Architecture&, No. 2, Winter 2018

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INTRODUCing

The Architecture Programme at the Royal Academy is supported by the Drue Heinz Endowment for Architecture and Turkishceramics

© r oya l ac a d e m y o f a r t s , lo n d o n / p h oto l au r a m a r k

Below: at the RA’s Alternate Languages workshop at the British Pavilion, Venice, visitors take part in a Spatial Listening Game led by sound artist Alex de Little

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opinion what does Freespace mean?

As the 2018 Venice Architecture Biennale draws to a close, it is time to reflect on the provocations and ideas of its curators, Yvonne Farrell and Shelley McNamara of Grafton Architects. The theme of the festival this year was ‘Freespace’, which the architects described in their manifesto ‘as a generosity of spirit and a sense of humanity’.

This, they say, sits ‘at the core of architecture’s agenda’.

In their opening press conference, throughout the biennale and even at the RA, where they gave the Annual Architecture Lecture, the architects described ‘architecture’s free gifts’: the natural elements of light, weather, sky and ground; its ‘unexpected generosity’ in bringing communities together; and its ability to provide us with ‘new ways of seeing the world’. They also aligned themselves with architect Alejandro de la Sota’s statement that ‘architects should make as much nothing as possible.’

Freespace as a theme seemed vague and open-ended, and yet its emphasis on the public harnessed a zeitgeist.

The participants and pavilions responded with optimism.

The curators of the British Pavilion, architects Caruso St John and artist Marcus Taylor, created a rooftop platform, a new public space with views out over the Venetian Lagoon, and extended the idea of generosity in the festival’s theme inside, leaving the interior of the pavilion empty and without programming, inviting others to use the space and imagine what that ‘free’ space could be. Called ‘Island’, the installation served as a place of both refuge and exile, garnering an honourable mention from the international jury.

During the six-month run of the biennale, occasional performances and events, sometimes in collaboration with other countries’ pavilions, have enlivened the space.

In August, the RA’s Architecture Programme staged its first Alternate Languages weekend as a series of workshops and spoken-word poetry that questioned the traditional means by which we talk about architecture (opposite).

The programme returns to Venice (24–25 Nov) for a final workshop in collaboration with artist Rachel Young.

In this issue of Architecture& we reproduce an extract from a poem by Inua Ellams, who read this work as part of our August workshop (page 10). The poem explores ideas of refuge and exile by reinterpreting the Greek myth of Icarus into a modern tale of the refugee crisis.

Other interpretations of Freespace are considered in this issue – from Rachel Fisher’s article on how technology can have a positive impact on public space (page 12), to a conversation between Rebecca Salter RA and recipient of the 2018 Royal Academy Architecture Prize Itsuko Hasegawa on creating architecture for all to enjoy (page 4).

Ultimately Freespace is about the non-glamorous, less prescriptive spaces in cities, which are often between, around or on the periphery of private buildings. We need to better understand the value of these spaces, and prioritise them, to allow ordinary people to thrive.

— Laura Mark is Editor of Architecture& 3

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DISCUSSING

in conversation Itsuko Hasegawa and Rebecca Salter RA Japanese architect Itsuko Hasegawa discusses principles of traditional Japanese building with artist Rebecca Salter RA, who has a deep connection with the culture of Japan In 1986 Itsuko Hasegawa was named the winner of the Shonandai Cultural Centre competition. The then 45-yearold had never entered a competition before, but her highly original design – part funfair, part futuristic metropolis – captivated the jury, and the realisation of the building four years later made her the first woman to design a public building in Japan. Numerous public commissions have followed since then, all in her signature style of expressive, lightweight volumes and perforated metal façades. Today Hasegawa is seen as being at the forefront of a generation of celebrated Japanese architects, among them Toyo Ito and Tadao Ando, and a trailblazer for female architects

p h oto K e n s i n gto n l e v e r n e

Below: Itsuko Hasegawa (left), recipient of the 2018 Royal Academy Architecture Prize, and Keeper of the RA Rebecca Salter RA (right) in the Keeper’s Studio, 2018

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who have succeeded her, notably Kazuyo Sejima from the acclaimed Tokyo practice SANAA. Hasegawa visited the RA to accept the inaugural Royal Academy Architecture Prize, generously supported

by The Dorfman Foundation, awarded for her significant contribution to architectural culture. While in London she spoke with Rebecca Salter RA, Keeper of the Royal Academy and the artist responsible for the RA Schools.

