THEME : "Japanese Culture, Literature and Architecture" #1
INTRODUCTION
I am going to give you 3 times of my lecture. The goal is that you would gain a better comprehension of Japanese architecture.
For that purpose, you should know the background of the Japanese modern culture and modern history, otherwise you will understand architecture nothing more than a trend and a style. Turning over a few pages of magazine is enough to understand architecture as only s style. The lectures would be on the subject of Japan mainly, but your thinking should not be bound by it. You have to see the problems this world has through Japanese architecture and the space of Japan. And what you see from that point of view must virtually contribute to your universal architectural thinking. We are not studying architecture pedantically. Architects of this age have to answer the spatial problem using what they have learned, if not they cannot exist throughout the ages.
The question of endemism and universality of days and places is the axis of the lectures. We are always forced to reason every question regarding universality. To that end, the attitude, which explores the peculiar questions of different places and days, is asked. The lectures I am going to give you are about this particular place and days, which is present-day Japan. But my lectures would be for your universal thinking rather than for your special knowledge.
For that reason, I have to talk about a variety of representations and ideas other than architecture. I am an architect and also a novelist. I have my books, novel and criticism, and sometimes I write political essays on newspaper. I have broad interests, and they are closely connected each other in me. Thinking of a literary question is the same as thinking of an architectural question for me. That's why I am going to talk about different fields that appear as if they have no linkage with architecture. But please become aware that they all are rightly architectural questions as well.
1 : Culture of present-day Japan --- leaving modernism far behind
...yes, must not be afraid, I have already chosen
"disdain pleasure, disdain feel, disdain tragedy
disdain liberty, disdain chastity, disdain hope
disdain rest, disdain mercy, disdain light"
at the time...
This is a page from the comic "Helter Skelter" by Kyoko Okazaki. Comics are read by not only children but also adults on a daily basis in Japan, and some of them have been translated into other languages. Comics economically support Japanese "media contents industry" as much as animations and games.
Comics and animations are the backbone of "media contents industry" and have been called subculture. They often used to be held the line against fine arts, but that situation is changing now. I would not think to discuss that yet, but for a fact, comics are read by a lot of people. The reason is that comics can convey ambience of "present-day Japan" easily and sensuously.
You could say that about the comic "Helter Skelter." The heroine in this story is a modal named "Ririko." Ririko is beautiful, and young girls have a longing for her as much as for fashion items such as cloths and shoes. But Ririko has got cosmetic surgery on all over her body. Formerly, she was only an ugly and plump hick. And soon her reckless cosmetic surgery would eat into Ririko both mentally and physically. Ugly bruises come out to her entire body, and finally her one eyeball falls off. The fact of her cosmetic surgery is reported about in the media, and Ririko drops out of sight. People talk about her like a kind of legend, but it is just until Mass media creates a new star. Her gossip is blown over in no time. This is the story outline.
Readers can take it as they will, but as for me, several dry cityscapes of Tokyo in the comic made me think that the body of Ririko was the image of urban space of present-day Japan. I mean, as well as Ririko, Japan "disdains" everything, particularly like her own "tragedy", and was consequently devoted to self-reinvention with the only aim of being used. As a result, Japan suffers an irretrievable wound, but another body would appear to hide it. Repeating endless exchanges of the body, it looks beautiful and fashionable for the public. What Ririko has experienced is directly happening to the space called present-day Japan, I think.
I will show you some grumpy arts connected to this image. First, it is the picture of the artist, Yoshitomo Nara. The girl's face is weirdly deformed, and it looks as if reflecting another deformed thing. Next is Makoto Aida's picture. It's the caricature of a girl lapped a harsh image, hara-kiri, with kitschy way. Third one is the work of the photographer, Yurie Nagashima, and it is her self-portrait. Happy thing of pregnancy is replaced by an image of anger. Meeting her face-to-face, she is a naïve person who says that she is afraid of reactions of the public. But she takes such kind of pictures.
I will show you one more image of urban space of present-day Japan.These are the works of the photographer, Kishin Shinoyama, and you can find them in the photo collections named "Tokyo Future Century" and "Tokyo Nude." Shinoyama had worked in collaboration with the architect, Arata Isozaki, and had taken pictures of the novelist, Yukio Mishima.
