Architecture of innocence

Architecture of innocence PANORAMIC exposure of japan’s contemporary architectural spirit

UCD ARCHITECTURE

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Alfonso Bonilla

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14207833

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ARC 40610

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JAN - 2015

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Architecture of innocence PANORAMIC exposure of japan’s contemporary architectural spirit

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Alfonso Bonilla

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14207833

|

ARC 40610

|

JAN - 2015

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UCD ARCHITECTURE

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A particular thank you to professor Hugh Campbell for his direction and insightful questions and to Richview Library & NCAD for their valuable resources.

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–Alfonso Bonilla

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“I want to make architecture that even a child can draw. This is a desire for lucidity, at the same time, I want this lucid architecture to contain an incomprehensible diversity.

As experienced, it has the complexity that enables the discovery of a succession of unexpected scenes and unknown places�.

-Sou Fujimoto

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Diagrams: pictures that even a child can draw

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CONTENT

Abstract 10 section1 - Approaching Innocence 12 Here and there / then and now 14 Conditions of reception 16 Defining innocence 18 The innocence of a diagram 20 diagram as a weapon 22

Section2 - Evaluating Innocence 24 introductions and expectations 26 Introduction by preston scott cohen 28 conceptual categories 30

-Confrontation 30 -translucence & ethereality 32 -Inside / outside 34

meanings and interpretations

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Section 3 - Beyond innocence 38 one-off houses of japan Conditions of production production categories

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- history 44

- interiors / exteriors & privacy 46

- scales and flexibility of space 48

- natural, urban & social life 50 - Shapes & imagination 52

- Is this innocence? 54 Bibliography 56 Figures 58 Appendix 60

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Word count: 10,358

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Abstract

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his dissertation focuses on the architecture of Japanese architects and the use of basic concepts to define their work; it has the intention of exposing the relevance of the formats for architectural dissemination, the effects of describing the works of Japanese architects, the ambiguous terms used to analyze their work and the impact of the Japanese context to architecture as a discipline. It is divided into three parts with nine subjects that guide the reader through this exploration.

Section one highlights the changes in architectural dissemination through the Internet revolution, global architectural efforts such as competitions, lectures and symposiums and how the view of architectures from other parts of the world can hold a biased reception due to their geographical distance and our inability to physically explore these ‘other’ contexts. It is followed by the analysis of the concept of “innocence” becoming the main description during lectures and interviews of Japanese architects. Having identified innocence as a driver for interpretation it is then defined and identified within drawings and through the architectural diagram. This section closes with a warning on the potential misuse of innocence in architecture.

Section two evaluates the way Japanese architects’ work is understood, presented and evaluated by students, peers and publications, it involves the transcript of Preston Scott Cohen’s introduction of SANAA for their lecture at the Harvard GSD. This evaluation deals with the analysis of the expressions used and expectations created by presenters and interviewers who precede architects at lectures and events. This section allows the identification of key terms in the imaginary of Japanese architects’ work considering innocence as a form of prepositional term to these conversations.

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Section three acts as a window looking to identify the innocence in the conceptual nature of the Japanese architect by exploring the intimate conditions that have driven Japan to become one of the most active nations innovating and exploring housing typologies and avant garde design.

Through the history of Japan post-WWII and the behavior of the architecture discipline in this nation we finally expose the words of Japan’s most productive contemporary architects in order to have a pure version of their thoughts.

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Section 1

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Approaching innocence

Here & there then & now

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p until the Internet revolution in our recent history, we had limited ways of understanding and analyzing the architectures emerging in contexts foreign to us as writings, exhibitions, interviews, videos, plans, diagrams, visualizations, competitions and lectures on these works were restricted by language, location and sharing limitations. These limitations structured our thoughts into a form of aloof and mystery around works outside our contexts and we demanded that they were exotic, other from us,and thus a source of excitement. But today we are faced with a hyper-connected globe where the participation of any individual with the expertise, skill and talent, as well as the knowledge and information of architecture happening elsewhere in the world can be found everywhere through digital means.

2. The Venice Biennale has for over a century been one of the most prestigious cultural institutions in the world. Established in 1895, the Biennale has an attendance today of over 370,000 visitors at the Art Exhibition.

The history of the Venice Biennale dates back from 1895, when the first International Art Exhibition was organized. In the 1930s new festivals were born: Music, Cinema, and Theatre (the Venice Film Festival in 1932 was the first film festival ever organized). In 1980 the first Intl.

Architecture Exhibition took place, and in 1999 Dance made its debut at the Venice Biennale.

“La Biennale”, La Biennale di Venezia, accessed on December 14, 2014, http:// www.labiennale.org 3. Every year since 2000 the Serpentine Gallery has commissioned a temporary summer pavilion by a leading architect.

“Serpentine Gallery Pavilion”, The Serpentine Galleries, accessed on December 14, 2014, http://www. serpentinegalleries.org/exhibitionsevents/serpentine-galleries-pavilion2014-smiljan-radic

Due to the growing presence of Japanese architects in these exercises, two aspects of contemporary Japanese architecture have caught my attention as they continue to emerge in recent years. The first one is the vast number of oneoff houses being built across Japan and the second is the increasing number of awards given and projects commissioned to Japanese architects. These aspects have been identified by major education bodies such as the Harvard GSD, and by numerous architecture publications and on-line journals such as A+U, Dezeen, Architizer, 2G, el Croquis, Arquine, Evolo, etc.

As Taro Igarashi points out “each time a new generation of architects in Japan emerges they change their attitude, and sometimes this attitude is completely opposite to that of the previous generation” (Igarashi 2012).The drastic number of architects in Japan has pushed them to pursue being noticed and in this endeavor there is a growth in individuals with certain shared characteristics.

There are those who come from apprenticeships or foreign offices such as Toyo Ito, SANAA, Jun Aoki and Kengo Kuma, others who are developing the use of software to create proposals such as Akihisa Hirata, others use observations in the city as fieldwork such as Aterlier Bow-Wow and Mikan and there are others like Fujimoto and Ishigami who are “attempting to explore and communicate the principle of their architecture before explaining the external conditions of a site” (Igarashi 2012).

Contemporary Japanese architects have based their work on conceptual exploration of themes such as transparency, gardens, continuity, city as house – house as city, ambiguity, complexity, lightness, blurring architecture, system, anti-object, nature, tradition, and other concepts; these have been interpreted by other architects, curators, academics, and the general public creating an expectation for architecture that can communicate these concepts in material, structural, spatial, programmatic or diagrammatic manners.

The work of contemporary Japanese architects as the place to begin this study relates to the sole nature of “us” looking at “their” architectures as a form of orientalist notion which is a western invention resulting in the perception of

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1. “The Guggenheim Helsinki Design Competition is the first open, international architectural competition to be organized by the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation. This initiative reflects the Guggenheim’s long history of engagement with architecture and design and its belief that outstanding original design can speak across cultures, refreshing and enlivening the urban environment”.

“Guggenheim Helsinki Design Competition,” The Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, June 4, 2014 / accessed on December 14, 2014, http:// designguggenheimhelsinki.org

Analyzing models and architectures from various global sources is an exercise for architectural development and innovation seen around the world in international competitions such as the Guggenheim Helsinki Design Competition1, exhibitions such as the Venice Biennale2 or the changing summer pavilions commissioned by the Serpentine Gallery in London3.

finding “other’s work as exotic”. However, if we analyze what is said about the work of these Japanese architects vs. the reality of their practice (i.e.. What these Japanese architects say about their own work), only then do we understand the full story, from all sides, objectively. Essentially, this dissertation is interested in analyzing the work of a selection of contemporary Japanese architects to better understand their practice, motives, and the concepts that drive their innovations and recognition elucidating common themes in the way these architects and their work are being interpreted and presented posing a labeling system that satisfies our need for structures.

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1 The Japan Architect 88 © Japan Architect magazine http://www.kes. ne.jp/NewsAndTopics/2012/JA.html 2 2G Magazine 58/59 © 2G Magazine http://

www.archdaily.com/504984/ja-94-kazuo-shinohara-nilcomplete-works-in-original-publications/

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3 Dezeen on-line. Japan. © Dezeen Magazine 4 El Croquis 147. Toyo Ito © El Croquis Magazine 5 El Croquis 155. SANAA © El Croquis Magazine

Conditions of reception

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ome of the ways in which architects around the world share their work and view on the discipline lies on giving lectures, interviews, presentations, writing essays, preparing exhibitions and participating in public events where various groups of people get the opportunity to listen, reflect, evaluate and question their positions. The audiences may include students, professors, architects, artists, curators, developers, city officials, government representatives, and general public which increases exponentially the exposure of new architectures to a global population. At the same time, these forms of dissemination are usually recorded and re-published through on-line platforms and written publications.

Lectures, interviews, articles and conferences usually involve the introduction of the keynote speakers or subjects by third parties. These introductions serve as a way of preparing the listeners with crucial information to better understand the speaker’s biography, upbringing, ideas to be discussed, value within a field, relevance to a specific context and sets the ground for questions, themes and transition between subjects.

More recently, introductions and writings about contemporary Japanese architects have started creating an elaborate imaginary of their work, ideas, way of working and even mysticism around them which seems to be following a trend that can be analyzed by comparing and referencing multiple interviews and lectures of recent years. Just like Arata Isozaki has been asked whether his work follows a more Occidental and western vs. Oriental tradition 4, many Japanese architects are continuously challenged by non Japanese nationals to expand on their ideas and research leading to avant garde designs in their growing work at various scales.

The dissemination of their work and thought has been carried out extensively in the recent years through on-line platforms and public lectures and it is through Harvard GSD’s 2011 lecture series entitled “A New Innocence: Emerging Trends in Japanese Architecture” that we get an initial sense of the general reception of Japanese architects and their work through this seemingly “light” term.

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4 Chiara Vizentin in conversation with Arata Izozaki for Floor Nature, February 2005.

5 Duncan Williams introducing Toyo Ito at UC Berkeley lecture, 2009.

6 Toyo Ito, “Blurring Architecture” (lecture opening discussion on his traveling exhibition Blurring Architecture) Berlage, Rotterdam, 2009.

7 Dean Mohsen Mostafavi on Harvard GSD lecture series “A New Innocence: Emerging Trends in Japanese Architecture”, Cambridge, 2011.

Interpreted and considered as an intellectual with playfully philosophical approaches 5 (Williams, 2009), Toyo Ito is another architect highly regarded in the architecture community worldwide for his unconventional projects such as the Tama Art University Library in Tokyo, Sendai Mediatheque in Miyagi and TOD’S Omotesando Building, but also for his writings and lectures, particularly for his thoughts on Blurring Architecture where he questions the common conception of architecture as a solid element and considers its distortion into “ambiguous boundaries” capable of responding and changing according to its environment 6. We can see through their copious amount of work how these exemplary architects have found their way into publications, lectures, interviews and winning competitions, but there is a difference between what they are generating as practicing architects and how the public reacts and defines their work.

It is of particular interest how during Harvard’s GSD lecture series Dean Mohsen Mostafavi explains: “This group represents one of the most significant informal collectives in architecture and design today. Their dedication to the simplicity and pleasures of everyday architecture and their engagement with location and interior distinguish their work from that of many of their contemporaries. They approach their task with a freshness and delight which in many respects is reminiscent of the innocence of a child’s eye; however, in their case this innocence is deliberate and highly artificial. One characteristic of many of these architects’ projects is the integration of landscape and nature within buildings; another is the subtle fusion of furniture and architecture.