Salter studied traditional woodblock printing techniques in Japan under Professor Kurosaki Akira and also developed a lifelong interest in the country’s architecture.

The pair met in the Keeper’s Studio (opposite), where they discussed a shared interest in traditional Japanese building methods, materials and the importance of context.

c o u r t e s y ya l e c e n t r e f o r b r i t i s h a r t/ p h oto r i c h a r d c a s p o l e

Rebecca Salter (RS) I want to start our conversation by talking about a building: Louis Kahn’s last built project, the Yale Centre for British Art in New Haven [1974; below]. I had an exhibition there in 2011 and when I saw the space, I thought it was going to be very difficult to display my work because of the formal grid layout and

Above right: the moveable walls and wooden blinds in the fourth-floor galleries of the Yale Centre for British Art in New Haven recall elements of Japanese house design

mix of textures, but it was actually perfect. The galleries are intimate and throughout there is a tension between lightness and power: white oak and concrete, Belgian linen and travertine. The gallery spaces are filled with diffuse natural light boosted with soft artificial illumination.

I took away three things from experiencing that building, which I also see in your work: material, space and light.

Kahn’s work feels like that of a Japanese architect.

Itsuko Hasegawa (IH) Kahn is very popular in Japan.

He used a special material for the cladding of that building – a mixture of reflective glass and matte steel, which I once tried to import from the US but it was so expensive.

RS He also said, ‘I sense light as the giver of all presences, and material as spent light.’ Is this something that as an architect you perceive?

IH In Japan each season creates a different quality of light. Buildings are designed to bring in the different types of light. The most sensible way of doing this is to design a roof with big eaves. The overhanging roofline can cut off strong summer sunlight, and it can bring in ›› 5

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Above: interior view of House in Kobe, 2014, by Itsuko Hasegawa

›› more subtle light in the winter. It’s the same with the wind, which varies by season and geography.

The positions of the windows are therefore different, depending on the region. When I designed a house in Kobe [above], on the west side of the country, I put a big window on the west side of the building in order to bring in the wind, which in this area comes in from the west. Hokkaido, in the northern part of Japan, has very interesting window designs and positions, which you don’t see in other areas.

RS You often use perforated metal sheets to soften light, and the effect you achieve is like that of traditional screens, or the horizontal slats of bamboo sudare blinds.

IH We call these sheets ‘punching metal’. I use them as partitions in rooms, or I place them behind the net windows in my housing projects.

RS It reminds me of the techniques used in traditional Japanese paintings, where clouds are painted to obscure or soften the transition between one scene or area and the next.

IH You’re right about the clouds. The light coming through the perforated metal can create its own scenery inside buildings, and you get the feeling that the material itself is moving with the light too. It makes visitors more conscious of the changes throughout the day. For the Niigata-City Performing Arts Centre [1998; page 8], we wrapped the building in two layers of the material, which slowly move according to the surrounding conditions.

RS Have you always been adventurous in the way you use materials?

IH When I first started using perforated metal in 1978, it was not available on the market. Initially we worked with something similar, which is used for public buses. My client for the House at Kuwabara, Matsuyama [1980], owned a company that offered to make samples, so that we could experiment with different hole shapes, sizes and angles of cuts. We made 35 test pieces, which we lined up on the stairs of the studio. We then spent days observing the effects of the light at different times. Now perforated metal sheets are a huge trend – you can buy them off the shelf.

RS Today, when I visit Kyoto, I am saddened to see the kinds of materials used in contemporary architecture

c o u r t e s y i t s u ko h a s eg awa / p h oto H i r o s h i U e da

DISCUSSING

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c o u r t e s y i t s u ko h a s eg awa / p h oto To m i o O h a s h i

Below: exterior view of the Shonandai Cultural Centre, 1986-90, by Itsuko Hasegawa

in Japan. For example, I find the use of shiny tiles to be unsympathetic both to the Japanese climate and to Japanese sensibilities.

IH Those tiles are too hard for the climate – they give Japanese buildings a rather rigid feeling. It is as if the elements don’t fully blend in with the scenery.

Kawara [traditional clay roof tiles] are different because they are baked at a low temperature. Have you seen them on the roofs of some of the old temples in Kyoto?

RS Yes, when it rains, kawara absorb water, which changes their colour.

IH Most traditional Japanese architectural materials are made from natural, sound-absorbing elements – for example, shikkui [a lime plaster], doma [earth-paved internal floors] and tatami [reed floor mats]. In the spaces that use these materials the sound bounces softly.

