A symposium “On the Architecture of Togo Murano” was held on Feb. 11th at The Japanese Culture House of Paris, and I gave a keynote address. An exhibition with the title “Kenzo Tange – Kengo Kuma – Architects of the Tokyo Games” was held from April 30, 2024 at The Japanese Culture House of Paris. In the keynote address for that event, I attempted to discuss a theory of opposites, contrasting the high-flying concrete of Tange during the period of high economic growth in 1964 with the lumber and wood used by Kuma during the period of low growth with a declining birth rate and aging population in 2021.
Since I was asked to talk about Murano at the same location, I extended the theory from last year, and based on the perspective that Togo Murano was the foremost rival of Tange, I hypothesized that Murano was another pole in a triangular relationship between Tange, Murano and Kuma, and attempted to take a deeper look at the ages and culture that constitute the background for those three poles.

The first thing that I recalled was my visit to the Hiroshima Peace Center (1955) when I was a student which I mentioned in Newsletter#66. The postwar modernism of Japan is the starting point for this. I got the idea of taking this trip thinking that I had to see the masterpiece of Tange with my own eyes, and visited the Peace Center with a friend. Naturally, the building has beautiful proportions and is floating in the air, but much more than that, I was thoroughly overwhelmed in a way that I did not expect by the misery of the atomic blast that is on display there. Honestly, I was in a daze from what I saw, and felt that modernism and architecture did not really matter at all.

I walked for a while after I calmed down a little bit, and visited the Memorial Cathedral of World Peace (The Assumption of Mary Cathedral, 1954) designed by Togo Murano. I will never forget the exhibits at the Peace Center, but I also will never forget the inspiration that I felt when I saw Murano’s Cathedral. The state of being devastated by the Peace Center, which stunned my body and soul, was literally healed by seeing the cathedral. All of the details, starting with the rough plain texture of the red brick external walls, and the way the light illuminates the elements of the structure, rescued me from the shock of the horrific exhibits.

Based on the principles of modernism, the eloquent materials and decorative details of the cathedral may be considered “impure”. However, I think that those “impurities” have the power to rescue people. To me, the features that appear to be “impure” that are in contrast with the “pure” materials and minimalist details of Tange are the essence of architecture itself, and this is where the power of architecture it hidden. This visceral feeling arose within me, and my body which felt like it had been drained of color, tasted a sensation of something as the blood began to flow around my body again.

Before this time, I had almost no interest in Murano. I pursued the logic and architectural thoughts of Maki, Isozaki and Kurokawa who were disciples of Tange, and lived life as a student in a way that was manipulated by them.
In other words, I only thought about architecture to the extent that it is defined by words. I had lived until that point as a captive of words. Viewed from the world of those words, Murano was “impure” from the perspective of photos in architectural magazines, and was considered to be an elderly person with an absence of logic.

However, from that unforgettable day in Hiroshima, Murano became a new beacon of light for me. When I visited the actual architecture designed by Murano, I directly experienced his “materials” as “light”, learned that this made me feel something, and this occupied a large part of my life from this point onwards.

The structures designed by Murano which I visited were small Japanese-style restaurants and tea rooms, all defined as Japanese-style architecture, and were perceived as special-interest structures outside the realm of modernist architecture. I felt that placing Murano’s architecture in the box of being Japanese style was a misunderstanding of him. From the perspective of the authorities that placed orders for so-called public architecture, Murano was seen as an impure commercial architect, and public buildings which represent the country or the region should be in the realm of logical and ethical modernist architects. Murano pursued Japanese-style architecture within this social compartmentalization, and the view can be taken that he was able to enjoy a career of freely pursuing creativity and research by retreating into a type of sanctuary known as Japanese-style architecture.

Conversely, modernist architects looked down on the realm of Japanese-style architecture pursued by Murano, considering it to be an old-fashioned traditional closed-off world, but Murano redefined Japanese-style architecture as a kind of laboratory or workshop full of freedom which was not subject to the dogma or limitations of modernism.

I felt that this laboratory was not an invention that was independently made by Murano. The carpenters who built wooden structures from long ago playfully manipulated wooden architecture, competing against one another to hone their skills, and passing these skills on from one generation to the next. In particular, in the realm of Sukiya architecture which defined the space in tea houses, those lab-like characteristics were especially pronounced. Murano discovered the lab within the confines of tradition, and regenerated it in a contemporary manner.

I gradually acquired the lab-like methodology of Murano’s architecture by walking around and observing it. In contrast to modernism which is restricted by concrete and steel, there is freedom to use different materials, and the client, architect and craftspeople utilize materials and details in a playful manner, aggressively competing with each other. The result is creative architecture, consisting of a free human architectural culture found nowhere else in the world.

From that perspective, I learned about logic and words from Tange, and I learned about materials and freedom from Murano. I may have realized the triangular relationship that there is between Tange, Murano and myself thanks to receiving the chance to think about architecture in Paris, which is far away from Tokyo, Kyoto and Hiroshima.

It is also interesting that people are starting to take a look at Murano as an architect, who had not been the subject of any attention overseas in the past. I think this is a result of modern culture being saturated with the circulation of photos and iconography, and it has reached its limit. Due to the fact that we are in an age of post-iconography, people have started to show interest in Murano’s architecture in which concepts can only be relayed with real things. The age of real things signifies the end of the age of images, and also means that logical thinking using words is coming to an end. The linkage of words and images created modernism, and the saturation and demise of words and images brought Murano back to us. Murano is a symbol of a new age.