Toyo Ito, a mentor within the collective, counterbalances this lightness of approach with chthonic and seemingly excavated interiors, such as his designs for the Taichung Opera House”. 7 Mostafavi’s use of innocence as a way of describing what is perceived from their work opens the door to a number of questions on the use of a noun that describes the state, quality or fact of holding a lack of guile or corruption and is a type of purity that also evokes the harmless, innocuous, lack of malice and inoffensive. It first makes us question the definition of innocence, its relationship to naiveté, lack of experience, primitivism and the potential lack of honesty in this “deliberate and highly artificial” way of working.

6 Harvard GSD Lecture series poster ©The Harvard GSD

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Defining innocence

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nnocence is first defined as a term that indicates an absence of guilt, and a tacit separation from any type of crime or wrongdoing, a harmless nature, freedom from guilt or blame, purity and a kind of conceptual softness. This first definition of innocence as a state is closely followed by concepts of naiveté, lack of experience, ignorance and what could be a loss of undefined, crucial details.

In order to find ways to properly address an architectural intention or practice as innocent its important to define concepts around it.

Other associations to this term include “naiveté” which refers to a quality of deficiency in wisdom, a lack of informed judgment marked by unaffected simplicity, but it is also about being self-taught and primitive. It comes from the French term naïf, which means inborn & natural8. “Ignorance”, another definition for innocence, has to do with lacking knowledge, understanding or education, it is an attitude closely related to unawareness, unfamiliarity, incognizance, being uninformed, illiterate, untaught and simple 8. And “primitivism”, closely related to the simplicity of ignorance is a quality of a practice, a primitive procedure and state of being unaffected by civilizing influences 8.

These other ways of perceiving innocence are important to consider because the reasoning behind an architecture of innocence becoming a subject of relevance lies in the careful inspection of the reasoning behind decisions made in our built environment. Edifications today follow standards, rules and guides that monetize the production of space and competes in the market of design, construction, government planning, city making and environmental awareness that channel architects through the task of creating spaces that will not only meet but exceed standards and also that challenge our imagination and our common ways of conceiving the built fabric.

It is relevant to note that, while these definitions express characteristics and traits towards a subject, they are not objective terms. They rather express a perceived quality and as such they should be considered flexible terms and merely general indicators for intentions. Such dichotomy can result in a level of distortion from over-simplification and in the case of architectural design it is important to consider these different notions in order to avoid making the mistake of categorizing certain works of ideas using innocence as a negative connotation.

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8 Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary. 11th ed. Springfield, MA: Merriam-Webster, 2003. Also available at http://www.merriam-webster.com/.

9 “Little architect” The Architectural Association in London Primary Schools, accessed December 20, 2014. http:// littlearchitect.aaschool.ac.UK/

This term is most commontly attributed to children as their perspective of reality and the events that happen around them are difficult to be fully explained to them. An interest in the fantastic, the magical and the incomprehensible tends to allure their minds into creating imaginative thoughts and in many occasions challenge the way more experienced humans see the world. As children’s drawings reveal, it is not the lack of perspective, scale, depth, factual representation of the world or even accurate description of the things they attempt to express which causes fascination and a sentiment of sympathy, but rather the longing for their way of perceiving reality, creating expectations for themselves and their environment and the mental processes that lead to such imagination. Furthermore their attempts to describe these thoughts result in fantastic and impossible worlds & figures that, although fascinating and potentially relevant, end up as simple decorative memories and souvenirs of those periods of innocence.

There’s multiple classes, programs in schools and studios that focus on developing children’s ability to communicate in this format such as Little Architect which teaches architecture and sustainability in London’s primary schools led by the Architectural Association School of Architecture 9. The intellectual benefits of accelerating a child’s ability to communicate and develop self-expression are a topic on their own but the conversation about the reasoning behind these drawings draws on the basic concept of innocence.

A child’s innocence affords them the feeling of awe, triggers excitement and induces curiosity; these actions help create connections between complex thoughts into simplified ideas which can be understood through simple diagrams that we can commonly find in the architecture field. It is through the power of the diagram as a communication mechanism that we can focus on, in order to further our efforts into the identification of innocence and its positive impact.

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Ideal city ©Little Architect Skyscrapers ©Art for Children Skyscrapers 2 ©Art for Children Dream city ©Little Architect

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The innocence of a diagram

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s architects we are comfortable translating complex ideas into diagrams since they are schematic representations of intentions. Diagrams serve as guides for architecture design and more recently we have found architects whose works are defined as diagrammatic architecture, meaning the almost literal translation of a simplified drawing into a built form. The idea of diagram helps understand the initial aspect of concept-based architecture and as coined by Toyo Ito in 1996 when discussing Kazujo Sejima’s work. Looking at Sejima’s work shows how an abstract idea can result into architecture through simple translation without losing its innocent nature: “You (Sejima) see a building as essentially the equivalent of the kind of spatial diagram used to describe the daily activities for which the building is intended in abstract form. At least it seems as if your objective is to get as close as possible to this condition”10.

Sejima’s work reflects a sculptural nature that visibly starts in her diagrammatic drawings. Vidler’s writing on architecture’s expanded field positions the role of the “diagram” as an attempt to propose function and space as an individual concept through the search for an architecture language; not applied but developed out of the components of its own practice in addition to a diagram that explores not only the form but also the function “within a matrix of information and its animation” 11. In this way the generation of architecture has become an iterative process that is achieved through digital frameworks that follow the initial intentions of the diagram which contain in its process an innocent and simplified way of achieving the most complex of endeavors.

It is, according to Vidler, an era of combinations within Krauss’s sculptural field where the infinite amount of options now available have produced new versions of the “not-landscape” and “not-sculpture” which has turned its results into architectures that have never been seen before. Vidler’s writing continues this trend, talking about the expansion of architecture’s own field. Within the diagrammatic agenda, we can identify what seems to be a critical response to housing, density, land use, territory, sustainability, energy, in ways that have become alternative design solutions to these questions that continue to be asked. Their forms (shapes) come from an argument addressing the political, social and technological developments while critiquing “business as usual” 12.

These diagrams growingly represent more abstract thoughts as certain ideas of architecture encompass thoughts of blurring architecture itself.

An increased number of opportunities for homes to be sold as products has opened the doors for new architects to participate in the arena of a constantly regenerating urban fabric. This active participation from architects young and old has created a type of playground for ideas that refine and re-define architectures at a domestic scale to then be used in a wide range of scales and locations worldwide. The particular behavior of Tokyo as a forest “that is always growing and receiving new energy so it can survive in many ways” 14 has made p.20

10. Toyo Ito, “Diagram Architecture,” El Croquis 77, no. 1 (1996).

11.Anthony Vidler (ed.), Architecture Between Spectacle and Use (London: Yale, 2008), 143.

12. Vidler, “Architecture’s Expanded Field”, 152.

13. Toyo Ito, discussion on traveling exhibition, “Blurring Architecture”, 1999.

14. Cathelijne Nuijsink, How to make a Japanese House. How to make a Japanese house. 1st ed. Rotterdam: NAi Publishers (2012).

“Would it not be possible to visualise the buildings and cities extended from the new body as a space resulting through the levels of the infinitely extended, homogeneous and transparent space and the flow of nature?” -Toyo Ito 13.

architects in Japan appreciate the way Tokyo is organized vs. the rigid European city centers and streets; while the “western” prefer the preservation of buildings and keeping their ensemble, a nation contained in these four islands looks at the relationship between topography and architecture. This has pushed the agenda of developing ideas that stand out from the rest of the practicing architects resulting in unexpected thoughts and thus architecture.

A type of innocence that has moved away from spatial products and finds its way to a more agile response to their immediate environment arises. They expose a unique type of naivety that is complemented by an almost antagonist sophistication not found in the nature of the innocent nor the naïve. Through this work I will attempt to expose the innocence of the formation, the playful and emblematic refined versions of inhabitation portrayed by contemporary Japanese architects.

We have the imagination of a new future, not our future but our urbanity’s future, and all the precarious possibilities that this future could bring that these architectures don’t know or are capable of knowing about yet, from housing bubbles to climate change, from urban tensions to market trends. These uncertainties make room for speculation and the need to strive for alternatives that might propel us toward a friendly, diverse, efficient and exciting future.

Finding “particles” of innocence in the architectures of our contemporaries in Japan, where their almost fantastic concepts are combined with research and continuous development of alternatives for architectural design, could translate to the built environment as unusual and avant-garde designs capable of challenging our notion of “built environment” and thus creating alternative ways of production of architectures for the future.

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11 KAZUYO SEJIMA’S DIAGRAM FOR SERPENTINE PAVILION ©KAZUYO SEJIMA AND ASSOCIATES http://maisdbyang.blogspot. ie/2011/02/event.html 12 SANAA’S SERPENTINE PAVILION ©SANAA http://img.archilovers.com/ projects/6267CF37-0A72-4E07-86B0D0AD218C9A48.jpg 13 TOYO ITO’S DIAGRAM FOR SENDAI MEDIATHEQUE ©TOYO ITO & ASSOCIATES ARCHITECTS http://www.designboom.com/ wp-content/uploads/2001/10/conceptsketch1.jpg 14 SENDAI MEDIATHEQUE STRUCTURAL SYSTEM MODEL ©TOYO ITO & ASSOCIATES ARCHITECTS http://c1038.r38.cf3.rackcdn.com/ group1/building2580/media/structural_ axonometric.jpg 15 SOU FUJIMOTO’S DIAGRAM FOR SERPENTINE PAVILION ©SOU FUJIMOTO ARCHITECTS http://www.designboom. com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/ solofujimoto_05.jpg 16 SOU FUJIMOTO’S SERPENTINE PAVILION ©IWAAN BAN http://iwan.com/photo_ Sou_Fujimoto_Serpentine_Gallery_ Pavilion_2013.php

INNOCENCE as a weapon

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rguably a certain level of innocence can limit our degree of participation in certain aspects of knowledge and experience but it is not the pejorative side of innocence that I would be compelled to pursue. Contrastingly the idea of “loss of innocence” as a human phase or period where a broader awareness of the world is gathered thus revealing the potential evil, pain, suffering or mere wrongdoing is one that we must explore.

The exposure of spatial products in difficult political situations around the world in Keller Easterling’s “Enduring Innocence: global architecture and its political masquerades” gives us a wide understanding of cruise ships, resorts, information technology campuses, retail chains, golf courses, ports, etc., As products imbued with myths, desires, and symbolic capital becoming political pawns, objects of negotiation in conflictive contexts. It transforms the architect and developer or salesman of such projects as Mayan resorts and exotic golf courses into organization men who no longer seek the integrity of the building as an element of importance and curiosity but rather as a mechanism for reaching efficient labor costs and balancing profit. As Easterling descries “It is a behavior that seeks to achieve neutrality by operating as revenue envelope and creating intricate facades to dress up the object and create a dazing effect” 15.