RS Even though you use modern materials, that traditional sense of permeability – of both sound and light – plays an important role in your architecture, and also in Japanese culture.

IH In traditional Japanese houses, partitions were made of paper. These partitions were detachable so that you can take them away.

RS Traditional Japanese houses feel very generous and flexible. They can become many things. Looking at the Shonandai Cultural Centre in Fujisawa City [1986– 90; below], there is a similar generosity of spirit.

IH For me, architecture is not only about designing buildings – the buildings come with context. I design landscapes together with architecture. I first became aware of this as a student when I travelled across Japan looking at examples of minka [traditional vernacular houses]. Everywhere I went, minka had big front gardens, and you would find local flowers and plants. They made a beautiful streetscape.

RS The streetscape makes me think about the role of the engawa [veranda], a bridge between the inside and the outside of a space, the private and the public.

IH We have to design both inside and outside at the same time. To design Niigata-City Performing Arts Centre, I walked around the city and researched local plants, which I then used in the landscape around the building. ››

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DISCUSSING

Above right: view of Niigata-City Performing Arts Centre at night, 1998, by Itsuko Hasegawa

c o u r t e s y i t s u ko h a s eg awa / p h oto M i t s u m a s a F u j i t s u k a

Below right: pedestrian bridges link the buildings of NiigataCity Performing Arts Centre

›› One day, the Japanese architect Fumihiko Maki asked me, ‘Can you introduce me to the landscape designer who did Niigata-City Performing Arts Centre?’ I replied, ‘That’s me!’

RS I am interested particularly in your ‘archipelago’ concept of linking spaces – a way of ‘island hopping’ through architecture. To me the idea of the kaiyu-shiki [promenade gardens] of Japan, with their paths that visitors wander along, encountering a variety of scenes along the way, feel very much like your idea for the layout of Niigata-City Performing Arts Centre.

IH The main entrance for this project is six metres above ground and at ground level is a 700-space car park. The area already had a few public buildings and new ones were being made every ten years, but there was no connection between them. I wanted to link these fragmented spaces. My answer was the concept of the archipelago – big open spaces linked by bridges [below].

RS The bridges made the whole area much more open to people?

IH When I design a public building I want to make it as open as possible so that people can visit any time and have a place to gather. And if, for example, you argue with your partner, you can find a place to relax!

RS For the Niigata project you also designed a Noh theatre [opposite]. As a female architect, what was it like designing a theatre that only allows male performers?

IH Whenever we visited Noh theatres in Japan, my male

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staff could go up on the stage, but I was only allowed to go underneath it. I wanted to design a new theatre that was lighter and gentler, but initially the client was not so sure. Lots of male Noh fans were against my proposal.

RS Have you ever felt pressured to design only domestic architecture because you are woman?

IH I don’t think I’ve felt pressured, but it’s true that in Japan no major public building had been designed by a female architect until I won the Shonandai Cultural Centre competition.

RS Do you consider yourself a role model?

IH I don’t really think about it, but I can’t deny that I have constantly battled jealous male architects of my generation. When I started out there was clear discrimination in Tokyo, not just because I was a woman but because I hadn’t graduated from the University of Tokyo School of Architecture. I still get complaints from some male architects. One accused me of popularising architecture by running workshops with citizens – he meant that I was taking ‘authority’ away from architects.

RS But these conversations with citizens are key to your designs.

c o u r t e s y N i i g ata- c i t y p e r f o r m i n g a r t s c e n t r e

Above right: Noh Theatre, NiigataCity Performing Arts Centre, 1998,

by Itsuko Hasegawa

IH It is how we find the real local culture of the site.

Every town has its own way of thinking and behaving.

When you start to engage with the people who live there you can see what architecture is right for them.

RS It shows in the finished result. To me, the spaces you create feel rooted within the community.

IH My buildings are well used by the local citizens.

Visiting Shonandai Cultural Centre, one critic wrote, ‘When I visited Hasegawa’s building, I couldn’t see much of it. What I saw was just full of people.’

RS One thing that saddens me is how difficult it would be to design such open spaces in the UK today, because of vandalism, terrorism and crime. Public space here is becoming very guarded.

IH Even when I manage to make open public buildings, I still find I am called up by the authorities to build a wall.

But citizens need space to stroll on their date, after their argument or just as an integral part of their everyday lives.