These photos look like having imaginariness, and at the same time, look like having a full of reality as well. Arata Isozaki wrote down his comments about these books as follows; "Tokyo could only exist in the pictures that were taken as fictitiousness. Tokyo is the picture." At the time, I also wrote a review for "Asahi Journal" as follows. "...The architecture and the human body, which are very material and real things, are put in the same place and give rise to imaginariness. Tokyo is such a curious place."
Is it possible for other cities besides Tokyo to have imaginariness like this? For example, the photos of nude women placed in LA or NY could express such imaginariness and reality as ones taken in Tokyo? And is there any better place for the heroine of "Helter Skelter" to live besides Tokyo? Maybe will, and maybe will not. For the present, I am not trying to talk about the peculiarities of Tokyo. Or, I am not trying to point out the pathologies that developed countries have in common. What I am trying to explain is the modern age that Japan has experienced. I want to analyze how the universal concept of modern or modernism would change and take on the own character with taking Japan as an example. It will help you to understand Japanese culture and architecture and must give you important hints to think about the problems which modernism fundamentally have.
Look at the next picture. It's the monumental architectural structure in Hiroshima by the name of Hiroshima Peace Memorial (Genbaku Dome). As you know, Hiroshima is the first city which suffered a nuclear attack in the human history. I do not try to say "no more nuclear" here, but I think you can feel the threat of the bomb from this building's appearance enough. The building is known as the name of Hiroshima Peace Memorial, but of course, it did not have this name at the beginning. It was constructed before World War II, in 1915, with the name of "Hiroshima Commercial Centre". The Czech architect, Jan Letzel, has designed it. That picture is the figure before being destroyed by the bomb.
I think the appearance of Hiroshima Peace Memorial represents the process that Japan has gone through. Roughly, that process has 2 parts; before and after the atomic bombing.
The urban-scape represented in the comic "Helter Skelter" and in the photo collections "TokyoFuture Century" and "Tokyo Nude" were produced or fictionalized in the world after Hiroshima Peace Memorial. I think you should recall Hiroshima Peace Memorial as the base point when you think about the space of present-day Japan. Actually, the cities in present-day Japan have established on the places ruined by the war. That's why, it is necessary to see the process of modernization after the atomic bombing in the study of architectures and the cities of present-day Japan. But that is not enough yet. Hiroshima Peace Memorial was not the appearance like that originally. It has had the different appearance before the atomic bombing. We need to know that first. Let's deal with the first part of the modernization process narrowly without being impatient.
As I told you, this architecture was designed by the Czech architect, Jan Letzel. Jan Letzel was a member of the governmental invited architects. The government's stable of architects is the architects who were invited to Japan when Japan started to promote modernization.
Modernization of Japan has dramatically begun in the 19th century. Until then, Japan had been closed off to the world and strictly limited interaction with other countries. But in the closed society, Japan had the mature culture in her own way. The first thing you can think of when thinking of the image of modern improvement in Japan may be Samurai. In fact, Samurai have been in authority, and Tokugawa family has particularly taken over the reins of government of all Samurai for 300 years, from the 16th to the 19th century. The period with no changing of power, no war and no bitter civil strife is so long as not to be seen in the world. This period is called Edo period because Tokugawa family located themselves and carried out politics in Edo. Edo is the original name of Tokyo.
Edo period was the time of Samurai's administration, but regarding culture, it was the time that the culture of common men called the town people has matured. The town people include merchants and craftsmen. A kind of play was written a lot in literature, and the style like Ukiyoe was established in painting. Many of you know the impact that Ukiyoe gave to the European impressionism. In the closed society which did not have any war and any change, Japanese culture has matured like this, and the town people have enjoyed their changeless daily lives as such. By the way, the French thinker, Lyotard, said that Japan in Edo period was like the postmodern world. Lyotard had a conscious equation because Edo period was certainly before the days of modernism. But in the sense that the Japanese society did not need the concept of progress and change or threw it away, it might be possible to describe Edo period as the age of postmodern.
But with the end of Edo period, that is with the beginning of modernization, this society has changed completely. In particular, Japan has stopped the national isolation policy which had lasted 300 years and resumed foreign intercourse under the strong pressure of America. Then Japan has faced a very real challenge how we could avoid being a colony of Western countries. Japan had enjoyed postmodern culture in Lyotard-speak for 300 years and has not had any counterplot against Western countries which have developed their skills in diplomacies and wars. Samurai completely had no chance of winning Western modern armies even though they swung swords.
