ASPECTS OF DESIGN/A COMPARISON OF TWO MOMENTS IN ARCHITECTURE

ASPECTS OF DESIGN A COMPARISON OF TWO MOMENTS IN ARCHITECTURE

NAME: IOLI PLASTIRA TUTOR: Charlotte van Wijk

INTRODUCTION 1 Foreword 2 Superstudio 3 Junya Ishigami

ASPECTS OF DESIGN 1 2 3 4 5

New realities Continuity Relativity Scale Nature

CONCLUSION 1 Conclusion 2 Reference

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forward

The purpose of this thesis is to investigate how fundamental principles of architectural design and thinking are influnced from current fashion, cultural tendencies and important situations.

Therefore, two architectural offices from different decades are explored, so as to analyze the change in view of certain characteristics, such as innovation, scale, nature, continuity and relativity of space.

Superstudio and Junya Ishigami share the same eagerness for redefing current architecture and sense of space, by rejecting at the same time modern movement. Both formulate society’s thoughts on mainstream manipulation of space.

The above characteristics are the means of interpetating this effort, and how these principles changed way of implementation in the environment through years, explained by a number of representative examples.

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Superstudio

Also, during that period, the team first experimented with film. In particular, the first film they did was called “Supersurface, or the Public image of truly modern architecture”. This was the first version that later concluded in the “Fundamental Acts” (1971-1972), which was a series of five films dealing with life, ceremony, love and death. Those films were focusing on the relationship between architecture (as a formulation of the planet) and human life.

With the “Fundamental Acts”, Superstudio started thinking abour redefining architecture “on an anthropological and philosophical basis”.1 Later on, they stopped producing distopias, since the society had different needs, after one decade.

During 60’s, there was a moral crisis because of the Cold War, the Vietnam disaster, and the realities of the arms race. Means of demostration of this crisis was design and architecture (among others). Superstudio team was formed in 1966 to express these concerns.

Influnced by their era of cyborg fashion, Superstudio produced a series of projects that were innovative enough, so as to influence coming designers and architects.

The team founded by Adolfo Natalini and Cristiano Toraldo di Francia, rejected principles of modernist movements and followed a radical way of thinking, while proposing negative utopias to express their need for redefining architecture.

1 Page 187, Exit Utopia: Architectural Provocations, 1956-76

More particularly, during their early practice, Superstudio conceived architecture as a means of changing established principles, and the world in general. During the period of 1965-1968 they used architecture as a means of altering the world.

At the period (1967-1969) they had two goals: to leave aside remnants of established architecture through a huge ingestion of images, and demolish the discipline through “guerrilla incursions”.1 Especially during the last two years (1968-1969), they started being interested in the shift, change and transformation; architecture was no longer specific, and the aspect of scale was absent.

During the period 1969-1972, Superstudio’s intention was still to analyze and eliminate architectural principles. The characteristics of that period are still irony, negativity and demolition.Through the use of metaphor, popular means of illustration and consumer language, and models of total urbanism, they opposed themselves against established architecture. Characteristic examples of that period are the “Continuous monument”, and the “Twelve Ideal Cities”.

More particularly, during 1969-1070, Superstudio experimented on the investigation of possibilities of architecture as an means of gathering knowledge and action, by the use of total urbanization (“Continuous Monument”). During 1970-1971 they developed a critisicm on current state of architecture, where they proposed the 12 Ideal cities.

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Junya Ishigami

five chairs are minimal, and different is outline, whereas the table (called “drop”) is made of glass, because he wanted to explore transparency again. The latter plays with the illusion of depth, achieved by the design and technology. To complete his scenery, he proposed a coffee table with similar aesthetics, which bears resemblance to a garden.

Unlike other architects, Junya Ishigami blends magically nature with architecture, so to introduce a new kind of space, varying in scale, materials and perception by the user.

Junya Ishigami is a Japanese architect born in 1974, and believed to be a pioneer of his generation. He is a Tokyo-based designer who creates experiences, an amagalm of architecture and art. After working with Kazuyo Sejima and Associates for four years (2000-2004), he creates his own office, Junya.ishigami+associates. He graduated in 2000 with a master in architecture and planning course at the Tokyo National University of the Fine Arts and Music.

His talent was known globally when he received the award of the “Golden Lion for the Best Project” at the twelfth Venice Architecture Biennale in 2010, for his installation “Architecture as air: study for chateau la coste”. Even though the project was destroyed accidentally by the visitors, because of the lightness of the materials, it was an efficient experimentation on space. In this installation, Junya Ishigami investigated transparency, through the use of light, thin, almost invisible materials.

