#62 October 25, 2024

I published a book entitled “Japanese Architecture and Japan” from Iwanami Shoten at the end of last year. Although this book is a general overview of the history of Japanese architecture as a whole, at the same time, I attempted to use a type of nested structure that weaved in a summary of my life as a whole. This consists of the nesting of ideas and architecture, and a pursuit of a nested structure of society and myself. I created some opportunities for conversations with philosophers and architectural historians because I was interested in finding out how they interpreted and felt about my nested structure.

The first conversation consisted of a talk that I had with Chizuko Ueno in Azabu on February 19th. At this time, she “discovered” the book entitled “Jutaku-ron”, my first book as an outburst of anger toward society, and by talking with Ms. Ueno who lured me into the world of thought, I rediscovered the fact that my essence was a criticism of machismo, signified by the nickname Enfant terrible (terrifying child) of the architectural world (critique of by “Jutaku-ron” by Hiroyuki Suzuki). We had a lively conversation about how to dismantle and open up Japanese architecture, which has a history of tending to be old-mannish with a focus on machismo. A surprising number of Chinese people came to listen to this talk, and this became a unique experience where we were able to talk about the “Architecture of Japan” in front of quite a few young Chinese individuals.

The second conversation was held in the Yasuda Auditorium at the University of Tokyo, where I talked with Professor Shuichi Matsumura and Professor Kaori Fujita who specialize in construction methods and are leaders in architectural academism in Japan, Professor Koichi Kato who specializes in Western architectural history, Professor Satoshi Unno who is a Japanese architectural historian, and Hiroki Azuma, a philosopher. Unexpectedly, as we proceeded with a discussion of the key points of Japanese architecture, a second theme consisting of logic and materials emerged. While there is a desire for consistency with logic, materials constantly change and betray you. Noise is created as a result of this betrayal, which leads to fluctuation.

Over the last few years, Hiroki Azuma has attempted to redefine “corrections” as being the most important activities performed by people. I am attempting to rephrase the “continually fluctuating history of Japanese architecture” as the “history of Japanese architecture as continued corrections”, and dragged him out to propose this during the conversation that we had. The hint that the predestined gap between logic and materials, or words and things, was invaluable in creating the driving force for corrections. The theory that fluctuation and change in Japan is caused by external factors such as China and the West is the generally perceived theory, but the emergence of the concept of materials as a major factor was fresh.

This talk resulted in an accessible conversation with learned persons who specialize in construction method engineering who were invited this time. While Chinese and Western cultures tend to be logic driven, the priority is placed on materials in Japanese culture, and when the fact that there is a focus on preserving ancient characteristics is taken into consideration so this theme is an alluring one for historians.

At this point, I recalled a book entitled “Mono kara no Hangeki” (Counter-attack by Things) written in “Sekai”, published by Iwanami Shoten in 1977 by Hiroshi Hara who was a great mentor or mine when he was young. This treatise which was released soon after I entered the master degree program in the Hara Lab at the University of Tokyo gave me a great deal of courage while I was studying construction methods which consisted of materials engineering under Professor Yoshichika Uchida who worked in the same department as Professor Hara. At the time, Hiroshi Hara had just been invited to a study meeting of cultural figures sponsored by Iwanami Shoten, and he frequently talked enthusiastically about the impact that meeting Kenzaburo Oe, Toru Takemitsu and Yujiro Nakamura at this event had upon him.

During this study meeting, Hiroshi Hara discovered through the thoughts expressed and in the conversations that he had a great ally that consisted of “things”. By making “things” an ally and using this as a foundation to build upon, he thought that he may be able to step into a realm that cannot be reached by people who use words and music as their tools, which became the purpose of this short essay of “Mono kara no Hangeki”, which gave me a great amount of courage and hope for the future.

I recalled my excitement when I encountered the text written by Hiroshi Hara for the first time in a long time upon hearing what was pointed out by Mr. Azuma. Hiroshi Hara underwent a large transformation as an architect and a philosopher after he encountered Kenzaburo Oe and others, enabling him to step into a different dimension, and having the experience of being right beside him back then provided me with the opportunity to obtain the foundation for my thoughts.　While this was a meeting to talk about “Japanese architecture”, it provided the unexpected chance to rediscover my starting point.