Then what Japan did was to imitate Western countries. Not to be kept under western control, Japan had to be comparable to them. To that end, Japan has thoroughly learned, imitated, and acquired Western culture and given up her traditional culture. Modernization of Japan has begun like this. Westernization and discontinuance of own culture were modernization for Japan. In spite of a difference in times and speed, this situation has happened in other countries too except Western countries. Probably modernization meant giving up the traditional culture in any way in Western countries themselves because that is the universal and essential power that the movement called modernization has.
In view of this, in Japan, it can be said that the modernization's essential power emerged as itself in its pure form or in its particular form under the particular situation. In either case, Japan has experienced it in extreme form indeed. Probably the example that all the people change their hair styles and dresses on finding a certain day cannot be seen except in Japan of the time. And Japan did it in an effort to modernize on her own motive rather than on a mandatory basis as a colony.
Japan has imposed the challenge to carry out modernization on her at a high rate of speed and let excellent human resources study in Europe. The first architect in Japan, Kingo Tatsuno, has learned in Europe at this time. After returning home, he designed "Tokyo Station" and also brought over a great variety of human resources from Europe to help modernization of Japan. Members of the governmental invited architects were also the people who were asked to cooperate for modernization and came to Japan. Jan Letzel who is Czech and designed the prototype of Hiroshima Peace Memorial (Genbaku Dome) was one of them.
By the way, Japan has stopped the national isolation policy and resumed foreign intercourse in the form of bowing to pressure from America, but Japan tried to find the modernization model in European countries besides America. The countries which Japan has sent human resources to and brought over local talents from were European countries, such as England and Germany, and not America (of course there were some exceptions). Several reasons could be named, but I point out the two of them here. One is that 'the history' of modernism was what Japan sought for, and another is that Japan had "the Emperor." And these two are thickly connected.
Modernization is one kind of innovation and could be said it is close to revolution in an extreme case. It asks to throw convention and style away and finds value in freshness. It means modernization is what asks for breaking a history, not complete but partial break. Japan was asked for that complete break when she got pressure from America. Samurai had to throw their swords away, cut off their traditional topknots, and give up their status because of the abolition of class system. Japan was forced to abandon her own culture which has matured for 300 years as old-fashioned.
It can be easily imagined that the classes and hierarchy in Japan felt strong humiliation toward the break of the history forced by external pressure. They might feel a sense of crisis as if they themselves would be broke up. Then what did they seek for? The answer is their old history which is not right before being broken but very much older because that could give their swaying identities a solid form again.
Japan is not the only place where such case could be happened. When someone brings up an old history as a proof of his or her identity, you better think he or she always has such reason. Kojin Karatani who is a literary critic in Japan --- he is a famous critic and was the referee when I received the new face prize of novel --- said that the historical identity was not what was right there but what could be found according to need and convenience. There are students who have U.S. nationality or other nationalities in this class, but I suggest you taking another good look at your own national history.
Let's go back to the case of Japan. What Japan has rediscovered according to need and convenience was the history named "the Emperor." There are various legends concerning Emperor, and it is said that the first Emperor appeared over 2,600 years ago. It is B.C. The name of the first Emperor is Emperor Shinmu, but his existence is negated. It means he is a mythical figure. Including such fictional story, Japan has tried to think of having a competitive history against Europe.
Under such psychological stress, it was natural that Japan chose the European course of modernization rather than the American one. It means Japan has tried to learn modernism in the background rather than in the effect. In other words, Japan could not stand modernism which lacks the background. Japan of nowadays sought for Europe as the origin of modernism rather than America as the representation of it.
If thinking that it was a possible option for politics, Japan might have adopted the presidential system of America or the republican institutions of France. But Japan has modeled on the limited monarchy of England. The reason could be that Japan would like to think of having a history like England.