By using thin metallic strings, he composed a set of beams in such a way to so as to give the impression of mist in the space. The columns constructed are hardly visible, and the boundaries between space and structure are lost. Hence, a single atmosphere emerges, a combination of artificial environment and the existing one.

Generally, the process of creation is important for him, starting from intuition, reasoning to experimentation and execution. He is interested in exploring new kinds of space, and create new realities, landscapes that are ambiguous and intriguing for the user (Kanagawa Institute of Technology Workshop). The new type of space has a strong reference on natural phenomena. In particular, Junya Ishigami explores their implementation of their principles on artificial space, sometimes by the use of symbolism. One example is the installation “Cloud” in Toyota Municipal Museum of Art in 2010. The installation is a curved line of four-meter thin columns which seems as if they are floating. The width is eighty meters and the texture used is almost transparent. According to his book “Another scale of architecture”, his intention was to explore the structure and characteristics of clouds, so as to seek beyond build form and investigate new possibilities of objects in space.

12. Architecture as air: study for chateau la coste

Except from designing spaces, he also worked on furniture. He created three types of furniture items, which were presented at the “Salone dei mobile” in 2010. The

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13. Kanagawa Institute of Technology Workshop, sketch

15, 16, 17. Furniture

14. Cloud

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New realities

a cube. It is located in New York. But New York no longer exists; as in a science fiction novel, New York as known is devastated, because of a contamination that had been occurred. As a solution, a new eternal city is proposed, built on the remnants of the old one. The cube is 180x180x180ft and covered with 10x10in tiles, which include lens to gather light and transform it into energy needed for the cube to function. The residents of the city are brains, which live in 10in cubic containers inside the cube. Those containers are of great stability so as to support the eternal character of the city. They contain liquid that supports the brain, and the whole structure facilitates the only needs left, the one of meditation and concentration, eliminating other physical needs, and consequently their commodities. Moreover, the center-core of the city has a cavity, and is a space for regenerating the liquid.

Over the last decades there has been an effort for rediscover the way city and living environment is perceived by humans. This urge combined with frenzies like automation (60’s), or dynamic environments (current period), or even both, led architects to new types of spaces; with a purpose to first destruct and then redefine architecture.

During the year of 1969, Superstudio introduced one of the most notably known conceptual work, the Continuous Monument: An architectural Model for Total Urbanization. The project is a series of renderings and collages, illustrations of a fantastical world of endless grid and landscape. The grid is formed into a superstructure, which is brought into existence over the environment selected each time by Adolfo Natalini and the rest of the team. Their intention was to depict daily environments, from a city to a field, so as to emphasize the negative utopia, the new reality proposed. Additionally, the fact that the superstructure is built over the existing form of environment might demonstrate their consecutive order of significance of current space, having the physical environment as the foundation, the base of the project (more significant than artificial space), and the manufactured space, the megastructure that is situated over it. The new space emerged has characteristics of the Modern movement, to express further criticism. More particularly, the superstructure bears resemblance to ahistorical aesthetics of modern’s approach, as well as its functionality and minimalism.

One of the most known projects of Superstudio is “12 cautionary tales for Christmas’’.It consists of a group of twelve humorous depictions of how an ideal city is envisioned during the decades of 50’s and 60’s. It was published in 1971 at the AD magazine, and in 1972 was demonstrated as a slide show. The articles consisted of extreme, exaggerated descriptions of urbanization, which are more verbal than visual.

The first ideal city is named 2,000-ton city, and represents a hallmark of the exploration of a new reality.

A landscape is divided with a strict rectangular grid, creating similar spaces, and the team combines technology with physical elements. “Even and perfect”1 as they say, the grid symbolizes the continuous building(s). The walls that are facing north have an extra characteristic: there can be diffused different kinds of 3d images, sounds and smells, so as to give a cybernetic character. The other wall facing south has a furniture (seat) that can be capable of adjusting according to the human figure, a dynamic relationship between artificiality and nature.

There is no need for other artificial facilities to satisfy physiological needs, since a device exists in the seat. The floor can simulate the feeling of living things, whilst the ceiling is a “brain-impulse-receiver”. Each cell is for one individual. There is also the role of the analyzer, who receives the transmissions. By comparing the individuals’ results among them, the analyzer programs statistically (therefore equally) the life of the whole city. The is also the significance of crime and punishment in this city, tracked by the analyzer. In case of repetition of the crime, which is the thought of rebellion, the ceiling of the individual cell crashes with 2,000-ton force on the individual, while the neighboring cells remain unaffected.