Easterling argues that these spatial products seek to establish worlds or global regimes and maintain righteousness, purity, logic, fictions and boundaries by limiting and excluding information in an attempt to reach utopia expanding into new territory to increase the compatibility of their worlds. “The boundaries expand and exclude, extend and tighten, allowing the world to increase in size but not necessarily in diversity or intelligence” 16. Recognizing the faults of these architectures and the concepts used by Easterling helps identify the characteristics that makes the architectures of contemporary Japanese architects relevant to our understanding of abstract concepts. As it turns out, the spatial products that we see masquerade their existence through a false innocence pretending to be havens of joyful activity and leisure, but are rooted in a predatory principle.

The innocence that is seen on Japanese architects comes from an understanding of the spatial implications of the diagrams that precede their architectures. These diagrams begin in the form of lines on paper as simple drawings that translate thoughts into spatial conditions. Diagrams hold the potential to describe an architecture surrounded by vegetation and concealed in a cloud that does not end up being built amongst tree canopies but instead becomes a structure that surrounds itself with greenery at various levels and uses chromatic and material transparencies to generate an idea of vapor as we can see in Sou Fujimoto’s Serpentine Gallery Pavilion

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15 Keller Easterling, Enduring Innocence, Global architecture and its political masquerades (The MIT Press: 2005), 4-13 16 Easterling, Enduring Innocence, 6 17 Leopold Lambert, Weaponized architecture: The impossibility of innocence. (Barcelona: DPR, 2012). 33 18 Lambert, Weaponized architecture. 10 19 Easterling, Enduring Innocence. 15

As architects, we practice within a field of guides and boundaries created by society in the form of building codes and urban planning that shape the built environments into spaces of interaction and planned development. It is through these codes that architectures develop ramifications for improvement whether it comes from closely following these guides or thoroughly understanding them and working about them. Law as an artificial human invention is an artifact that categorizes human practices into the legal and illegal. These two territories position individuals on either side. “If law becomes a political weapon then it is an instrument of power within the contexts of antagonism between two

entities” 17. A weapon does not necessarily take sides intrinsically; it is the practice of the instrument that makes it a weapon. It is with this understanding of the field that all architects enter practice and that our Japanese counterparts deal with as well.

However, according to Léopold Lambert, author of “Weaponized Architecture”, there are three possible attitudes or approaches toward law in the architectural field: Working with the law [Studio Teddy Cruz], working against the law [max Rameau – take back the land] (reclaiming spaces, financial speculation response) & working around the law (deep knowledge of law to interpret advantageously/ legal ambiguity/ resistive architecture) 18. Furthermore, Easterling makes a statement on the capacity of architecture to create distinct separations and conflict “It may be brittle or stretchy. Its software or hardware is capable of political manipulation or violence, and also capable of storing or unleashing this agency in its inception, planning, and building as well as its occupation. As it mixes with overt or covert lawlessness, architecture possesses the means to war” 19. It is through these lenses that we can identify the architectures of our environments and evaluate their impact on our context.

With distinctions made on the significance of architectural gestures in regard to innocence we can explore this terms in contemporary Japanese architecture and find the core concepts behind the development of architectures that are becoming pivot points in the proposals of new environments.

17. Apparatuses, Weaponized architecture - Léopold Lambert http://weaponizedarchitecture. files.wordpress.com/2010/12/ board01.jpg

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Section 2

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Evaluating innocence

“Much as with the James Turrell’s Skyspace installations, in which extraordinary lengths are taken to isolate the simplest of experiences—the act of observing the sky change colour — for Ishigami the experience is the architecture, and the envelope is simply a device that triggers the experience.

20 Joseph Grima, Architecture as air (Domus Magazine: 2012)

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As a result, there is an utter indifference to the effort required to produce this experience: Ishigami’s architecture runs the spectrum from near-impossible engineering challenges to simple gestures of displacement”. 20 - Joseph Grima

Introductions and expectations

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arvard GSD’s lecture series remarks the architects as having an innocent approach to their work and thus it is important to look at the main points touched by the presenters and articulate a personal take on their opinions.

This section not only elucidates the general tone given to the presentation of Japanese architects but it also reveals the wording used in architecture environments.

Furthermore, it reveals what the presenter sees in the architect’s work and/or expects the lecturer to cover and show the audience. If we consider the main topic of focus in the Harvard GSD Lecture series: “A new Innocence”, it is then expected that we would find arguments behind these statements, or at least traces or clues that would reveal this kind of definition in an architectural project.

In order to bring forward the commonalities between introductions for contemporary Japanese architects, there is a cross-reference of introductions and comments made during the lecture series for Sou Fujimoto’s “Primitive Future”, Junya Ishigami’s “Recent Work”, and Kengo Kuma’s lecture “After The great disaster of March 11 2011” following the nuclear accident that revealed the vulnerability of “Big and Strong” architecture where, in the face of radiation, materials such as concrete and steel were insufficient.

These speeches are contrasted with Kazujo Sejima and Ryue Nishizawa’s introduction

by Preston Scott Cohen for “Architecture is environment” which recognizes some of the most common expectations and interpretations of the work and the imaginary environments of Japanese architects theories being categorized into a number of common subjects such as confrontation, translucence & ethereality and inside - outside.

18. Harvard GSD dean Mostafavi at Sou Fujimoto’s lecture - Harvard GSD http://www.gsd.harvard.edu/media/ mohsen-mostafavi-sou-fujimoto.html

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The Harvard gsd Presenter Preston Scott Cohen Conference Series A New Innocence: Emerging Trends in Japanese Architecture Published March 31, 2011 Location Cambridge, Massachusetts “Good evening everyone. It’s a delight to have here tonight such wonderful architects Kazuyo Sejima and Ryue Nishizawa.

When thinking about the ways in which projects can be regarded as works on the architectural discipline it is useful to distinguish between those that involve paradigmatic transformations and those that are idiomatic elaborations on the repertoire. It is exciting to do so since, with the 20th century, we witnessed so many developments in which architecture defied this distinction, this dialectic and it is to this tradition that Sejima and Nishizawa belong.

Think about some of their paradigms of space: the arrays and piles of cubes at the Kanazawa museum, for the 21st century Museum in New York, the Moriyama house. These are indicative of a new type of discreteness and disaggregation.

The continuous and porous surfaces of the Rolex and the flower house just to mention two introduce the exterior as a caesura of a sort. More interior than the thermal interior itself (the exterior in those projects becomes). The highly reflective clover-shaped surfaces at the Serpentine and the Toledo Museum: projects like these render voids in space through reflection transforming them in ways we have not seen before and their work typologies are deployed with such sparseness that they seem as much to do with matters of organizational irreducibility as with a mutinous that we might call a new white on white idiom.

Indeed in their projects typology and its formal and material articulation are one in the same expression inseparable. Curiously when this happens, and so many of their projects have to do with the space between as opposed to this space within or without, the formal attributes seem to be exceedingly present and absent at the same time. Architecture both becomes conspicuous and disappears at the same time. The NY Museum, which we all know so well, where several of the classic white box galleries are forced to cede space to the exterior expression: the pile of boxes, a white icon in the otherwise dark red and grey Bowery. The museum appears to be made from the form of aggregated party wall tenements rotated on their side as if redeployment of the ubiquitous urban morphology now occupies a void in the very same fabric. But it is not only the boundary of spaces or the presence of absence of the surfaces that invert what we confront but the way we live in them that is at stake in their work.

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Sejima curated the 2010 Venice Biennale entitled “People meet in architecture”; a visiting architectural theorist declared upon seeing the show that quote “The architectural manifesto is dead, its all about social narrative now” but in fact one

of the boldest claims in the work of Sejima and Nishizawa has to do with their articulation of an architecture appropriate to the new digital world for people living in this interconnected age. Many theorists have remarked that they set up experiments in which the raw program of the building is configured with an unusual relationship between, through and within spaces using layers of reflection and transparency, an experiment that lets us in the end see what people do in these spaces. In this way dozens of types of spatial relationships and experiences are being created, tested and the outcomes are unpredictable.

Perhaps these experiments point toward manifesto radiology rather than just a set of social narratives. In any case, I think it is fair to say that one of the sources of the power of their work is their engagement with a contemporary view that is difficult to pinpoint because we are within it. They immerse us so intensely and with their work both paradigmatic and idiomatic operations on the corpus of architecture are subsumed within this grand social experiment.

They are a paradigm of our world”.

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dtTo9qNrQB8

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19. Harvard GSD Preston Scott Cohen at SANAA lecture ©Harvard GSD 20. Harvard GSD dean Mostafavi at Junya Ishigami’s lecture - ©Harvard GSD

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Conceptual categories Confrontation

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he idea of conflictive or paradoxical concepts as drivers for new architectures is usually combined with a rationalization of the works by many architects; a conflict between two forces working against each other such as the definition between the public and the private spaces which are addressed by some of the leading architects around the world. Yet it seems like the contemporary use of conflictive ideas is a recurring technique in the development of architecture for the future.

Preston’s analysis of projects by SANAA describes their work as discrete and disaggregated, reflective and transformative but also with paradoxical elements such as having simultaneously present and absent formal attributes. As Toshiko Mori, Hubbard Professor in the Practice of Architecture at Harvard GSD points out during the Harvard GSD “After March 11th” lecture, Kengo Kuma also “looks at architecture through various lenses of oppositions, posing challenging theories such as irrational architecture”21. Furthermore, Mori, presents Kuma’s work as confrontational between fragmentation and continuity.

21 Toshiko Mori, introduction to Kengo Kuma’s lecture “After March 11th” (Harvard GSD 2011).

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21. Tokyo apartments ©Sou Fujimoto http://www.dezeen.com/2010/10/05/tokyoapartment-by-sou-fujimoto-architects/ 22 & 23. Rolex Learning Centre © SANAA http://sixosixh.com/wp-content/ uploads/2011/07/day-1064_11.06.04_1.jpg

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Translucence & ethereality

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here is a constant effort to create lighter structures capable of holding programs and sufficiently providing a defined space for these activities to take place. In recent years we have seen works such as Junya Ishigami’s project at the 12th International Architecture Biennale in Venice, Italy break the paradigm of space container, where the work has become more recognizable by international architects although the actual visibility of the project is almost impossible to be identified in plain sight.

Scott Cohen claims SANAA’s work confronts the way we live in the surfaces they propose by pushing the boundaries of space and that the program of their buildings are “configured using layers of reflection and transparency... that lets us see what people do in these spaces” 22. For Harvard GSD’s Dean Mohsen Mostafavi, Junya Ishigami touches on subjects of atmosphere, lightness and suspension referring in specific to Ishigami’s installation at the Venice Biennale “Architecture as Air” 23.

The idea of lightness can to be addressed through scale in Kuma’s work as his range of work goes from small-scale (light) innovation in materiality and techniques to architectural masterpieces (heavy) 24. Kengo Kuma’s essays on anti-object and the pursuit of a seamlessness between material, program and environment push the boundary of what is recognizable as an architectural object and further seeks to dissipate the objectified nature of architecture developed through modernism.

According to Mostafavi “Ito attempts the airy and insubstantial” comparing his architecture’s struggle with the ephemeral with that of the art world’s itself 25.

And it is in his exhibition of Blurring Architecture that we can see what these observations relate to.