— Translated by Sakiko Kohashi 9

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imagining

Š pao lo b o e r i

Above: the island of San Servolo in the Venetian Lagoon, viewed from the British Pavilion, 2018

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poem ike rust/icarus This extract from a longer poem by Inua Ellams was performed this summer as part of the RA’s Alternate Languages programme, at the British Pavilion during the Venice Architecture Biennale

The refugee camp was a battered rainbow of humanity.

Each tent a failing flailing nation’s flag weighed down by stones. The wind would lift sand grains and dust wisps off the central tent and blow them down the sandy paths to the edges of the island, the beach, where the refugees would gather to look across the deep blue waters, through clouds drifting like slow white whales.

On clear days, they’d see their dream destination, Italy, freedom, and their dream killers: coastguards, sharks in water, fast metal boats ruling the seas and watchtowers on Italian cliffs, watching the hopeful refugees, warnings clear: to stay put, there, stay and never leave.

On dark days, those among them who had braved treacherous waves at night, who carved makeshift boats from trees to ride the moon-tide’s watery cliffs, the waves would wash back their bodies, their eyes gone to hungry fish. The men would bury, the women hum, both forge sweltering songs of sorrow, hardship, pain, loss.

— Inua Ellams is a Nigerian-born poet, playwright, performer and designer. The full version of Ellams’ poem was commissioned as part of the podcast series ‘Bedtime Stories for the End of the World’ in which poets create a work based on an existing myth

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perspective Looking back to build the future The second act of the RA Architecture Studio’s ‘Invisible Landscapes’ series focuses on how technological advancements shape our everyday environment. Here, urbanist Rachel Fisher asks whether the rise of social technology can return us to human-centred cities Illustrations by Leonie Bos

I L LUS T R AT I O N S L EO N I E B O S

In 1989 when Back to the Future Part II came out, I was a ten-year-old living in Austin, Texas. The film is set in 2015, and I remember with perfect clarity watching Marty McFly walk into Café 80s, a retro-themed diner in the fictional town of Hill Valley. I couldn’t believe anyone would ever be nostalgic for the 1980s. The 80s weren’t even over! Such is the innocence of youth. Now, the hipsters who weren’t even born when the film was released are wearing giant day-glo glasses and high-waisted acid-wash jeans. Even the much-derided bum bag has made a comeback for fashionistas. Bad ideas get recycled too.

The film may have failed to predict perfectly the now present future (where is my hoverboard?), but there are things that it got absolutely right. In its version of 2015, mansions that had been built in 1985 had become run down, cars were increasingly autonomous, TV screens were giant and interactive. But as a budding urbanist, what struck me most about the Back to the Future franchise is that the

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Hill Valley of 2015 is recognisable as the child of the same city of 1985, and in turn the grandchild of the city in 1955.

In Back to the Future Part III we even see the founding of Hill Valley in 1885 – practically ancient history to an American.

In thinking about what a future urban society could look like we would do well to reflect on the past. It is tempting to imagine that the city of the future will somehow emerge, fully formed, out of nothingness. And while in some parts of the world this almost seems to be the case, in England, much of what is built has grown out of an existing place.

Even the New Town of Milton Keynes, conceived in 1967 as the model of a major modern city, had medieval villages at its heart.

Cities have always formed at intersections – places that trade in physical objects and inevitably in ideas. They need three things to function: an economic purpose (jobs), places for people to live (homes) and connectivity between the two (traditionally this has translated into transport, although today’s links are increasingly digital). But truly to succeed, cities need a fourth element: culture. Whether high or low, that culture is made up of incremental elements, which create and reinforce the city’s idea of itself over time.

Successful cities are overpopulated with multiple demographic groups competing for space – from the talent pool of motivated and mobile millennials to assetand time-rich older people who want the buzz of urban environments. In economically vibrant places this also brings issues of unaffordable housing and overcrowded transport. In less successful areas, housing remains affordable and transport underused.

What are the building blocks of a truly liveable – and loveable – city? Perhaps the growth of social technologies, such as Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, will help us build cities that are simultaneously digitally enabled and more human. While the industrial past saw the segregation of urban uses (factories in one district, homes located upwind in another, shopping and leisure in yet another), technology allows us to blend elements of our lives that were once discrete. This is particularly true for people who make up the non-manual sectors of the economy. Take for example a typical day for a contemporary professional – they wake up, check social media and emails from bed, head to a coffee shop to finish a report, then on to the office, having missed the morning rush hour. At the office, they can check social media, sort out their bank account, and buy a birthday present for their sister, all from their phone or work laptop.