Another proposal of the same series of ideal cities is the third ideal city, New York of brains. Superstudio’s team pursuit again another exaggeration of shape and urbanization. According to the schematic pictures of the article, the city has the rigid and euclidean shape of 1 http://socks-studio.com/2011/09/17/twelve-cautionary-tales-

1. The Continuous Monument: An architectural Model for Total Urbanization, Superstudio

for-christmas-12-ideal-cities-by-super studio-1971

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2. The 2,000-ton city, Superstudio

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Ishigami’s most published project is The Kanagawa Institute of Technology Workshop (KAIT), a project that lacks of particularization of functions. On the contrary, it is a “multipurpose studio that students can use freely”1. It consists of 305 columns different in orientation or proportion to imitate the main principle of forest growth. Those thin steel columns share “a specific directionality, each installed at a different angle in such a way as to obtain an overall structural balance. A co-existence of uniform placement with non-uniform orientation. “2 The columns do not repeat each other, creating a pattern of indifferent distance between each one of them; distributed irregularly, extending the notion of the grid. On the contrary, the pillars inside the workshop area are not placed randomly, but according to a certain grid. Nevertheless, the repetition of the forms of pillars seems quite disarranged, so the observer might sense a feeling of monumentality and loss of distance (forest effect).

The workshop is a one-room space; conceptual enough, Ishigami attempts to embody natural environment’s characteristic of ambiguity a forest can have.

Thus, he tries to merge built space and nature, to ultimately eliminate the border between those elements.

3. New York of brains, Superstudio

One of the most engaging and similar aspects of Superstudio’s team and Junya Ishigami is therefore the ambition to determine the ideal balance between artificiality and nature.

More specifically, the 2,000-ton city demonstrates a division of landscape with a rigid, rectangular grid, to conclude with a continuous building and a uniform environment, and eliminate the boundaries between the use of landscape and building environment.

In KAIT workshop project one can easily identify approximate consideration in investigating new realities.

Even though Junya Ishigami’s approach differs regarding the way of depiction and capability of realization, they all share the eagerness to search for a more significant type of space, and a balance between natural and 1 Page 51, Another scale of architecture, Junya Ishigami

4. New York of brains, section, Superstudio

2 Page 271, Another scale of architecture, Junya Ishigami

5. Continuous Monument: An architectural Model for Total Urbanization, Superstudio

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6. Continuous Monument: An architectural Model for Total Urbanization, Superstudio

7. Continuous Monument: An architectural Model for Total Urbanization, Superstudio

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artificial. As Taro Igarashi stressed at his journal “Twisted Column”, Junya Ishigami is interested in creating new realities. Similarly to this approach, Junya Ishigami tries to create spaces in KAIT workshop that share same characteristics as 2,000-ton city; a strong ambiguity between nature and artificiality, both on a conceptual and structural level. As for the conceptual level, Ishigami attempts to use the ambiguity of a forest, by imitating the trees when he designed the columns installation.

Also, he uses glass as external walls of the workshop area, so as to cancel the boundary between landscape and building environment.

Another similarity between Superstudio and Ishigami is the determination to reject mainstream ideas of modern movement concerning the desing of space, and hence propose a new kind of reality for inhabitants.

Superstudio attempted to experiment and investigate the possibilities that were emerged when architecture was used as a mean of acquiring knowledge and actions. This acquirement was achieved by the means of an architectural model of total urbanization. While liberating from established architectural thinking, the ironic metaphor of the megastructure proposed a new kind of reality. This is evident in the project “New York city of brains”, where there are no longer physical needs. Also, the ironic use of modern principles such as the superstructure with ahistorical aesthetics, and the exaggeration of functionality and minimalism shows a rejection of mainstream ideas of space.

9. The Kanagawa Institute of Technology Workshop, Junya Ishigami

In contrast with Superstudio, Junya Ishigami’s projects do not include any social factor or identification of grid, on the grounds that uncertainty can be “a principle for the formation of space”1. Ishigami did not establish walking specific walking paths, so the user has the ability to walk infinitely within the workshop area, to discover new possibilities of space. Consequently, the space is conceived as an endless landscape, where the proximity of columns creates the definition of a wall, and no place for furniture is decided. In that way, the boundary of each space is flexible enough to strengthen the idea of ambiguous environment. Therefore, Junya Ishigami also rejects mainstream modern ideas of functionality, by no particularization of function in KAIT workshop, and by the use of a more dynamic “grid”, the one of the forest growth, and not the rectangular grid.

1 Page 51, Another scale of architecture, Junya Ishigami

10. The Kanagawa Institute of Technology Worksh

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8. The Kanagawa Institute of Technology Workshop, enterior, Junya Ishigami

hop, floor plan, Junya Ishigami

11. The Kanagawa Institute of Technology Workshop, enterior, Junya Ishigami

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Continuity

he claims that ‘’transparency is fundamental in architecture”1.