22.Preston Scott Cohen, introduction to SANAA lecture (Harvard GSD, 2011) 23. Harvard GSD Dean Mostafavi, introduction to Junya Ishigami lecture “Recent work” (Harvard GSD, 2011) 24. Toshiko Mori, introduction to Kengo Kuma’s lecture “After March 11th” (Harvard GSD 2011).

25.Mostafavi, Junya Ishigami lecture (Harvard GSD, 2011)

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24. Architecture as Air ©Junya Ishigami http://de.phaidon.com/agenda/ architecture/picture-galleries/2010/ september/03/junya-ishigami-associatesarchitecture-as-air-study-for-chateaula-coste/?idx=3&idx=3 25. Serpentine Pavilion by Sou Fujimoto ©Iwan Baan 26. Serpentine Pavilion by Sou Fujimoto ©Iwan Baan 27. GC Prostho Museum Research Center ©Kengo Kuma http://www.archdaily. com/199442/gc-prostho-museum-researchcenter-kengo-kuma-associates/ 28. Water & Glass house ©Kengo Kuma http://www.japantimes.co.jp/ life/2014/06/07/lifestyle/kengo-kumaproduct-place/

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Inside - outside

T

he growing interest in boundaries between interior and exterior spaces has led to ingenious solutions and integrations between enclosures and openings. The theoretical approach to these matters result in the alteration of the envelopes for enclosed spaces and in some cases the creation of openings, courtyards and voids that affect the total volumes.

When Preston describes SANAA’s New Museum in NYC, he makes reference to the piled boxed galleries as “forced to cede space to the exterior expression” 26 making reference to the configuration of these interior spaces not only influencing but defining the reading of the exterior and thus connecting them seamlessly as dependent on each other. At the same time, Mohsten Mostafavi’s introduction for Sou Fujimoto mentions that “this group of architects” rethink their relationships with landscape, evaluating the interior and the exterior of buildings as continuous which speaks of a kind of correspondence between the intentions of architects in “this group” 27.

The necessity for thresholds and weather barriers is crucial in the world we live in today as energetic demands and climate delineate a way of building that requires insulation, air-tight structures, vapor barriers and defined enclosures, but it is similarly impressive that the way of approaching these challenges, clients and programmes have a way of allowing open sections and ambiguously enclosed spaces. Sometimes the barriers are dissolved through structure, material and perspective; in other cases it is the programme of the building itself that allows for these in-between spaces to happen.

Thresholds still exist, but they are re-evaluated and defined conceptually in order to translate them into semi-open or semi-enclosed structures.

26.Preston Scott Cohen, introduction to SANAA lecture (Harvard GSD, 2011) 27. Harvard GSD Dean Mostafavi, introduction to Sou Fujimoto lecture “Primitive Future” (Harvard GSD, 2011)

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29. Teshima Art Museum by Ryue Nishizawa ©Iwan Baan http://iwan.com/ photo_Teshima_Museum_Nishizawa.php 30. Gate house by Makoto Takei ©Makoto Takei http://www.tna-arch.com/ 31. House for couple by Junya Ishigami ©Iwan Baan 32. NA House by Sou Fujimoto ©Iwan Baan http://www.archdaily.com/230533/housena-sou-fujimoto-architects/

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Meanings and interpretations

T

he mentioned architects speak about abstract concepts within their own work guiding their intentions with a simplistic and in a way innocent approach, however, an almost nostalgic or aspirational tone in the presenters suggest a desire to find these revelations or magic tricks of space within the works of these architects regardless of scale, year, phase or status of the work. In spite of this, it is important to note that the conceptual practices of these architects are recognized by the clear legibility of their thought processes and convictions.

As part of the discussions in architecture schools or in practicing architects, these thoughts on architecture represent only a fraction of the concerns in developing projects. The main reasoning for this could be the seeming foreign nature of the genesis of these thoughts yet the spatial considerations of these architects are legitimized through the recognition and complexity of their work.

While their design solutions and proposals may not be appealing to all architects, there is a pragmatic backdrop to each move and it is through the analysis of these introductions that we can find ourselves understanding that while their projects speak of specific clients, needs, budgets, sites and constraints, the introductions serve more as kind of exaggerated marching bands announcing the great circus in town. This kind of analysis makes it easier to understand why their projects and ideas might be dismissed or considered out of context by most architects. Presenters, no matter how much respect or admiration they might feel for the lecturers, have the tendency of exaggerating or expressing incomplete thoughts that can be confusing or easily dismissed for being overly passionate. These introductions, no matter how much they may refer to the accomplishments of the lecturers, fall short to the skeptical architect, the confused student, the conservative client or the local developer who may not be interested in the theory behind bubble and cloud architecture.

In order to fully understand these architects’ ideas it is important to consider two things: - Conditions of production: economic, historical and social figures reveal more about their way of working than a presenter ever could.

- Personal statements: reading the way these architects express themselves about their own work and ideas reveals more than just an interest for clouds and symbols and shows a keen interest in simple ,yet crucial concerns for their clients and contexts and for the future of their own architecture and those around them.

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33. Sou Fujimoto © Sou Fujimoto http:// www.dezeen.com/tag/sou-fujimoto/ 34. Junya Ishigami ©Junya Ishigami http://www.designboom.com/tag/junyaishigami/ 35. Kasuyo Sejima ©SANAA http://www. archdaily.com/tag/kazuyo-sejima/ 36. Kengo Kuma ©Kuma http:// www.ochoalcubo.cl/imagenes/ arquitectos/1206014918_9._japon_Kengo_ Kuma.jpg 37. Ryue Nishizawa © SANAA http://www. archdaily.com/tag/kazuyo-sejima/ 38. Toyo Ito © Toyo Ito http:// storiesofhouses.blogspot.ie/2005/06/uhouse-in-japan-by-toyo-ito.html

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Section 3

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beyond innocence

One-off houses of Japan

T

he continuous appearance of new works of architecture in Japan start with the huge demand for new homes as reported by Jiro Yoshida, a real-estate economics professor at Penn State University. On the per capita basis, Japan has 3.8 times more registered architects than the USA and an overall higher number of registered architects per capita than anywhere else in the world. Furthermore, Japan’s construction employment as a percentage of the total population is 2.1 times greater than the USA which reflects numerous construction jobs, architects and demands for new construction 28.

Freakonomics’ pod-cast of February 2014 interviews Alastair Townsend, a British-American architect living in Japan, revealing a discrepancy between the behavior of architecture & construction in Japan, the 20–year economic stagnation, an expected 30% population decrease by 2060 and an abnormal vacancy rate. Townsend states that about half of the houses are demolished before their 38th year, in contrast to the average 100 year lifespan of a house in the USA. It is widely known that an accelerated housing construction following the Second World War housing shortage resulted in most houses lacking insulation, proper construction quality and most had heavy tile roofs, which would make them a liability in earthquakes. This resulted in about 60% of all Japanese homes being built in the 1980’s after the first round of houses were seen as non-permanent structures further impacted by strong earthquakes rendering them useless and demolished. Furthermore it is considered that the structures fully depreciate after 30 years for houses and 40 years for condominiums which means that the total value of the construction is lost after 30 year 29.

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28. Jiro Yoshida, Why are Japanese Homes Disposable? (Freakonomics Radio pod-cast, feb 2014).

29. Alastair Townsend, Why are Japanese Homes Disposable? (Freakonomics Radio pod-cast, feb 2014).

30. Fujita Masaya, Nihon Kenchiku-shi (Showa-do, 2008) 31. Katsuhiro Ishibashi, Why worry?

Japan’s nuclear plants at grave risk from quake damage (The Asia-Pacific Journal: Japan Focus, 2007)

Even-though houses with timber structures built in Japan today exceed the construction quality of most countries in the world as well as the earthquake resistance, the Japanese psyche values the new as something of purity which we can see reflected in the Ise Shinto Shrine with a massive timber structure that is torn down and re-built every 20 years 30. In addition, building codes and the earthquake resistance standards have been continuously revised after mayor earthquakes starting with the great Kanto earthquake (1923) which destroyed over 500,000 houses in Tokyo and introduced earthquake resistant standards in the building code, updated in 1950 after the Fukui earthquake, in 1971 after the Tokachi earthquake, 1991 after the Miyagi earthquake, in 2001 after the Hanshin earthquake and more recently in 2011 after the Tohoku earthquake which decreed other buildings unsafe 31. Homes that easily meet earthquake resistance standards today are still demolished by new buyers and the risk of earthquakes may be unfounded for many buildings, however, there is a tacit agreement where if any one person buys a home and thinks is unsafe, they will demolish it, furthermore, their expectation for future buyers to do the same creates a culture of little upkeep. This translates into homes not being maintained properly, external elements being allowed to deteriorate and thus, after 38 years it becomes useless.

Contrastingly, the land value in Japan doubled since 1980 to a point were the land value of the Imperial Palace in Tokyo could be paired to the value of the whole state of California in 1989 which means that it is not the land that loses value but the properties themselves. The Japanese are willing to look beyond renovation or upkeep and instead take on the development of new houses as is evident in the widely advertised new housing options seen on billboards, trains, advertisements, shows, Internet and magazines.

The economic incentives to build a house that will be resold do not exist in Japan because of house depreciation which means a client is free to build a house according to their own preferences and idiosyncrasies without worrying about the future buyers. Furthermore, local regulations for aesthetics don’t always exist which explains the avant-garde and unique designs present throughout Japan. Richard Koo, chief economist at the Nomura Research Institute argues that the habit of treating homes as disposable, can be wasteful and hinder the capacity to build “wealth on top of wealth”, preventing a form of “affluent society” to emerge (Koo 2014). Although recent economic crashes and housing bubbles like the one that struck the Republic of Ireland during the Celtic Tiger makes the idea of wealth not being locked in a house seem appealing.

These particular circumstances of the Japanese market only represent partial reasons for the growingly noticeable work of Japanese architects worldwide.

“Housing policy in Japan uses the American system as a model. After the Second World War...We’ve been making miniaturized versions of American houses. Actually, we Japanese architects are enjoying this mistake and trying to make it better. We can treat the small world as a nice thing”.

- Kumiko Inui

39. Elderly housing by Junya Ishigami ©Joseph Grima http://www.domusweb.it/ en/architecture/2013/06/10/engineering_ and_tradition.html

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Conditions of production

H

aving defined the umbrella term of “Innocence”, explored the reception of works by Japanese architects and expanded on the housing and construction context of the Japanese market, it is important to allow the architects to speak for themselves.

We can have an idea of what each architect does, but it is the product of the translation of these innocent ideas into built forms that sets them apart.

Josef Grima expresses that “it is the simplicity of the gestures through which their architecture is produced, irrespective of the complexity required to execute them. (...) driven by the desire to transform simple gestures of everyday life into architectural experiences, and to turn the everyday into something bewildering but beautiful”32.

We can imagine their thought and design process but it is not until they express it in a first person format that we take our ideas and compare them to the reality of the intention.

It is necessary to consider how the posture of the Japanese market toward their built environment may be questionable due to their habit of faster rotation of dwellings (~30 years). It is also important to note that while this may become a possible challenge for waste management and resource efficiency, their cities and neighborhoods have the flexibility of changing their entire structure within shorter periods of time which allows various generations to explore a changing environment and an updated understanding of new techniques and designs at any point in time. It ultimately gives architects the possibility and the physical space for new ideas to be tested without the seemingly permanence of constructions outside of Japan.

