those on Earth? It begins with the human dimension. When NASA’s
Photos courtesy of Nigel Young, Fosters + Partners
opposite top: Initial drawings of the Spaceport Bottom: Foster unveils the completed construction. This page: The Spaceport blends with the New Mexican landscape, and all operations are housed under one roof.
hangar, control and passenger terminal functions are all combined under one roof….we’ve aimed to minimize its visual impact by digging it in below ground level [gaining] significant energy saving benefits from the thermal mass of the partially buried structure.” It’s expected to achieve a LEED Gold accreditation. The building is designed to be read from space—who knows what aliens are looking down expectantly—and to provide
panoramic views for spectators, who enter via a deep channel lined with exhibits on space exploration and the region. Like Saarinen’s TWA Terminal at JFK, now an abandoned historical relic, Spaceport rekindles the thrill of flight as an end in itself, rather than a means of getting somewhere quickly—just as it was in pioneering days. It’s sure to inspire many similar ventures from China to Qatar, so architects can look forward to commissions for a new variant on a familiar building type.
FORMmag.net
Foster was the ideal choice to design this facility. He once declared the Boeing 747 to be his favorite structure, he has designed several of the world’s best airports (Stansted, Chek Lap Kok, Beijing), and he flies his own plane. It helps, too, that he’s passionate about sustainability. “Spaceport presents all the technical challenges of an airport, inly more so,” says Foster. “We’ve tried to make the experience uplifting in every sense. For operational efficiency, the
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Photos courtesy of ESA, Fosters + Partners
Photos courtesy of ESA
Photos courtesy of ESA
opposite top: Autonomous robots are used to 3D print a cellular structure that protects the inhabitants from gamma radiation, meteorite impacts and extreme temperature fluctuations. opposite bottom: Lunar outpost near the moon’s south pole. This page top left: This 1.5 tonne building block was produced as a demonstration of 3D printing techniques using lunar soil. The design is based on a hollow closedcell structure reminiscent of bird bones to give a good combination of strength and weight. This page top right: The UK’s Monolite supplied the D-Shape printer for ESA’s 3D-printed lunar base study, with a mobile printing array of nozzles on a 6m frame to spray a binding solution onto a sand-like building material. 3D printouts are built up layer by layer. First, the simulated lunar material with magnesium oxide turning it into paper to print with. Then for structural ink, a binding salt is applied which converts material to a stone-like solid. above: The outpost is designed as a modular system which can be extended in the future.
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Photos courtesy of ESA, Fosters + Partners Photos courtesy of ESA, Fosters + Partners
As Spaceport comes on line, Foster + Partners are collaborating with the European Space Agency, exploring the possibilities of 3D printing to construct lunar habitations. Their first 1½-ton mock-up resembles an igloo or a mud hut, demonstrating that the more things change, the more they appear the same. However, the low-tech appearance is deceptive. The space lander will carry a tubular module containing a membrane that can be inflated to provide a support structure for construction. A robotoperated 3D printer will layer this with lunar soil, using a foam-like cellular structure to provide the best strengthweight ratio. There’s airlock for entry, and the base will protect four astronauts from meteorites, gamma radiation, and high temperature fluctuations. As Foster partner Xavier de Kestelier observes: “As a practice we are used to designing for extreme climates on earth and exploiting the environmental benefits of using local, sustainable materials; our lunar habitation follows a similar logic.” This self-constructing system may resolve the problem of transporting and assembling prefabricated modules, and could be adapted to the needs of remote terrestrial communities. Already, the Sasakawa International Center for Space Architecture at the University of Houston offers an M.Sc. in the subject, and one could imagine other architectural schools adding space architecture to their curriculum. In Playa Vista, UCLA has leased one of the hangars in which Howard Hughes constructed the Spruce Goose, and is using industrial robots to develop intelligent buildings. Could space be their next destination?