Thus, in the specific attempt transparency (or else continuity of form and vision in space) is commissioned by materials. A transparency similar to air, to diminish the borders between “empty space and structure”2. In addition to this, the project consists of 1mm in diameter ‘beams’ symbolizing the mist. As another opportunity “to construct architecture at the same scale as the basic elements composing natural phenomena”3, Junya Ishigami uses the measurements of a raindrop, which can be approximately from 0,02mm to 1mm.

Those beams (which are actually carbon fiber sheets) construct a building frame that optimizes the sense of ambiguity between space and structure, while creating a landscape by columns of metallic beams. The density of the columns is modified in such a way so as to have a gradient effect, give a vapor effect, and exclude any boundaries from the installation. So to make structure and space equal.

Another aspect of investigation for architects was always the manipulation of the border between what was built, and the natural environment. During the 60’s and 70’s, the architects were influenced by sci-fi frenzies and thought of depicting the transmit of energy and information into architecture. Still in current architectural practice, experimental architecture is characterized by similar characteristics of continuity of space, no boundaries, and constant flow of information (especially in computational design), as a renewal of the 60’s considerations.

1 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tgIelBds_OQ 2 Page 185, Another scale of architecture, Junya Ishigam 3 Page 185, Another scale of architecture, Junya Ishigami

After KAIT Workshop, Junya Ishigami tries to experiment once more, through of the Japanese pavilion.

Designed for the Venice Architecture Biennale 2008, Ishigami challenges current architectural thinking. He then designed an installation consisted of small buildings in scale 1:1. The buildings share similar characteristics with KAIT workshop, since they are both examples of modern japanese architecture (white color and glass), with a resemblance to natural principles of a forest.

The group of buildings are characterized by weak physical presence on the overall area, to complement them and the environment around the pavilion. In particular, the strongest and more artificial-like feature is the ceiling. While following the structure from tops to bottom, Junya Ishigami tries to make the pavilion’s structure fade and blend with the nature, through the use of transparency and extremely thin columns, thin enough to support the ceiling.

Apart from the precision in the pavilion’s construction, he designed carefully the landscape around it as well. With the help of botanist Hideaki Ohba, he combined a selection of plant life deliberately and in great precision, to achieve the sense of blur between interior and exterior space, and finally produce an ambiguous, continous environment.

18. KAIT Workshop, drawing, Junya Ishigami

Another installation of the same architect is the project “Architecture as Air”, a project shown in Venice Biennale in 2010, and eventually won the Golden Lion award for best project. According to the architect’s lecture in 2011 in Harvard, which was part of the series “A new innocence: Emerging trends in Japanese architecture’’, the project mentioned above is yet another investigation on transparency. During his lecture,

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19. Japanish pavilion, sketch, Junya Ishigami

20. Japanish pavilion, Junya Ishigami

21. Japanish pavilion, Junya Ishigami

22. Architecture as air, Junya Ishigami

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In 1972 the Superstudio team presented a series of films for the MOMA exhibition “Italy: The New Domestic Landscape presents Life, Supersurface”. Here, architecture is reducted. As Adolfo Natalini states in “Exit Utopia: Architectural Provocations, 1956-76”: “Through the collation and extrapolation of data and tendencies of different principles (from body control techniques to philosophy, from disciplines of logic, to medicine, bionics, geography), a guiding image is visualized: a life no longer based on work, but on unalienated human relationships.”1 This fact leads to reduction of architecture’s role, to eventually surpass the needs mentioned above. After this manipulation, there would be better use of the human body and mind, and the environment will be controlled without three-dimensional means (as current architectural practice does).

To put those words into action, Superstudio created Supersurface. It is a three-dimensional model, a visualization of a critical view of the design. It acts as a continuous network of information and energy with total characteristics, to accommodate humans with a new quality of life, without work and desires. In addition to this, a network of energy is used to depict a linear development, or a potential of covering different parts of areas. In general, the cartesian grid is still a strong part of the composition, an isotropic and homogenous grid which alters countryside into a more artificial and homogenous one, represents the network of energy, and used as a metaphor of an order and homogenous distribution of resources. Another strong characteristic is the array of ‘’universal plugs”, black “magic boxes”2 located in the intersection points of the grid.

While inhabitants act nomadically and accept a cyclic use of territory -an obvious influence by the hippie movement-, they can use these devices by connecting to a plug -an influence by postwar cybernetic trend in the 60’s- to help create elements for them to survive.