This section analyses Sou Fujimoto’s manifesto entitled “Primitive Future”, followed and collated with phrases and interview responses from Toyo Ito following the interviews with UC Berkeley’s professor Dana Buntrock after his lecture “Generative Order” held at UC Berkeley, Arata Izozaki’s interview by Chiara Visentin for Floor Nature on personal work, and key concepts expressed by Jun Aoki, Kengo Kuma, Kazuyo Sejima, Kazuhiro Kojima, Manabu Chiba, Yoshiharu Tsukamoto, Akira Yoneda, Katsihiro Miyamoto, Ryue Nishizawa, Sou Fujimoto, Akihisa Hirata, Kumiko Inui, Jun Igarashi, Takey Nakeshima, Go Hasegawa, Hideyuki Nakayama, Yuko Nagayama, Junya Ishigami and Ryuji Nakamura in the interviews conducted by Cathelijne Nuijsink for her publication on detached houses in Japan.

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32. Josef Grima, Architecture and tradition (Domus Magazine, June 2013) 33. Ryuji Nakamura, “Ruler of the site” in How to make a Japanese house (Rotterdam, NAi Publishers, 2012), 269.

34. Sou Fujimoto, “Nest or cave” in Primitive Future (Barcelona, Gustavo Gili, 2009), 130.

The common issues addressed by these architects relate to local, tangible concerns that most clients may have; the subjects of privacy, openness, greenery, efficiency, connectedness, and flexibility tend to emerge. It is mainly through conceptual interpretations of these concerns that architects explore at different scales allowing them to develop new observations on similar problems or desires of different people. In a way what they are able to develop is a wider range of solutions for what may seem as “common ground” issues; as architect Ryuji Nakamura points out “think A, A’, A’’, A’’’ rather than simply A and B” 33 when describing the harmonious yet complex compositions of his interiors.

The exercise of interviewing or listening to architects describe their work and design methodologies is a polar opposite to that of interpreting their work with one’s own values. However this may result in distortions of the work or certain discrepancies with one’s own views of space and architecture, the solutions posed by these architects have a positive and successful impact on the lifestyles of clients, families, neighborhoods and the cities where they are located. Furthermore, their approach to the discipline tends to follow a strong conceptual line of thought as we can see in Fujimoto’s manifesto, particularly on “Nest or Cave?” Where he identifies elements of nature that are easily relatable to inhabitable spaces “Rather than a coercive functionalism, it is a stimulating place in which various activities are enabled” 34. Fujimoto describes a place where each individual can behave freely and find unique ways of using the space and available characteristics as kinds of multi-purposed surfaces making the experience of space much more personal and intimate. Without talking about the common idea of privacy we can imagine many unique ways of using spaces in a house, a type of privacy that only comes from experiencing space and adopting it on a personal level.

It is relevant to isolate specific lines of thought about history, interiors / exteriors & privacy, scales and flexibility of space, relationships between nature, urban / social life, and shapes & imagination. The only challenge in this exercise is to gather specific thoughts about these branches but as any branch in a tree, one must be open to the possibility of branches touching each other and ultimately being part of a single system.

“Tokyo’s strict regulations on maximum height, building volume and light penetration produce “truncated” geometric contours, seeking out the most extreme possibilities within the limits allowed.

The shape of a building should be based on a way of thinking”.

-Makoto Takei

40. Wooden House by Sou Fujimoto ©Iwan Baan http://www.archdaily.com/7638/ final-wooden-house-sou-fujimoto/

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HISTORY

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hile the historical understanding of Japan post World War II becomes one of the main points to consider in the development of contemporary one-off houses, neighborhoods and more importantly the nature of the constantly mutating built fabric, some architects have a strong sentiment for the appreciation of things past. From an outside perspective, it seems natural to make references to past lifestyles and understanding our way of life in an environment that depreciates the very envelopes that contain our behavior constantly.

“The Japanese used to combine a house not only with artificial landscape elements, like gazebos, gates, steps or fences but also with natural landscape elements like ponds, rivers, mounds, trees, stones and sand into a total environment.

While Western culture aims to protect humans from nature, Japanese culture is open to nature and accepts the ephemeral transition around it”. -Akira Yoneda 35 “My purpose is not to represent the old society. I wanted to create something more fundamental than just copying a structure. I was looking for architecture that could be used for community life again and about in-between spaces to use as roji (gardens and public alleyways where people grow plants along the street and use the alleyways as small pocket parks where kids can run around). We must look into the future. But we can learn from the past by bringing something of it into the future in a very contemporary way”. - Ryue Nishizawa 36 “I have become interested in old solutions to present-day questions, rather than inventing new solutions. Studying those old living conditions can create something completely new for the future.

When I talk about a cave of a forest, it is not a real cave or real forest but a landscape that inspires people to behave according to that landscape. It is a space not well-prepared for people but a field of complexity where people can find their own meanings and own functions in their own ways”. - Sou Fujimoto 37 While Yoneda, Nishizawa and Fujimoto’s practices differ greatly from one another, their consideration for the historical backdrop to their designs speaks about their posture toward it. What is most visible is not the romantic notion of times past but the careful inspection of details that could remain relevant or to note those that have disappeared due to the growth of cities and the density of populations.

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35. Akira Yoneda, “A void in a void” in How to make a Japanese house (Rotterdam, NAi Publishers, 2012), 110.

36. Ryue Nishizawa, “Community Spheres” in How to make a Japanese house (Rotterdam, NAi Publishers, 2012), 134.

37. Sou Fujimoto, “Nested boxes” in How to make a Japanese house (Rotterdam, NAi Publishers, 2012), 146.

38. Go Hasegawa, “Lively Balconies” in How to make a Japanese house (Rotterdam, NAi Publishers, 2012), 227.

39. Sou Fujimoto, “Nest or cave” in Primitive Future (Barcelona, Gustavo Gili, 2009),130.

It is common to reminisce on the romantic history of the past and it is common for entire nations to do so through the conservation of older structures. What is most interesting is what an architect considers of value when contemplating the past; as Hasegawa points out “Basically, things that are old carry the fact that they have survived up to today. Through architecture I would like to confirm that we have lived, are living and will live in the future” 38, but Fujimoto expresses that it is through a primitive way of understanding things that one can imagine a new and arguably “innocent” way of interpreting the use for a space: “When people set foot in a cave, they rediscover how to inhabit these geographical features. These hollows seem like they can be slept in. That height seems good for eating, those nooks are slightly more private spaces, I could put this book here; in this way, they gradually begin to inhabit these geographical features. In other words, a cave is not functional but it is heuristic”39. It is through these complementing ideas that we can appreciate where the dichotomy of historical weight comes forward and how each approach finds a simple concept to give weight to a spatial decision.

41. Garden and house by Ryue Nishizawa ŠIwan Baan http://www.dezeen. com/2013/01/23/garden-and-house-byryue-nishizawa/

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Interiors / Exteriors & privacy

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s we have seen, Japanese architects have a noted reputation for their interest in the gradient between the meanings and physical definitions of inside and outside spaces. What is most challenging about their postures has to do with our own view on the subject which means how we face weather and what is our known definition of comfort. While our houses have several visible layers of insulation, air-tight spaces and heating installations, the most noticeable part of them comes from our understanding of the cost of these additions and how we monetize the effect of these expenses in the long-term life of our buildings.

Arguably, the Japanese homeowner may not need to concern himself with long term costs of maintenance and energy consumption but with winters of extreme cold and summers of high moisture and heat, the Japanese house is not foreign to weather transitions and extremes.

The effects of closed-off houses that intend to target privacy are usually a spatially skewed version of the idea of privacy itself, making the dense cities of Japan appear enclosed and indifferent of their outdoor environments. One of Atelier Bow-wow’s head designers Yoshiharu Tsukamoto reflects on this and laments the fact that introverted architectures don’t allow us to know what happens inside a house and that privacy does not have to mean enclosed and introvert 40.

“When not thinking about architecture, we almost naturally blur the transition from indoor to outdoor. but as soon as we start creating architecture the interior is almost automatically divided from the exterior. Clients always request privacy, a feeling or protection, but at the same time openness. What they mean is that they like a situation where they can feel the openness of the outdoors, yet still have the privacy of an indoor space”. -Makoto Tanijiri 41 “Nowadays the function of architecture has become so boring. Architects just make thick walls with insulation and precise climate control. The clients should be able to choose their own way of living. I don’t just want to make transparency, but rather a new boundary in architecture. Scale can be the borderline.

The interior (of a house) is exterior and interior at the same time. But like furniture, walls and trees, I consider them all equal. That is transparency for me”. -Junya Ishigami 42 Matters of privacy and ambiguity between inside and outside spaces are some of the toughest to resolve in innovative ways since the idea of these two environments have the tendency of becoming simple enclosures & filters added to the fact that clients will more than likely shy away from the thought of experimenting with their definition of privacy.

From Tanijiri’s perspective, it is not the idea of interior and exterior that are dislocated but the idea of architecture and what it means to create a space. It would appear that the mere thought of architecture transforms a built form into an interior and that the client’s idea of privacy comes from a conflictive idea of being able to behave as if one was alone in space while having the benefit of the outdoor environment. Furthermore, Ishigami’s statement on the hierarchy of spaces denotes a horizontal difference rather than a vertical one when thinking of the continuity of a space and how identifying all elements of the environment as equal allows a simpler understanding of what it means to bring equal

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40. Yoshiharu Tsukamoto, “Activating the gaps” in How to make a Japanese house (Rotterdam, NAi Publishers, 2012), 102.

41. Makoto Tanijiri, “Alleyway living” in How to make a Japanese house (Rotterdam, NAi Publishers, 2012), 215.

42. Junya Ishigami, “Transparent sceneries” in How to make a Japanese house (Rotterdam, NAi Publishers, 2012), 259.

43. Manabu Chiba, “Kaleidoscopic Views” in How to make a Japanese house (Rotterdam, NAi Publishers, 2012), 87.

44. Sou Fujimoto, “Nesed boxes” in How to make a Japanese house (Rotterdam, NAi Publishers, 2012), 145.

45. Go Hasegawa, “Lively Balconies” in How to make a Japanese house (Rotterdam, NAi Publishers, 2012), 226.

importance to each element of our environment.

“A design process is always full of contradictions. Living very close to each other in a very dense urban environment like Tokyo, it’s difficult to find a good balance between privacy and community. So people usually just take the easy way out and shut out the neighbors for the sake of their own privacy...When my clients request privacy, I am sure they also mean they want some sort of connection with other members of the family or their surroundings. You cannot resolve such conflicting requirements y just making a door that opens and closes. A wall or a door works functionally, but not mentally”. -Manabu Chiba 43 Chiba understands the power of the struggle between the architectural concept of privacy and that of the general interpretation of clients and the way of approaching this creates the distinction between a common project and one that would call our attention for making these distinctions and re-definitions.

“If you rigidly divide inside and outside, you completely miss out on the richness of all gradations in between. When you open the door, you are immediately stuck inside the house. I think that a much richer gradation of spaces is possible.

I would like to create a house like the city of Tokyo, not a Tokyo house. Complicated and confusing in its inside-outside relation, but well-functioning as a house to live in”.