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Time, Space & Existence: An interview with Arata Isozaki By Karlyn De Jongh, Sarah Gold & Valeria Romagnini
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As part of the Venice Biennale program, the Global Arts Foundation strives to spotlight more philosophical themes in art and architecture. Three of the organization’s curators had an opportunity to sit down with the famed architect and speak with him on how these subjects relate to his work.
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Sarah Gold: It seems you have always been an artist and architect in one; collaborating with other artists and creating not only architecture but also artworks. How would you describe yourself?
AI: During the second half of the ’60s, I was predominantly engaged with concepts of “color” within architecture, namely the effects of timeless light. In the ’70s, I took a metaphysical position towards everything I approached, just like Atsushi Miyagawa who critiqued critiques. This is a method that I have incorporated over the years, where the artist himself, is not allowed to actually touch anything. The problem is designed in a way to enable the form itself to selfdevelop, without an artist having to actually do anything. In that sense, it relies on participation from the audience, or in this case, the local residents. Instead of a topdown structure, the form is developed through an indefinable network. This is a method that has been attempted by many people since, but at the time in the ’70s, I was attempting to give a solid formula to the indefinability of a self-creating art form. One places a piece of technology with an inherit system embedded, and without involving an artist, you leave the site. Eventually, a form is generated automatically over time. I experimented with this concept at the Omatsuri Hiroba (Festival Plaza) during the Japan World Exposition in 1970. The question of whether design is expression or control rose during this time period. “Control” could nowadays possibly be defined as “governing”. In the case of a city, how would one govern? This issue is closely related to events such as: the campaign against the Japan-US security treaty in the 60s, naked Neo-Dada dancing, the “Thousand-
Installation view at the Palazzo Bembo for the 13th Venice Architecture Biennale. this page: A model of the Zhengdong New District.
opposite:
Yen Bill Incident”, red and black tents in Shinjuku, and the occupation of Yasuda Auditorium at Tokyo University. It is undeniable that Expo ’70 was the starting point of crowd control in Japan. Up until then, I had had experience in city design, but the 300-hectare area involved absolutely all aspects of design. The infrastructure included multiple mechanical contraptions that were potentially dangerous, ranging from the multipurpose underground utility conduits to moving walkways. The magnitude was nothing short of planning an entire city. At the same time, I was constantly thinking about how to break the various boundaries that occur when a city is planned. In that sense, I commend Dada Kan who ran through the Expo naked. What balls he had, literally. The security [boundaries] was extremely high. That makes his actions admirable. There was also someone who managed to climb up the Tower of the Sun (Taiyo no Tou). Most people would criticize the design of the tower for enabling this. Regardless, it is incredible that this person slipped through the barriers and climbed the tower. It is about breaking the law. That is in itself, a performance.
VR: We could say that the city is a living organism. Many big decisions have been taken and many different influences through architecture have contributed to the world as we know it. What does Time mean for you in relation to the spaces you create? AI: Space is not a tangible form existing in front of us, but rather something that occurs to us when we enter a space and notice its existence. In that sense, I question as to whether we have misinterpreted a very basic principle in this modern era by attempting to define time and space by giving it form and weight. During the 20th century, this notion has gradually become refined and eventually was philosophically understood as representation and meaning (such as is Signifier and Signified). However, at the time, this differentiation did not exist. Franz Kafka’s The Castle and Junichiro Tanizaki’s In Praise of Shadows (In’ei Raisan) are familiar literary references that embody this form of experiencing space. I personally hope that my text Coordinates, Twilight and Hallucinations (Zahyo hakumei to genkaku; 1965) would be revisited. In 1963, I visited New York City. I wrote about the difference I perceived in the space compared FORMmag.net
Courtesy of the Global Arts Affairs Foundation
Valeria Romagnini: At the 2012 Venice Biennale, you won the Global Art Affairs Foundation Prize for your presentation at Palazzo Bembo. You made a design in order to create a city, which works as a closed urban space, independent from its surroundings. Can you explain how it is possible to conceive a city which can be independent from its surrounding?