Above all, Superstudio suggested a constant movement inside the Supersurface, from “spontaneous gathering, free dispersing to permanent nomadism or the choice of interpersonal relationships”. 3

23. Supersurface, Superstudio

As mentioned before, Junya Ishigami’s tendency towards a new kind of environment, led him to elimination of the boundary between artificial and natural entities. The ambiguity of the result created a way of continuity in space, a continuity in landscape and architecture. Transparency and fading of boundaries in the Japanese pavilion and “Architecture as Air” stress this continuity of space.

The collages of Superstudio’s utopia of the Supersurface display analogous consideration of eliminating the borders. The actors playing in these films inhabit a landscape without architectural indications. The result is a continuous space that suggests no distinction between interior and exterior. So earth would be altered only by means of energy and information grid, a continuous flow which determines a new approach of life. Also, Supersurface represents a continuous environment, with non-stop transmit of information (such as energy) and people.

1 Page194, Exit Utopia: Architectural Provocations, 1956-76 2Page 196, Exit Utopia: Architectural Provocations, 1956-76 3Page 197, Exit Utopia: Architectural Provocations, 1956-76

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24. Supersurface, Superstudio

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Relativity

In particular, the aspect of relativity may be observed in the “Ceremony” film, one of the two of Fundamental acts’ videos. To begin with, the film demonstrates their effort to “redefine architecture on anthropological and philosophical basis”11In addition to this, Superstudio explained in the issue 2-3 of “La Pietra” magazine, where they collaborated with Archizoom, the three goals of allowing humans and not designed space, as a changing reference point of space; “the destruction of the object, the elimination of the city, and the disappearance of work”.2So the identity of space would be always relative to human’s primal needs. The actors, who are actually Superstudio’s team and their families, live in a place without architecture. During the film is their acts on space to define it. Through a symbolic use of architecture, they are the ones formalizing space.

Another important hallmark of architectural thinking that was envistigated not only in the post-modern architectural period, but also nowdays, is the adjustment of space and its change, according to the current user.

The center of interest is not the building, but the user who inhabit, uses the building environment.

Similarly, Junya Ishigami experiments with light, which affects and defines each time the user’s sense of space.

In that way, the architect implies the importance of the position of the observer inside a space, since the same room could be perceived differently, because of the light manipulation.

Superstudio proposed a project “Fundamental acts” during 1971-1972, which shows their consideration on architectural space designated by the inhabitants, and not architecture. They chose to demonstrate their manifesto through popular means of film, exhibition, collage and furniture. As far as film is concerned -their first attempt on video-, Adolfo Natalini and the rest of the team created an amalgam of “hippie experimental theater and television documentary”1. In general, Fundamental acts was an “exercise in existential meditation”2Therefore, their primal concern was on the relationship between architecture and human life, hence how space may change comparatively to humans’ basic acts: Life, Education, Ceremony, Love and Death.

1 Page 187, Exit Utopia: Architectural Provocations, 1956-76 2Page 186, Exit Utopia: Architectural Provocations, 1956-76

As far as Junya Ishigami’s aproach on space, the project for his master degree named “Kuro-Hikari no Kenkyu” (Black- A study of light) is a research on the possibilities light has to form space. Here light and games with shadow influence the user’s perception of space. That is because it is used as a visual boundary, especially where big amount of diffusion occurs.

Moreover, Ishigami’s conceived space was a tunnel-like space in which light is directed strictly in one direction and is nonreflecting. Hence, the user can experience light coming towards him/her while waking towards the light; but while turning around, the space is black. As Taro Igarashi quotes, Ishigami’s intention is to “realize a hypothetical model of a linear space into a design for a spacious, three-dimensional piece of architecture... even though everything is bathed in light, the way of sensing that light or darkness is decided by the relative position of the viewer.”3 Hense, what intensifies both Superstudio and Junya Ishigami’s innovation in architecture is the factor of relativity regarding the user.

1 http://www.x-traonline.org/past_articles.php?articleID=69 2 Page 25, Superstudio: The Middelburg Lectures 3 Page 275, Another scale of architecture, Junya Ishigami

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25. Ceremony, film, Superstudio

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Scale

The team of Superstudio also dealt with the factor of scale. A representative example of their approach towards scale are a series of planning entities in an environment. The “An abstract planning of platonic, neutral and available entities”1, collected in the catalog named “Istogrammi d’ Architettura” (Histograms of architecture).

The choice of a cartesian grid on white background strengthens their purpose to eliminate scale. Both the objects and their context become abstract. Furthermore, as in all their early works, the extraction of scale led to further elimination of the remnants of architectural stereotypes, through a huge consumption of illustrations and projects in general. Consequently, this would conclude to demolition of the discipline through ultimate attack at established architecture.