-Sou Fujimoto 44 “What is important to me is the relationship between inside and outside, architecture and city, individual and society, imagination and space. This way of solving problems is useful in any country. The outcome just depends on the ties with the site”. - Go Hasegawa When the levels and gradations of interior / exterior / privacy gain importance in the conversation with a client it could in turn make the client more open to these solutions which opens the dialogue for architects and clients to work together in the quest for a new kind of privacy and interior space.

“Privacy is a kind of atmosphere that you can create by using architecture, the garden, the street and furniture”. -Ryue Nishizawa 45

42. House N by Sou Fujimoto ©Iwan Baan http://www.archdaily.com/7484/house-nsou-fujimoto/ 43. Nerima Apartments by Go Hasegawa © Go Hasegawa and associates http://www. wadis.it/public/opere/618/8g.jpg

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Scales and Flexibility of space

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ith smaller lots to design and a clearly defined amount of territory, Japanese architects use the common tool of scale to imagine and design architecture. At the same time, the historical and traditional ways of living have an influence on their ideas of versatility and flexibility of use and typologies.

The use of the scale of house typologies as a laboratory or playground for bigger ideas is a technique that many Japanese architects use. They are able to innovate in bigger scale projects by first testing their behavior, structure, material and consequences in one-off houses. The difference between a house with a small team and a development project like a museum or an office block with a large team is that the house project would afford the designers time and effort into designing the total environment including experimental details 46.

Using scale as a tool include the physical difference of small, medium and large scale spaces in one small project. The use of these three scales in a housing project mean that one is able to experience and be exposed to these three scales, making the body and the use respond accordingly 47. This sense of scale can be derived from observations of the city which can be seen as a single place with different scales. As Ryue Nishizawa points out, living in a tiny Tokyo apartment means having most necessary things within arm’s reach : “It is like sitting in a car – nothing you cannot reach” 48.

The abstraction of scale is a common tool for architects such as Junya Ishigami who looks for ways to bring uncommon and even “impossible” scales into architecture. The idea of recreating a vast landscape, the lightness of a cloud floating in the sky or the height of a mountain within an architectural project becomes the challenge in order to bring these imaginations into tangible, living spaces 49.

“If I had failed in making good smallness, it would have been my death sentence as an architect!” -Ryue Nishizawa

By looking at flexible spaces we enter the interpretation of the color white as an open, undefined space and black as the boundary or limit to the white space.

Black, then, could be seen as the physical walls, ground or existing elements of the space that are not re-purposable, while white spaces are those where people can use and behave by discovering their potential however ambiguous it may be.

We can either give a space the possibility of being a flexible territory or taking

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46. Kengo Kuma, “Steel Train” in How to make a Japanese house (Rotterdam, NAi Publishers, 2012), 46.

47. Jun Aoki, “Suburban Toy House” in How to make a Japanese house (Rotterdam, NAi Publishers, 2012), 35.

48. Ryue Nishizawa, “Community Spheres” in How to make a Japanese house (Rotterdam, NAi Publishers, 2012), 130.

49. Junya Ishigami, “Transparent sceneries” in How to make a Japanese House (Rotterdam. NAi Publishers, 2012), 260.

50. Sou Fujimoto, “Nest or cave” in Primitive Future (Barcelona, Gustavo Gili, 2009), 130.

50. Sou Fujimoto, “Nesed boxes” in How to make a Japanese house (Rotterdam, NAi Publishers, 2012), 145.

On the other hand we have the use of flexible elements in order to create efficient, more well-suited and even programmatically changing spaces. In order to do this, architects such as Sou Fujimoto erase single definitions of architectural elements such as “slabs” by giving them a greater number of scales and uses. A single horizontal concrete surface can become a seating area, a step, shelve or an undefined transition space which gives people the option to imagine a potential use. It is then when Fujimoto’s idea of “cave” comes into play where he points at the undefined and ambiguous spaces we find in a cave are not unprogrammable, alas, they are spaces for the imagination of the user to conquer and define from a personal experience and use 50.

this substance away from it. With simple actions such as determining a permanent use and way of behavior in a space, we can imagine becoming part of the programme itself – the missing furnitures of an empty office are office workers – as opposed to transforming the use of a place into a territory of discovery like children who see the slope of an empty lot as a mountain and a bench.

44. House M by Jun Aoki ©Jun Aoki & associates http://www.designboom.com/ architecture/jun-aoki-designs-m-housein-tokyo-with-trapezoidal-plan/

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44

Natural, urban & Social life

T

he attention of bringing the natural environment to indoor spaces, considering the effect of a building on next door neighbors or understanding the consequences and differences between urban and natural environments are subjects that most Japanese architects tend to explore. The way the building interacts with the street and the neighborhood is a statement of the architect’s and the client’s posture towards their context and this section explores these relationships.

When we think of designing, building, and ultimately inhabiting a new house we have many options of how to do this. One of them is to develop the site to its maximum buildable area. However this option is usually the result, it means that a smaller distance between properties will exist and that the next-door buildings will seem oppressive. At the same time this hinders better ventilation and flexible space around the house. Architect Jun Aoki considers the use of the client’s feeling about their neighborhood as a weather-vane for these decisions 51 .

Just as architectural design covers the definition of the interior spaces, it also has the impact of telling its environment how it is to fit-in or stand-out and it is this interaction that Japanese architects focus on through different methods. Hirata connects the shapes of a building or “total ideas” to inform the tenants of their environment, meaning that the buildings speak about their location 52, Ishigami considers his task to be designing the surroundings to the buildings and having the interior become the consequence of the surroundings. He considers all elements of the inhabitable space to be of equal importance giving plants the same relevance as the foundation of the building itself 53.

These efforts might seem ambitious and unattainable at times but it is the constant practice of these ideas that translate into new typologies and expressions of the architectural future. As Kazujo Sejima proves by making humble but important decisions when designing an apartment building in Tokyo where she has identified the lack of garden spaces, she uses shapes in order to bring character and the possibility of vegetated spaces to each of the tenants. p.50

51. Jun Aoki, “Suburban Toy House” in How to make a Japanese house (Rotterdam, NAi Publishers, 2012), 36.

52. Akihisa Hirata, “Mountainous Landscape” in How to make a Japanese House (Rotterdam, NAi Publishers, 2012) 158 53. Junya Ishigami, “Transparent sceneries” in How to make a Japanese house (Rotterdam, NAi Publishers, 2012), 259.

54. Sou Fujimoto, “Nest or cave” in Primitive Future (Barcelona, Gustavo Gili, 2009), 130.

55. Katsuhiro Miyamoto, “Curves for privacy” in How to make a Japanese house (Rotterdam, NAi Publishers, 2012), 123.

56. Ryue Nishizawa, “Community Spheres” in How to make a Japanese house (Rotterdam, NAi Publishers, 2012), 130.

The use and implementation of natural elements in the form of systems, plants, gardens, water and combinations of artificial and natural environments, as Sou Fujimoto expresses, is a way of informing the fact that contemporary architecture has the capacity of handling more complex situations in such a way that architecture breaches the definition between artificial and natural environment54. The consequence of these explorations in a city can be seen at all scales, starting with a one-off house becoming a contribution to a neighborhood; Katsuhiro Miyamoto describes these homes as voids and expansions of the public street 55 that connects to Ryue Nishizawa’s notion of expanding on the boundary of his practice from creating architecture to contemporary city space where architecture, city, gardens and other elements become one 56.

45. Clover House by Katsuhiro Miyamoto ŠKMA http://www. archdaily.com/56373/clover-house-katsuhiro-miyamotoassociates/12-31/

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45

Shapes & imagination

O

ur investigation has reached the subject of imagination returning our attention to the initial subject of innocence and consequently of the irrepressible optimism and vitality of Japan’s architectural spirit. Imagination is defined as the ability of the mind to be creative and resourceful and the faculty or action of forming new ideas, images or concepts of external objects not present to the senses. It is through the imagination and the use of materials that architecture finally arrives at defined or undefined solutions & “shapes” that become the identifiable built environment.

As we have seen, it is common to find Japanese architecture unconventional, avant garde and at times irrational but as Fujimoto defends, his strange looking objects are creative ideas translated into three-dimensional spaces giving the clients a joyful place to live in 57. Moreover, Kazuhiro Kojima returns our attention to white spaces that don’t necessarily mean empty non-programmable space but that actually spaces for the client’s imagination to make decisions and avoid rigid situations where all parts of a building are already decided 58. In the same way, Kumiko Inui points toward the idea of fantasy; he critiques “typical fantasy” as a limiting idea of idolizing concrete, windows and designer-style chairs and instead insists on including other type of fantasy into architecture 59.

In a world of slow transition from competition to collaboration, architects must find a way to make innovative spatial ideas standing out and the analysis of cities and built environments as complex as Tokyo are a constant source of opportunities. As Ishigami expresses, Tokyo’s lack of master plan and constant architectural rotation affords the city to behave like a natural environment where buildings are suddenly constructed or demolished. He then imagines architecture as “events” which allows it to become more than a noun and transform into a verb 62.

The shapes of architectures are only the partial expression of the power of imagination. Jun Aoki firmly believes that exteriors convey messages about the occupants and their feelings towards their surrounding so the shapes of spaces and buildings are a way of doing this 63 they too have to follow building codes and environmental concerns but architects like Hideyuki Nakayama proudly share that these shapes are demonstrations of broken-down conventional barriers. 64These spaces and environments can surprise us and give us more than just a straight-forward solution to our needs and Makoto Tanijiri knows that there is something to be learned from children’s minds; he states that he uses the curious nature of a child in his own processes to create places that cover the important task of stimulating inspiration. p.52

57. Sou Fujimoto, “Nest or cave” in Primitive Future (Barcelona, Gustavo Gili, 2009), 130.

55. Katsuhiro Miyamoto, “Curves for privacy” in How to make a Japanese house (Rotterdam, NAi Publishers, 2012), 123.

58. Kazuhiro Kojima, “Under the canopy” in How to make a Japanese house (Rotterdam, NAi Publishers, 2012), 70.

59. Kumiko Inui, “Two unified views” in How to make a Japanese house (Rotterdam, NAi Publishers, 2012), 170.

60. Katsuhiro Miyamoto, “Curves for privacy” in How to make a Japanese house (Rotterdam, NAi Publishers, 2012), 122.

61. Akihisa Hirata, “Mountanous Landscape” in How to make a Japanese House (Rotterdam, NAi Publishers, 2012), 158.

62. Junya Ishigami, “Transparent sceneries” in How to make a Japanese house (Rotterdam, NAi Publishers, 2012), 255.

63. Jun Aoki, “Under the canopy” Suburban Toy House” in How to make a Japanese house (Rotterdam, NAi Publishers, 2012), 36.

64. Hideyuki Nakayama, “Empty House” in How to make a Japanese house (Rotterdam, NAi Publishers, 2012), 238.

In a world where most territories have been thoroughly explored, designing predictable and defined architecture seems to be counterintuitive considering the source of human innovation lies on the exploration and re-evaluation of environments. Katsuhiro Miyamoto further explains that the result of his design and the client’s interactions is not because of a flexible kind of architecture but because it is the clients who are flexible 60; it is this possibility of a human to be flexible that allows Akihisa Hirata to innovate. He pushes the physical boundaries by integrating the concept with technologies and user’s demands 61.