There are questions to be asked about whether working from home while running one’s home-life from a place of work is good for you, but this is reality for many people.

This change in the way we live has an inevitable impact on the way towns and cities are built.

Because we can now do almost anything anywhere, thus blending the professional and the personal, some city planners are reverting to more traditional forms of urban design that facilitate a more integrated way of life. Even in America, the champion of the motor car, cities are becoming denser and more walkable, with shopping, eating, living and working meshed in a form that would be recognisable – save for the massive glass façades – to a time-traveller from the 1700s. But no matter the century, the most successful cities in North America and Europe share three traits: ›› 13

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Successful cities are textured Tiny elements – from paving stones to door knockers – provide the textures of a city. If you’ve ever watched a child walk down a street, you’ll see them run their hands along walls, drag their feet on the paving stones and pick up every stray leaf and pebble in their path. Although as adults our physical interaction with the environment may be more arms-length, cities need to be human in scale and feel human in their materials, otherwise they will become sterile deserts of plate-glass and steel.

They are numinous Looking up from street level one can sense the bigger picture of a city – the heady feeling of encountering something vastly larger than oneself. The ‘otherness’ of the urban machine can be fascinating and almost frightening, but to urban junkies such as myself it is intoxicating. This kind of experience is most obvious in places like Manhattan, where the grid pattern enables you to see far-off vistas, opening your mind to new possibilities. A similar effect is also at work in medieval cities, where narrow alleyways open onto an unexpected square graced by a church or other monumental building. The layout of medieval towns is the result of organic growth rather than deliberate planning, but such towns are consistently ranked among the most liveable and rewarding of urban environments.

They bring people together Successful cities have museums, plazas and parks – places where people can gather, whether as individuals or in groups. Such areas can function at a range of sizes and levels of public access (think of the traditional London square where only residents have keys) but all provide opportunities for the chance encounters and exchanges that can make cities so successful.

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When thinking about how to design and build the cities of the future it is important to remember these tried, tested and traditional elements. We need to build, and rebuild, places that maintain the messiness of historic cities while integrating the benefits of new technology. Thanks to these technologies, the way we live is changing, and cities must change too. It would be wrong to imagine that a more tech-enabled future would lead to ever sleeker architecture with ever cleaner lines. Technology is becoming more social, and as such it can – and should – be pressed into service to create more social environments. In the same way that the Hill Valley of 2015 retained its town hall from 1885, it is possible to reinvent cities in ways that reflect our human need for connection, both virtual and physical.

— Rachel Fisher is a civil servant, co-founder of Urbanistas network and co-hosts the podcast Every Day Design Invisible Landscapes: Environment (Act II) Architecture Studio, the Dorfman Senate Rooms, Royal Academy of Arts, London, until 20 Jan 2019 15

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sharing

inspiration renzo piano on the beauty of balloon framing

‘ R e n zo P i a n o: T h e Art o f M a k i n g B u i l d i n gs ’ o r g a n i s e d by t h e r oya l ac a d e m y o f a rts , lo n d o n , i n c o l l a b o r at i o n w i t h R e n zo P i a n o B u i l d i n g Wo r ks h o p a n d t h e F o n da z i o n e R e n zo P i a n o © r e n zo p i a n o

Below: sketch of balloon framing, 2018,

by Renzo Piano

Force of necessity is a great inspiration for me. Balloon framing as a timber building method touches my heart.

The method was first used in 19th-century America – sceptics said the lightweight construction would blow away like a balloon. It has since gone on to form a classic type of construction.

Homesteaders would find trees, cut them down and make the building on the ground, piece by piece, frame by frame, with just a nail and a hammer. The frames would then be lifted into place in a communal frame-raising. After six to nine months, families who were travelling west would apparently burn down their houses to save the nails (the expensive part of the building), move a few hundred miles and then it would all start again. The homes were made by everyone. That is what makes them fantastic – building was about society, collaboration and friendship. The final result showed solidarity and a sense of beauty and pride.

— Renzo Piano Hon RA is founder of Renzo Piano Building Workshop, with offices in Paris, Genoa and New York Renzo Piano: The Art of Making Buildings Gabrielle Jungels-Winkler Galleries, Royal Academy of Arts, until 20 Jan 2019. Supported by Rocco Forte Hotels.

Supported by Turkishceramics. Lighting Partner: iGuzzini.

Supported by Italian Trade Agency

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