In general, scale is a fundamental factor in design practice. Different examples of manipulation of scale through history, show a different concern on architectural and social thinking, and users of the building environment. As an example, Albert Speer tried to express the megalomania of Hitler by designing huge public buildings, using the exaggeration of scale to imitate the glory of Hellenistic architecture. Therefore, transformation of scale can be an aspect of altering the way architecture is defined.

Their proposals include both architecture and politics.

“The political left is linked to modernist building, and the political right to historicist architecture”.2By means of rationality and minimalism, Superstudio propose a series of objects with no identification of scale and locality, but with a strong reference to grid that would be transported in different terrains and scales.

Junya Ishigami tries to compose new proportions of architecture structure. This may be evident from two installations, “Table” in 2005, and the “Square balloon” later in 2008. To start with, the project “Table” was an installation for the “New Geometry- Architecture” exhibition in 2006. Here, Ishigami designed a shape of a table in extraordinary proportions. More particularly, the object is a thin, very long table made of aluminum sheet. Its length and thickness (3mm) is so unusual for a table because he wanted to demonstrate the sense of lightness, the sense of a paper floating in the air.

According to one of his lectures in Harvard, he calls it an “active chair”, and made the effort to give a living behavior on the object; so, if a user touched the table, it would tremble. So the table is as if it is floating on water. Generally, in “Table” the architect wanted to exclude the static behavior of the object, and then show a visual transition from liquid to solid.

1 Page 35, Superstudio: The Middelburg Lectures 2 Page 22, Superstudio: The Middelburg Lectures

Secondary, the “Square balloon” project was another exploration of alteration of scale and proportion of objects. The installation was part of the exhibition curated

by Yuko Hasegawa, called “Space for your future”, at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Tokyo (2008). It is a fourteen-meter high silver balloon floating inside the atrium of the building, almost filling up the whole space.

It could float, because it was filled with helium, so as to exclude gravity, and both with the reflecting texture of its surface the sense of dematerialization is achieved.

Thus, Junya Ishigami uses an extreme scale again to suggest a type of floating architecture, the idea of levitation; the balloon acts like a cloud -another reference to natural forms-, and eventually corresponds to the environment, as in the project “Table”. The significance of scale helps him create a new environment, a novel scenery. In addition to this, the floating giant mass, like a five-store building, reflects its surrounding.

27. Table, Junya Ishigami

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26. Square balloon Junya Ishigami

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A representative example is a series of unspecified objects, a selection of geometrical volumes. All of them share the same characteristics; there are objects of everyday life, without any essential distinction between them, except from the volumetric one; homogenous objects. This was a trial of Superstudio to seek beyond mere built form, a form established by modern movement and historicist stereotypes.

Because of absence of scale, objects’ utility differs from furniture to household decorations, or even buildings. This fact was also essential to support their argument regarding objects. Indeed, Adolfo Natalini stated that “objects as the mediators between ourselves and the world, become a mental catalyst in a process of self-analysis, in a therapy aimed at unleashing creativity”.1 Furthermore, the objects were designed in such a way to depict their skepticism on design industry’s concrete role having as a goal the public good. It is true that the objects proposed by the team act more as metaphors to show another scale, the one of values and behavior, than to suggest functionality.

28. Histograms of Architecture, Superstudio

Later in the beginning of the 70’s, Superstudio designed a series of furniture based on the Histograms of architecture catalog. They were manufactured by Zanotta and since now are one of the classics in industrial design.

Junya Ishigami creates in the installation “Table” a piece of furniture in the same size as a small building, and places it in a room, as if it is an ordinary object.

To emphasize the oxymoron of his composition, he situates a combination of still objects on top of the table to create a type of “landscape”.1At the end, a table is no longer a piece of furniture, but a gigantic object designated as an area, by the change of scale. As in “Table”, the “Square Balloon” he is changing the scale of domestic objects and place them in another context, where an object defines an environment. In general, he uses the extreme scale to emphasize the space formed between the existing wall of the exhibition area and the object itself. According to his description of the project, the space in between changes while the balloon moves, as a metaphor of the sky changing. The balloon is suspended in the space, and even though it weights a lot, it follows the air currents of the interior.

On the contrary, Superstudio were not trying to show an extreme scale, but to exclude any aspects of it, and create an abstract space. Their ultimate purpose was not to introduce another kind of environment like Junya Ishigami, but disappear the architectural stereotypes by the elimination of scale. Superstudio’s architecture, especially the period 1968-1969(Histograms of architecture), is no longer “specific”2, and the aspect of scale is therefore excluded. During that era, the team started being interested in the shift, change and transformation.

The absence of scale had as a consequence the rise of abstract space.