46. Nagareyama Elementary & Junior High School, Chiba, Japan by Kazuhiro Kojima + Kazuko Akamatsu http://www.detail.de/ architektur/termine/kazuhiro-kojimakazuko-akamatsu-021328.html

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46

Is this innocence?

W

e have explored the context of contemporary Japanese architecture and its innovative nature, we have also analyzed how we become acquainted with architectural discussions and the impact of the seemingly harmless tag of innocence on architecture.

When we approached “Innocence” we realized the power that our dissemination methods have to influence our opinion and reception of foreign ideas and architectures. It gave us the initial definitions to use as a weathervane in describing and analyzing ideas that would afford an informed vision on architecture inside and outside of the Japanese context as we juxtaposed the idea of innocence with the basic architectural components such as the diagram.

It made us aware of the dangers of an uninformed and mis-guided use of innocent ideas and prepared the landscape for enquiry.

We moved on to investigate scholars, interviewers, and audiences and to listen to their interpretations and opinions on Japanese architecture exposing myths, narratives and speculative reasonings behind Japanese design. We found that there’s common conceptual categories in which Japanese architectural design has been put into and we were able to separate in a straight-forward manner ways of identifying where this innocence is perceived to exist.

It was not until we explored the Japanese territory through the history of architectural production after World War II that we understood their construction methodology and cultural impact on the discipline. The conditions under which architects operate and design were then easily understood and we were able to read the individual expressions of more than 15 architects speaking about their definitions of architectural production categories bringing forward an unobstructed version of the reality behind the meaning of “innocence” when talking about architectural design.

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What we have now is a thorough understanding of Japanese architecture today, but we have not labeled it “Innocent”. Instead we have made a gradual transition into the evaluation of architectural design through more abstract terms without allowing these conceptual abstractions to blur an objective view of the purpose of innovative architecture. We have the power to use “Innocence” as a new evaluating mechanism in the pragmatic world of quantifiable architecture and we have liberated the architectural concept from the distortions from oversimplification that would otherwise deem imagination useless.

46. Models by Junya Ishigami http://www.domusweb.it/en/ architecture/2014/02/19/junya_ishigami. html

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46

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Figures

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1 The Japan Architect 88 © Japan Architect magazine http://www.kes.ne.jp/NewsAndTopics/2012/JA.html 15 2 2G Magazine 58/59 © 2G Magazine http://www.archdaily.com/504984/ja-94-kazuo-shinohara-nil-complete-works-in-original-publications/ 15 3 Dezeen on-line. Japan. © Dezeen Magazine dezeen.com 15 4 El Croquis 147. Toyo Ito © El Croquis Magazine http://www.elcroquis.es/Shop/Issue/List?mID=1&ptID=2 15 5 El Croquis 155. SANAA © El Croquis Magazine http://www.elcroquis.es/Shop/Issue/List?mID=1&ptID=2 15 6 Harvard GSD Lecture series poster ©The Harvard GSD http://urbanlabglobalcities.blogspot.ie/2011/02/new-innocenceemerging-trends-in.html 17 7 Ideal city ©Little Architect http://littlearchitect.aaschool.ac.uk/ 19 8 Skyscrapers ©Art for Children http://littlearchitect.aaschool.ac.uk/ 19 9 Skyscrapers 2 ©Art for Children http://littlearchitect.aaschool.ac.uk/ 19 10 Dream city ©Little Architect http://www.giocandoinsieme.com/tag/palazzi/ 19 11 KAZUYO SEJIMA’S DIAGRAM FOR SERPENTINE PAVILION ©KAZUYO SEJIMA AND ASSOCIATES http://img.archilovers.com/ projects/6267CF37-0A72-4E07-86B0-D0AD218C9A48.jpg 21 12 SANAA’S SERPENTINE PAVILION ©SANAA http://maisdbyang.blogspot.ie/2011/02/event.html 21 13 TOYO ITO’S DIAGRAM FOR SENDAI MEDIATHEQUE ©TOYO ITO & ASSOCIATES ARCHITECTS http://www.designboom.com/wp-content/ uploads/2001/10/concept-sketch1.jpg 21 14 SENDAI MEDIATHEQUE STRUCTURAL SYSTEM MODEL ©TOYO ITO & ASSOCIATES ARCHITECTS http://c1038.r38.cf3.rackcdn.com/group1/ building2580/media/structural_axonometric.jpg 21 15 SOU FUJIMOTO’S DIAGRAM FOR SERPENTINE PAVILION ©SOU FUJIMOTO ARCHITECTS http://www.designboom.com/wp-content/ uploads/2013/04/solofujimoto_05.jpg 21 16 SOU FUJIMOTO’S SERPENTINE PAVILION ©IWAAN BAN http://iwan.com/photo_Sou_Fujimoto_Serpentine_Gallery_Pavilion_2013.php 21 17. Apparatuses, Weaponized architecture - Léopold Lambert http://weaponizedarchitecture.files.wordpress.com/2010/12/ board01.jpg 23 18. Harvard GSD dean Mostafavi at Sou Fujimoto’s lecture - Harvard GSD http://www.gsd.harvard.edu/media/mohsen-mostafavisou-fujimoto.html 27 19. Harvard GSD Preston Scott Cohen at SANAA lecture ©Harvard GSD Author’s archive29 20. Harvard GSD dean Mostafavi at Junya Ishigami’s lecture - ©Harvard GSD Author’s archive 29 21. Tokyo apartments ©Sou Fujimoto http://www.dezeen.com/2010/10/05/tokyo-apartment-by-sou-fujimoto-architects/ 31 22 & 23. Rolex Learning Centre © SANAA http://sixosixh.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/day-1064_11.06.04_1.jpg 31 24. Architecture as Air ©Junya Ishigami http://de.phaidon.com/agenda/architecture/picture-galleries/2010/september/03/ junya-ishigami-associates-architecture-as-air-study-for-chateau-la-coste/?idx=3&idx=3 33 25. Serpentine Pavilion by Sou Fujimoto ©Iwan Baan http://iwan.com/photo_Sou_Fujimoto_Serpentine_Gallery_Pavilion_2013. php 33 26. Serpentine Pavilion by Sou Fujimoto ©Iwan Baan http://iwan.com/photo_Sou_Fujimoto_Serpentine_Gallery_Pavilion_2013. php 33 27. GC Prostho Museum Research Center ©Kengo Kuma http://www.archdaily.com/199442/gc-prostho-museum-research-centerkengo-kuma-associates/ 33 28. Water & Glass house ©Kengo Kuma http://www.japantimes.co.jp/life/2014/06/07/lifestyle/kengo-kuma-product-place/ 33 29. Teshima Art Museum by Ryue Nishizawa ©Iwan Baan http://iwan.com/photo_Teshima_Museum_Nishizawa.php 35 30. Gate house by Makoto Takei ©Makoto Takei http://www.tna-arch.com/ 35 31. House for couple by Junya Ishigami ©Iwan Baan http://www.designboom.com/architecture/junya-ishigami-designed-housefor-a-young-couple-in-tokyo-12-15-2013/ 35 32. NA House by Sou Fujimoto ©Iwan Baan http://www.archdaily.com/230533/house-na-sou-fujimoto-architects/ 35 33. Sou Fujimoto © Sou Fujimoto http://www.dezeen.com/tag/sou-fujimoto/ 37 34. Junya Ishigami ©Junya Ishigami http://www.designboom.com/tag/junya-ishigami/ 37 35. Kasuyo Sejima ©SANAA http://www.archdaily.com/tag/kazuyo-sejima/ 37 36. Kengo Kuma ©Kuma http://www.ochoalcubo.cl/imagenes/arquitectos/1206014918_9._japon_Kengo_Kuma.jpg 37 37. Ryue Nishizawa © SANAA http://www.archdaily.com/tag/kazuyo-sejima/ 37 38. Toyo Ito © Toyo Ito http://storiesofhouses.blogspot.ie/2005/06/u-house-in-japan-by-toyo-ito.html 37 39. Elderly housing by Junya Ishigami ©Joseph Grima http://www.domusweb.it/en/architecture/2013/06/10/engineering_and_ tradition.html 47 40. Wooden House by Sou Fujimoto ©Iwan Baan http://www.archdaily.com/7638/final-wooden-house-sou-fujimoto/ 43 41. Garden and house by Ryue Nishizawa ©Iwan Baan http://www.dezeen.com/2013/01/23/garden-and-house-by-ryue-nishizawa/ 45 42. House N by Sou Fujimoto ©Iwan Baan http://www.archdaily.com/7484/house-n-sou-fujimoto/ 47 43. Nerima Apartments by Go Hasegawa © Go Hasegawa and associates http://www.wadis.it/public/opere/618/8g.jpg 47 44. House M by Jun Aoki ©Jun Aoki & associates http://www.designboom.com/architecture/jun-aoki-designs-m-house-in-tokyowith-trapezoidal-plan/ 49 45. Clover House by Katsuhiro Miyamoto ©KMA http://www.archdaily.com/56373/clover-house-katsuhiro-miyamotoassociates/12-31/ 51 46. Nagareyama Elementary & Junior High School, Chiba, Japan by Kazuhiro Kojima + Kazuko Akamatsu http://www.detail.de/ architektur/termine/kazuhiro-kojima-kazuko-akamatsu-021328.html 53 46. Models by Junya Ishigami http://www.domusweb.it/en/architecture/2014/02/19/junya_ishigami.html 55

Bibliography Journals Fujimoto, S. (2009). Primitive Future. Revista Internacional de Arquitectura 2G, 50, 129-143.

Ito, T. (1996). Diagram Architecture. El Croquis 77, no. 1 Grima, j. (2013) engineering and tradition. [On-line] Tokyo, JP: DOMUS Magazine. available at http://www.domusweb.it/en/ architecture/2013/06/10/engineering_and_tradition.html [accessed 12 November 2014] Campens, A. (2013) Can architecture be invisible. [on-line] Antwerp: domus magazine. Available at http://www.domusweb.it/ en/architecture/2013/03/20/can-architecture-be-invisible-.html [accessed 11 November 2014] Teasley, s. (2012) Akihisa Hirata: lecture by the architecture foundation. [On-line] London, England:. available at https:// vimeo.com/50924783 [accessed 15 November 2014] Teasley, s. (2012) Akihisa Hirata: lecture by the architecture foundation. [On-line] London, England:. available at https:// vimeo.com/50924783 [accessed 15 November 2014]

Books

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Easterling, k. (2005) Enduring innocence: global architecture and its political masquerades. 1st ed. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.

Nishizawa, R., Taylor, S. (2008). Some ideas on living in London and Tokyo. 1st ed. Zürich, Switzerland: Lars Müller publishers.

Vidler, a. (2011). The scenes of the street and other essays.

1st ed. New York, NY: The monacelli press.

Nuijsink, c. (2012). How to make a Japanese house. 1st ed.

Rotterdam: NAi Publishers.

Kuma, k. (2008). architecture words: anti-object. 1st ed.

London, England: architectural association publications.

Vidler, a. (2008). architecture between spectacle and use. 1st ed. Yale, London: Yale university press.

Hill, j. (1998). the illegal architect. 1st ed. London, UK: black dog publishing.