Consequently, Japanese modern architecture has got started with importing European modern architecture, especially pre-modern architecture which we could easily perceive history in. Earlier, I introduced "Tokyo Station" designed by Kingo Tatsuno. This building still remains and acts as a station house, but its central front gate is always closed because it was designed only for the Emperor. In front of the gate, there is a wide and short pass that runs down into the gate of Imperial Palace. Because the Emperor rarely uses a train as a transportation device now, this gate can hardly open. In any case, we can learn much about the start point of Japanese modernism from the design and planning of Tokyo Station.
Since then, the tendency to import European pre-modern architecture as modernism had lasted for a certain time. At the same time, the movement to try to revaluate Japanese old architecture and space has emerged. The representative example of various evaluation methods was to point out a similarity between the origin of Europe and the Japanese ancient buildings. For example, a philosopher and a writer, Tetsuro Watsuji, wrote a book titled "A Pilgrimage of Old Temple" in 1919. In that book, he says that he found the architectural influence of ancient Greek temples on Toshodai Temple in Nara. Also before him, an architect, Chuta Ito, --- he was an architect who has designed fusion styled buildings like "Tsukiji Hongwanji Temple" --- argued that the bulge in the pillars of Horyuji Temple was the same as the entasis technique that the pillars of the Greek architecture had. Toshodai Temple is the 8th-century, and Horyuji Temple is the 6th-century architecture. What was brought up to rationalize the influence of ancient Greece on Japanese history was the existence of the Silk Road. As you know, the Silk Road was a trading route which crossed Eurasia and connected Roma in the west and China in the east. That is, they insisted that the quintessence of ancient Greece came through the Silk Road and bloomed again in Japan. They thought that the actual end of the Silk Road was Japan, not China. Because of the terminal, Japan could have stocks of culture which might not be found at the station on the way and could have a great fusion of western culture and eastern culture, they insisted.
Historians, architects and scholars at the time seized on this idea. Now it is noted that this insistence does not have any demonstrable proof. It is also difficult to prove that Japan had no influence of Greece at all, but there is no evidence which shows even a quantity of influence. A historian, Shoichi Inoue who is a friend of mine, wrote a book which strongly stated that their reason for bringing up ancient Greece was nothing more than an opposite end of complex. And I agree with him.
Aside from this, soon another theory of revaluating Japanese architecture was born. It was by Bruno Taut. Taut praised Katsurarikyu a great deal. He said that Katsurarikyu was simply sophisticated and has no decorative elements, which is why it has a pregnant space which is as if making eyes possible to think. Simple, sophistication, and elimination of decorative elements; It shares the common goal with modernism architecture. That is, Taut evaluated Katsurarikyu as if the architecture precedent to the modernism architecture. Bruno Taut was, as you know, an architect who took part in Bauhaus with Gropius and Mies. With the rise of the Nazis, Bauhaus was forced to dissolve, and Gropius and Mies went to America. In the meanwhile, Taut defected to Japan in 1933 because he was considered to be sympathizer to Russia by Nazis. After spending 3 years in Japan, he left for Turkey and passed away there.
Taut's evaluation of Katsurarikyu encouraged Japanese architects and intellectuals at the time because they could think that the beauty of modernism has already existed in their history for a lot longer than European has finally found it after their long history. For your information, Katsurarikyu was established in the middle of the 17th century.
Now that Taut mentions it, Japanese people's sense of beauty has a leaning for simple and sophisticated things, such as a tea-ceremony room (tea house). Of course that is not to say that all traditional culture's tastes ran to this trend, and Japan has also built the heavily decorated architecture like Nikko Toshogu Temple. Taut praised Katsurarikyu rather than Nikko Toshogu Temple. Indeed Katsurarikyu is beautiful, but it is obviously not a modern building. Modernism is what arose from the connection between various ideas and technologies, so Katsurarikyu is not a building which expressed modernism in advance of modern architecture.
Nonetheless, Taut's praises for Katsurarikyu has encouraged some Japanese people to think that their culture might have already rose above modern.
In 1942, the table discussion titled "The Conquest of Modernity" took place a few times in a magazine. This discussion held by literary persons and philosophers is really important in Japanese modern history of ideas. Maybe you can imagine the substance of this discussion from the title. It goes like this; Japan has learned European modernism, but European modernism itself had various problems and was at a standstill. That has been declared by Nietzsche and European thinkers themselves already. But look now, Japan is the country not only which has already learned a lot from Europe but also which has superior ideological and cultural repertories to it in her history. Now we must take advantages of our possibilities to create the idea which overcomes modernity and must show it to the world. That is what the global mission given to Japan... It can be said that this kind of discussion have held to justify or to provide rear-echelon support for war because the time was in the middle of World War II.