1Page 41, Superstudio: The Middelburg Lectures

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29. Furniture series by Zanotta, Superstudio

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Nature

On a conceptual level, the project imitates the structure of the cloud, which can appear in different heights, depending on the type. Hence, he designed a more complex “cloud” by combining different kind of clouds.

Another reference to the natural phenomenon is the alteration of the model’s shape. In addition to this, Ishigami shows the development of his model, in different states, next to a series of photos showing the development of the cloud. “Just as clouds change shape, so gradually does the shape of this model, setting into an array of forms depending on various conditions and stable qualities found in its surrounds.”1 Apart from this, the fourth chapter of the book is again a reference to nature, such as the sky. The project is exploring the concept of height. So, he proposes building that are delicate, slim, but extremely tall, as if he is building in the sky, and not in the ground. Thus, “the sky’s environment itself becomes the environment of architecture”.2 Here again, most of the visual argumentation is of illustrations and photos of skies and mountains, depicted the extreme height he want to achieve.

The result is a series of buildings that bear resemblance to stairs; one can climb the building as if he would climb a mountain.

To turn next to the matter of nature, architects always tend to either use nature as an instrumental part of design, such as Alvar Aalto, and the L-type houses he proposed. Nevertheless, at the beginning of the modern movement in architecture, nature was not playing an important role in forming a bulding environment.

As far as Ishigami’s work is concerned, the most striking aspect that bears on it involves the study of natural phenomena. He adopts formations and principles of natural incidents on his projects, while reasoning, experimenting, but also executing them.

This point can be further illustrated on his recent book “Another scale of architecture” in 2010. More particularly, the book is a visual essay of a number of projects executed. What is interesting in the organization of the book is that is consists of six chapters; each chapter is devoted for one project. Nevertheless, the majority of the illustrations, photos, and drawings are related more to the argumentation of the project, that the project itself. Both the title and the argumentation have direct reference to nature. Therefore, those six chapters are named as: clouds, forest, horizon, sky, and rain.

1 Page 23, Another scale of architecture, Junya Ishigami 2 Page 135, Another scale of architecture, Junya Ishigami

An exemplary chapter is the first one, called “Clouds”.

As an evidence of his effort to work on the definition of the environment, Junya Ishigami claims that “In something lying between natural phenomena and built structure there may be new potential for architecture”.1Here, he tried to show architecture floating in the air, “soft and fluffy”2 like a cloud. In this chapter, he attaches photos of clouds and scientific diagrams explaining how a cloud is formed and moves. Those illustrations are mixed effectively with photos of the project realized, so to give the reader the sense of blending the model of a real cloud, and the model of an artificial “cloud” he designed. Furthermore, regarding the execution, the project consists of semi-transparent layers located one on top of the other, having a specific distance between them. The layers are attached together with metallic strings, and there are hanged from the ceiling.

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30. Cloud, Junya Ishigami

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31. Contradiction of installation and clouds’s model, Junya Ishigami

33. Sky, detail from book “Another scale of architecture”, Junya Ishigami

32. Sky, model detail, Junya Ishigami

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The significance of nature in defining living space is also an essential aspect in Superstudio’s illustrations.

It is a fact that they used depictions of nature both in their collages and drawings to highlight the irony of their dystopia. For instance, one of the collages created during their early period of work shows megastructures placed on top of impressive landscapes, such as lakes and mountains. Therefore, by placing severe white structures made by cartesian grid, the countryside becomes more artificial and homogenous; a criticism on the controlled environment.

Both Superstudio and Junya Ishigami included nature as an instrumental aspect of space, in contrast with the modern movement. Therefore, according to Superstudio, nature is only to cultivate, so as to maximize its functional exploitation, but also wanted to overcome the controlled environment. On the other hand, Ishigami has his main reference in nature and natural phenomena, and often imitates certain natural principles in his designs.

34. The Continuous monument, Superstudio

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35. The Continuous monument, Superstudio

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Conclusion

From the 60’s till current architectural practice, the way of perceiving space may not change drastically, but the way of intepretation as well as the point of view have altered.

While focusing on similar aspects, Superstudio and Junya Ishigami explore innovation in a different way, On the one hand, Superstudio propose new realities to demolise established symbols of architecture, because they believe that they are not focused on human’s needs. Therefore, they use irony, metaphor and humor to suggest negative utopias and create new environments. On the other hand, Junya Ishigami suggests a new kind of reality, because he wants to merge landscape and building environment into one single atmosphere.