Thompson, r. (1991). freakery: cultural spectacle of the extraordinary body. 1st ed. New York, NYC: NYC press.

Fujita Masaya, Koga Shūsaku, ed. (1990). Nihon Kenchiku-shi (in Japanese) (September 30, 2008 ed.). Shōwa-dō.

Web

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“Oxford Dictionaries.” Accessed December 12 2014. <http://www. oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/ common> “Weaponized architecture: the impossibility of innocence” DPRBarcelona, accessed December 19, 2014, http://thefunambulist. net/2013/03/02/books-weaponized-architecture-the-impossibilityof-innocence-published-by-dpr-barcelona/ “Why Worry? Japan’s Nuclear Plants at Grave Risk From Quake Damage” The Asia-Pacific Journal: Japan Focus, accessed Dec 13 2014 http://www.japanfocus.org/-Ishibashi-Katsuhiko/2495 “Why area Japanese Homes Disposable?” Freakonomics. Accessed Dec 10 2014. http://freakonomics.com/2014/02/26/why-are-japanesehomes-disposable-full-transcript/ “Sou Fujimoto: Primitive Future” Harvard GSD Youtube channel.

Accessed Nov 12 2014. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MGLO-GPYfb g&index=1&list=PLA045DB5D9924D319 “Junya Ishigami: Recent Work” Harvard GSD Youtube channel.

Accessed Nov 12 2014. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tgIelBds_ OQ&index=2&list=PLA045DB5D9924D319 “Kazuyo Sejima and Ryue Nishizawa: Architecture is environment” Harvard GSD Youtube Channel. https://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=dtTo9qNrQB8&list=PLA045DB5D9924D319&index=3 “Serpentine Pavilion” The Serpentine Galleries, accessed Dec 20, 2014. http://www.serpentinegalleries.org/ “Guggenheim Helsinki Design Competition” The Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation. Accessed Dec 20, 2014. http:// designguggenheimhelsinki.org/en/overview “La Biennale” La Biennale di Venezia. Accessed Dec 21, 2014. http://www.labiennale.org/en/Home.html “Interview with Arata Izozaki” Floor Nature. Accessed Dec 21, 2014. http://www.floornature.com/fn-tv-video-interviewsarchitects/arata-isozaki-33/#.VM8pcGSsXQQ “Kengo Kuma, After March 11th” Harvard GSD youtube channel. Accessed Dec 21, 2014. https://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=sbIjjt0fV2E#t=45.

“Toyo Ito, a Conversation on Japanese Architecture” UC Berkeley Events. Accessed Dec 21. 2014. https://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=TLBWQHW7-j0 “The Berlage Archive: Toyo Ito 1999” Archdaily. Accessed Dec 21, 2014. http://www.archdaily.com/576813/the-berlage-archive-toyoito-1999/ “Tadao Ando, From emptiness to infinity” A design film festival 2014. Accessed Dec, 18 2014. http://www.designfilmfestival. com/2014/tadao-ando

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Appendix

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1. stats of architects, 2. other Transcribed introductions

Names, year of birth and education institutions that these architects belong to.

Jun Aoki D.o.B.: 1956 Education: University of Tokyo, Tokyo. .

Kengo Kuma: D.o.B.: 1954 Education: University of Tokyo, Tokyo.

Kazujo Sejima D.o.B.: 1956 Education: Japan Womanâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s University, Tokyo.

Kazuhiro Kojima D.o.B.: 1958 Education: Kyoto University, Kyoto, University of Tokyo, Tokyo.

Manabu Chiba D.o.B.: 1960 Education: University of Tokyo, Tokyo.

Yoshiharu Tsukamoto D.o.B.: 1965 Education: Tokyo Institute of Technology, Tokyo.

Akira Yoneda D.o.B.: 1959 Education: University of Tokyo, Tokyo, Harvard GSD, Cambridge.

Katsuhiro Miyamoto D.o.B.: 1961 Education: University of Tokyo, Tokyo.

Kumiko Inui D.o.B.: 1969 Education: Tokyo University of the Arts, Tokyo, Yale School of Architecture, New Haven Jun Igarashi D.o.B.: 1970 Education: Hokkaido Institute of Technology, Sapporo Makoto Takei D.o.B.: 1974 Education: Tokai University, Tokyo.

Chie Nabeshima D.o.B.: 1975 Education: Nihon University, Tokyo Makoto Tanijiri D.o.B.: 1974 Education: Anabuki Design College, Hiroshima Go Hasegawa: D.o.B.: 1977 Education: Tokyo Institute of Technology, Tokyo.

Hideyuki Nakayama D.o.B.:1972 Education: Tokyo University of the Arts, Tokyo.

Junya Ishigami D..o.B.: 1974 Education: Tokyo University of the Arts, Tokyo

Ryue Nishizawa D.o.B.: 1966 Education: Yokohama National University, Yokohama.

Sou Fujimoto D.o.B.: 1971 Education: University of Tokyo, Tokyo.

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Akihisa Hirata D.o.B.: 1971 Education: Kyoto University, Kyoto

The Harvard GSD Presenter Mohsen Mostafavi Conference Series A New Innocence: Emerging Trends in Japanese Architecture Published March 22 2011 Location Cambridge, Massachusetts Good evening and welcome to the second of the lecture in these series “A new innocence”. Its really a great pleasure to welcome Junya here with us. I’m really delighted that Ishigami San is here tonight. There is a Japanese writer and theorist with me Taro Igarashi and he wrote recently in a catalog for an exhibition of Ishigami San: “In 2009

Junya Ishigami designed KITE Workshop, won the 61st architectural Institute of Japan Prize the architecture division. This is not a newcomer award, it’s Japan’s top award in the field of architecture, accordingly the selection of an architect so young (without revealing too much he was born in 1974) is a major event.

Of course there have been other young recipients of the award such as Fujimiko Maki, a graduate of the GST born in 1928 who won the prize in 1962 with the Toyota Auditorium at Nagoya University and that was followed in 1963 by Kiyonori Kikutake who was born in 1928 with his Izuma Taisha Tonoya Administration office and then Arata Izozaki who was born in 1931 who received the prize for the Oita Prefecture Library in 1966. These three architects who are now internationally known were all in their 30’s then. It has been over forty years since any of them received that award and although more recently in 1998 Nishizawa shared the prize with Sejima as members of SANAA, for Ishigami to have won it solo at such a young age is clearly unusual”.

I think that it gives you a little sense of the achievements that after four or five years of leaving SANAA’s office then was able to really engage in a number of significant projects and to then receive enormous recognition for these projects. He has been at the Venice Biennale for the past two occasions and represented the Japanese Pavilion and this year was in the Arsenale. As you know, he’s very much into the ideas of

atmosphere, of a kind of lightness to the point of suspension.

Source: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tgIelBds_OQ

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His structure of course had collapsed by the time I went to visit it at the Venice Biennale and I went back eight times to see it and there was an amazing group of people trying to put it back together and it was such an amazing piece of lightness, of trying to create a sort of spatial condition with these pieces of wires in the Arsenale. But somehow I think that the members of the Jury managed to find it all fully installed in a three minute slot period that I never got to see and gave him the major prize at the Venice Biennale so I think there is an incredible amount of enthusiasm for the amazing quality of the work that Ishigami is involved with and I’m very delighted that he is here with us. So without further delay please welcome Junya Ishigami.

The Architecture Foundation Chair Dr. Sarah Teasley Published 18 September 2012 Location Bloomberg Auditorium, UK. Thank you, If you are here tonight you likely need no introduction to Akihisa Hirata’s work. In fact he is probable because you know his work that you are here. And probably because you are aware of the recent excitement surrounding his work particularly in Venice. But I can’t help to want to give you just a few poinmts before we hear his insights on the particular type of architecture that he does.

How he thinks about building and why architecture should be looking beyond perhaps architects and into biology, mathematics and the much wider, messier world in which we live, including the people who in fact live in buildings. And a few salient points first: Akihisa Hirata is a highly regarded Tokyo-based architect responsible for projects both within Japan and overseas, he studied at Kyoto University Graduate School and then joined Toyo Ito’s office before establishing his own office in 2005.

His work in commercial buildings, housing and individual homes in Japan has been covered in numerous architecture publications. It’s also received accolades such as the ST Review, Asakura award, the Japan Institute of Architects New Face Award, and the ELLE DECO Young Japanese Design Talent Award. His publications include Tangling, he’s also exhibited at Art Basel, Taka Ishii Gallery (Tokyo), the Milano Salone and the Yokohama Triennale. And more recently, his contribution to the Venice Biennale 2012 along with architects Kumiko Inui, Sou Fujimoto and photographer Naoya Hatakeyama, won the Golden Lion for best national pavilion. Some of the comments from the jury include that this pavilion addressed “What architects might do to respond to disaster, taking the disaster in Northern Japan, what is the role of the architect how can a building work”.

The jury said the presentation and story-telling were exceptional as well as accessible and were impressed with the humanity of this project.

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Source: https://vimeo.com/50924783

Domus Magazine Author Joseph Grima Published 10 June 2013 Location Tokyo Walk into Junya Ishigami’s new office in the Roppongi neighborhood of Tokyo, and the first thing you’ll notice between the model-laden desks and workstations is a large, gaping hole in the concrete floor slab.

I peer down into the basement: a sea of models from past projects are haphazardly piled in stacks as far as the eye can see. Ishigami’s collaborators (relatively few, considering the office’s prodigious model output) seem to have become so accustomed to the abnormality of a gaping void in the office floor as to no longer notice it, and seem mildly baffled by my surprise. Like all exceptionally true visionaries, Ishigami operates by creating a powerful reality-distortion field, and the hole in the floor is perhaps the least exceptional thing his collaborators must learn to metabolize. Each project is an opportunity to question the basic assumptions of every aspect of architectural practice: from engineering to furniture and from climate control to circulation, Ishigami envisions a condition or an experience, then stretches architecture to the limits of impossibility to realize it. Much as with the James Turrell’s Skyspace installations, in which extraordinary lengths are taken to isolate the simplest of experiences—the act of observing the sky change colour — for Ishigami the experience is the architecture, and the envelope is simply a device that triggers the experience. As a result, there is an utter indifference to the effort required to produce this experience: Ishigami’s architecture runs the spectrum from near-impossible engineering challenges to simple gestures of displacement.

Much of Ishigami’s work is permeated by this deep empathy for the humdrum exercise of living everyday life. In a suburb of Tokyo (“a landscape comprised of a repetition of nothing but ready-built houses that continue endlessly”), the office recently completed a residence for a young couple that injects a microcosm of nature into the deeply artificial environment of the city. One could describe it as an exercise in the act of not creating an architectural image: unlike most other examples of recent domestic architecture in Japan, the exterior is understated to the point of anonymity, almost perfectly camouflaged into its mundane and rather harsh urban surroundings. On the interior, however, the act of making architecture is subsumed by the desire to create a landscape — a point that is driven home clearly by the exposed soil in the corner of the living room, from which a small forest of trees springs into the double-height space. Looking out onto the street, one realizes that the interior space of this residence somehow feels more like an outdoor space than the regular, strictly aligned cityscape outside.

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Source: http://www.domusweb.it/en/architecture/2013/06/10/engineering_ and_tradition.html

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