Courtesy of the Global Arts Affairs Foundation
Arata Isozaki: I personally define myself as an “Artist-Architect”. As an Architect, I was close to the Metabolism Group movement. As an Artist, I was associated with various writers and art critics of the art industry in such movements as NeoDadaism, which evolved into concepts such as “color” and “environment”, and eventually came into fruition in the form of Omatsuri Hiroba (Festival Square) at the World Expo in 1970. Since I was conceptualizing architecture and cities in the context of art, it only made sense to complement architecture with art.
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above:
Stills from the Isozaki video depicting the urban development plan for the Zhengdong District dubbed “Future Steps”.
to any other city I had visited before. Despite the lack of color, the city itself dissipates into the light via the glass—a space that dissipates in its entirety like mist. In that sense, Coordinates, Twilight and Hallucinations ties itself to The Castle and In Praise of Shadows. Karlyn De Jongh: The Greek philosopher Protagoras once said: “Man is the measure of all things.” In your architecture, you deal with people from all over the world, who are physically and culturally different. In a global world, can you still take ‘man’ as the measure?
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AI: When a new city space grows into a metropolitan space, especially the type of spatiotemporal city development that is seen on the coastal regions in North America, it is not possible to grasp what is happening with the modern day notions in which time maintains its continuation on a straight axis. Space spreads homogeneously and light spreads properly. Within the city space, various symbols scatter without weight or size. By recognizing this fact, a person is able to move around in a city. It is simple semiology, which is a question about the signs seen in current cities, or a question of cognition. This kind of change has made obsolete the existing notions of “Time” and “Space” that began with Bauhaus, which had been referred to in modern architecture and modern design. These two words can no longer be used. Furthermore, one cannot go in the direction of weight or gravity. Despite that fact, a structure emerges equipped with its own system. This has emerged as the role of the Architect and Artist, in which a question is presented as to how a city can be built without the previously prevalent notion of time and space, which is as if a city itself is such a hypothesis.
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That being said, zapping through the remote control of a television is like looking at a building. Say we have a preconceived image of a piece of architecture, but what we see changes drastically when we move where we stand. It is as if it is a continuous switch of perception, and
continuation of image does not exist. It is a form of “monad” where all become particles and time is instantly irrelevant. KDJ: Already in 1962 you spoke about decay. In an interview for the Global Art Affairs Foundation, artist Lee Ufan told me: “Man is always trying to ensure that humanmade things exist, or ‘live on’ forever. But, nature always works to break them down and return them to their original elements. Thus we could say nature and humans are fighting.” How do you see this relation between man-made objects and nature? AI: My impression of the year 1968 is that of being involved in social disturbance—being pushed around by waves not knowing what we were drifting towards. However in the ’70s, I had the impression that color was being lost. At that moment, everything fantastical disappeared. In the ’60s, anything high tech was still considered partially fantastical. There was the psychedelic and drug culture, and a movement to connect everything toward illusions. That suddenly all disappeared in the ’70s. Drug culture was reduced to merely one dropping out of society or a movement of returning to nature. Hippies became nothing more than the way they dressed. Architecture was no exception, and all expression became bleak. Even fine arts became predominantly overridden by minimalism and conceptualism. Briefly during the early ’70s in Japan, the Mono ha emerged. Various works and artists such as Arte Povera in Italy, “Support/Surface” in France, Joseph Beuys in Germany, and Richard Serra in the U.S., all had roots in the rejection of illusionism, and embraced ideas, which were supported by notions such as the laws of nature, and the presence of matter or space correspondence. Personally, I believe that the Mono ha movement, to an extent, was driven by a rebound effect. Saying “no more” to art forms that utilized technology. In 1985, I was involved in designing The Palladium. This was an old opera house built in