Now let's come back to Taut again. Taut was an architect of Bauhaus but had a difference from Mies and others. While Mies and others were architects who would organize minimalism, he was an expressionism architect. So, they had completely different styles in that regard. What Taut brought down was such as the drawing titled "Alpine Architecture", and he did not bring down a lot of real works but "Glass Pavilion" in 1941. If you see "Glass Pavilion", you could know as much about his absolute different way of use of glass from Gropius and Mies.
Now many people associate architecture of modernism with formal, simple and minimal form and tend to think that there are not alternatives. But it is wrong in an extreme instance. You could realize it if you see the incunabula of modernism closely. As I showed the example, in Bauhaus where modern design was born, there were a lot of expressionists like Taut. Expressionist is who believes in almost violent expressiveness of forms and languages.
In the 1929s, the crucially important discussion in art history was held in the German magazine "Das Wort", and it was called "Expressionism Debate." It has begun with an expressionistic poet, Gottfried Benn's announcement of pro-Nazi and a Russian literary critic, Lukacs' objection against it. In no time, a lot of artists seriously took part in this debate. Lukacs criticized Benn from a socialist realism standpoint, but futurists, formalists or mavericks participated in the debate as well. This debate valuably offered ideological or artistic insight, so I recommend you reading it if you have a chance.
It was the fierce debate, but what you have to note here is that all participant was the straight 'modernist.' They all must have awoken to the break of history. A Russian literary critic, Bakhtin and Shklovskii, have constructed a theory of formalism. Formalism is to try to evaluate art with its style (form) rather than its content (meaning). It means the liberation from meanings, such as religion and conventional value. As for architecture, it is the liberation from meaning which is constructed by form. Liberated artists could work on anything with form and language as they like. They could show power of architecture with bold molding and could seek for an image detached from history like an Italian futurist, Sant'Elia. Also there were artists who adopt rationalism and think that a simple form was a very thing that had power and artists of molding like Russian formalists. Of course, Gropius was a modernist of this age, too.
As I told you, Taut has come to Japan and after that, deceased in Turkey, but other main architects of Bauhaus, Gropius and Mies, have left for America and succeeded proverbially. Mies's technique was passed on to Philip Johnson and others, and it was established as the international style. The greatest characteristic of Mies's architecture is a universal space which means a free space; usable to any degree, in other words, homogeneous everywhere. Actually, if we evaluate Mies's architecture just with the conventional words, iron (steel), glass and a universal space, we could miss its essential possibility. I remain mum on that now, but anyway, Mies-Johnson line has created the free architecture which has available places for everything. It was very good match with the spatial model which vigorous movements of capitalistic economy requests. The first requisite of economic activity is an efficient place, and it is often the case that expressionistic forms get in the way.
While all of this was going on, Japan, Europe and America had year 1945.
Japan has learned from Europe and has been trying to come through from pre-modern to 'The Conquest of Modernity' at a breath but lost everything in this year, 1945, because of defeat in the war with America. It might be an indicator of limitations of European pre-modernism that Japan has imported or might be an indicator of an impossibility of 'The Conquest of Modernity' And also it took away alternatives of modernism which might be possible in Japan. That is a possibility of a birth of modernism other than Mies-Philip Johnson line and a possibility of expressionism and futurism might have.
Let's look at Hiroshima Peace Memorial (Genbaku Dome) again. This architecture had embodied modernism that Japan had learned from Europe till right before the atomic bombing. Japan had been dreaming of herself which exceeds Europe on an extension of this architecture. But that dream crumbled in the atomic bombing by America. It is also possible to find modernism which lost an opportunity for maturing in Hiroshima Peace Memorial.
Japan in Kishin Shinoyama's photo collection "Tokyo Future Century" has been after a lapse of 50 years since the year of Hiroshima Peace Memorial. In the past 50 years, a lot of things have definitely happened. I will talk about it next time, but note that today's Japanese landscape has started with the form of Hiroshima Peace Memorial (Genbaku Dome).