Moreover, both architectural offices deal with continuity of space. Superstudio conceive a conceptual contuinuity, the one of information and energy, whereas Junya Ishigami proposes a space that has no boundaries, is ambiguous, Another aspect of interest for both is relativity. Again interpretating in a different way, Superstudio redefine architecture, where the human is not only a user, but acts in space, therefore contributes in the formulation of space. Thus, space changes according to the active human. Nevertheless, Junya Ishigami uses the user and his/her relative position, to design a dymamic environment.

Furthermore, Junya Ishigami changes the scale of domestic objects (balloon, table) to suggest a new kind of environment, and redefine the objects and the connection with their surrounding. On the contrary, the team of Superstudio reject the idea of scale and propose spaces that are not specific, so as to emphasize their effort to reject mainstream architecture.

Last but not least, both architectural offices find great deal in nature, but express it in a different way. Hence, Superstudio always include landscapes in their collages, to stress its significance, and at the same time downgrade building environment through that contrast. Junya Ishigami then uses nature in a different way; he gets inspired by it, and imitates its principles to design spaces.

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Illustration reference

1. http://www.megastructure-reloaded.org/superstudio

20. http://www.flickr.com/photos/nbushdesign/2916726904/

2. http://cargocollective.com/shitbirthday/Twelve-Ideal-Cities

21. http://inkedinblack.wordpress.com/2011/11/03/ thursday-feature-junya-ishigami-a-new-generation-of-japanese-architects/

3. http://betonbabe.tumblr.com/post/20065035332/superstudio-third-city-new-york-of-brains-1971

22. http://www.art-it.asia/u/admin_ed_feature_e/ C4gruKpzGtOEL8hmvVw3/

4. http://socks-studio.com/2011/09/17/twelve-cautionary-tales-for-christmas-12-ideal-cities-by-superstudio-1971

23. http://www.vvork.com/?p=19779

5,6,7. http://byenibevaegelse.wordpress. com/2012/08/22/superstudio

24. http://butdoesitfloat.com/Negative-utopias-and-forewarning-images-of-the-horrors-which

8. http://umfilipequalquer.blogspot.nl/2010/12/junya-ishigami.html

25. page 184, Exit Utopia: Architectural Provocations, 1956-76

9. http://www.dezeen.com/2008/05/23/kait-workshop-by-junya-ishigami-architects/

26. http://diffusive.wordpress.com/2009/10/07/junya-ishigami-balloon-2008/

10. http://www.metalocus.es/en/blog/kait-kobo-kanagawa-institute-technology-detail

27. http://openhousebcn.wordpress.com/2012/04/25/ table-as-water-design-junya-ishigami-japan/

11. http://www.architonic.com/ntsht/picnic-plants-architecture-the-fascinating-world-of-junya-ishigami/7000521

28. http://www.frontieriors.us/Superstudio-Architectural-Histograms

12. http://www.designboom.com/weblog/cat/9/ view/11341/junya-ishigami-wins-golden-lion-for-bestproject-at-the-venice-biennale.html

29. http://www.domusweb.it/en/from-the-archive/superstudio-misura-series/ 30. http://dearasis.blogspot.nl/2010/10/another-scale-of-architecture-junya.html

13. http://lehpoulsen.wordpress.com/2012/04/08/japan-diaries-kait/

31. http://www.shopconcession.com/2012/03/junya-ishigami-another-scale-of.html

14. http://www.designweek.co.uk/home/blog/architecture-as-air/3026440.article

32. http://relationalthought.wordpress. com/2012/02/05/687/

15, 17. http://www.spoon-tamago.com/2011/09/05/junya-ishigami-collection-for-living-divani

33. http://inebeversmaster.wordpress.com/category/ inputs/page/2/

16. http://www.designboom.com/weblog/cat/8/ view/10306/junya-ishigami-family-chairs.html

34. http://www.moma.org/collection/browse_results.php?criteria=O%3AAD%3AE%3A8224%7CA%3AAR%3AE%3A1&page_number=3&template_ id=1&sort_order=1

18. http://cargocollective.com/juliechau/case-studies 19. http://openbuildings.com/buildings/the-japanese-pavilion-2008-installation-profile-39149?_show_description=1

35. http://www.themotart-journal.com/2010/04/superstudio.html

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General reference

1. http://socks-studio.com/2011/09/17/twelve-cautionary-tales-for-christmas-12-ideal-cities-by-super studio-1971 2. Another scale of architecture, Junya Ishigami 3. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tgIelBds_OQ 4. Exit Utopia: Architectural Provocations, 1956-76, Martin Van Schaik, Otakar Macel 5. http://www.x-traonline.org/past_articles.php?articleID=69 6. Superstudio: The Middelburg Lectures, Natalini, Peter Lang, Hans Ibelings and Hilde Heynen 7. http://thecreatorsproject.com/blog/original-creators-superstudio

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