1926 that was being converted into a disco. At the time, I mainly designed cultural facilities, so people wondered why I decided to work on something that was so commercial. I didn’t particularly understand why myself, but I gave it [some] thought. The first thing that caught my interest was when they explained to me that this was not like a typical disco club you would find in Japan, but that the objective was to create a disco that enables the audience to have an altered-space experience. Instead of an altered-space experience induced by the effects of marijuana or cocaine, the theme was more literal. With lights flashing simultaneously with the music, the challenge was to test the extent to which the image of the vintage space could be altered with technology and modern media. Architecture is inherently limited to creating a static contour. However, the essence lies in the various contraptions that are installed within that contour. When it is time for the contraptions to be installed, light and sound designers work together with the sole focus of figuring out how to most effectively shower the human five senses with a combination of images, lights and sounds. However, when I began thinking about experiences in such settings, I encountered some problems. It was already clear that nature was disappearing from cities. Furthermore, religious facilities traditionally served as a sanctuary to the people. For example, it had always been tradition to go to a church to be in touch with God, but that custom was being lost. Because of such shifts, it has become more and more difficult to encounter another person or a thing, or even ideally something divine, when living the every day city life. I am very certain about this fact. That was when I thought I may be able to create a space that provides a simulated experience of that something divine, regardless to how artificial or fake that actually may be. That, I thought, was what a disco could be.
To place these events in the context of different eras, one can refer to two events that happened in Japan in 1995: the Great Hanshin Earthquake and the sarin gas attack on the Tokyo subway. This was exactly 50 years after the end of the Second World War. In place of Post-Modernism, Information Technology and Globalization were the hot topics. Post-Modernism did not only reverse time, but shuffled it in its
Therefore, a large shift in the entity seems to occur every 25 years. Would one call this a law, or simply repetition? In reality, it is simply an unexpected change. The truth is, the ages that we live in are subject to shifting. It is a phase shifting out of place,
Courtesy of the Global Arts Affairs Foundation
“I may be able to create a space that provides a simulated experience of that something divine, regardless to how artificial or fake that actually may be.”
and by transitioning smoothly into a new phase it results in a sort of a catastrophe. In that sense, I believe that the current era is very likely to shift once again. The manner in which this shift occurs is not logical, and happens without you noticing it. The only time you realize it has happened is when you start to notice that people around you are talking about different things. above: Isozaki
presents his plan. below: A model of the urban development in the Zhendong District.
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AI: After the burst of the economic bubble in Japan in 1990, I noticed that Post-Modernism as a topic was mentioned less and less. Today, you seldom hear about it. The same thing happened 25 years ago. Modernism was under full-scale attack, and after the cultural revolution in 1968, it was never mentioned by anyone.
entirety, and saved it all in a database by utilizing information technology. In short, time was broken into pieces, saved in a non-chronological manner, and readily available to be summoned at will. During this era, space also became subject to shuffling. The world which consisted of boundaries, where the waning of racially homogeneous nations, disappearance of national borders, and complex systems were separate entities co-existing in a space with its own order, was converted into code and saved on a database. In other words, the time and space that the year 1995 consisted of has been separated from the system that it belonged to, shuffled, and converted into an intangible form of digital code.
Courtesy of the Global Arts Affairs Foundation
Courtesy of the Global Arts Affairs Foundation
VR: I am now 26 and I’m trying to understand as much as possible about concepts like Time Space and Existence. You are now 82, what should I learn about Existence?
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image
Perspective shapes the photographs of Nicolas Ruel as he explores new ways to look at the world’s greatest cities. In his “8 seconds” series, he references his shutter speed as he swivels the camera to create a unique double exposure of Dubai. “The Burj Khalifa is fascinating not only because it is the tallest skyscraper in the world but because its layered architecture creates an illusion of gradual evaporation and it is integrated perfectly into the urban landscape,” says Ruel.
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Image: Mirage, Dubai, 2012 | Photographer: Nicolas Ruel
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