e
Walkerjohn
Towards Architecture
Kazuo Shinohara, architect
(the original English text first appeared in JA, September 1981)
1. Fighter-plane Elevation
I was very struck by a photograph of the elevation of a fighter plane
labeled-at the bottom of the picture-as one of the most important
craft of
its kind in the United States Naval Air Force. To enable this craft to
perform its special combat functions, all possible technical expertise
and
skill had been lavished on production. But, seen from the elevation,
the
plane lacked the smooth and streamlined form one generally associates
with
aircraft. The square jet intakes, the adjustable wings, and the
fuselage
seemed to have been clumsily connected together so that each could
perform
its functions with maximum efficiency. This startlingly powerful
machine
is capable of producing the image of an intrepid bird in flight. In
contrast, the standard streamlined aircraft recalls an ornamental
water
fowl afloat on a pond.
My reference to this dangerous aircraft-weapon is similar to the
quotational use architects of the early Modern Movement made of
biplanes in
visual analogies to exemplify the relationship between form and
function.
Another example of the same kind of clumsiness is the space craft that
first took man to the surface of the moon. The aluminum-covered
plastic
installed on the craft to protect it from solar heat and minute
meteorites
during its passage through space free of air resistance impressed me
as
being even more roughly assembled than the elevation of the fighter.
Totally lacking in elegance, from an architectural standpoint the
mooncraft
was extremely refreshing for me to behold and made me wonder if a
similar
architecture did not exist.
An architecture of this kind would not be one of associating forms
with
other definite points of reference but would instead cut the form free
of
all extraneous background. It would be a design based on the response
relation between form and function that was a classical theme of
modern
architecture once.
2. Invisible Machine
Though it has lost its absolute nature, the dual association of
function
and form is by no means without effect today. However, half a century
of
technological development has altered the conditions for this
fundamental
architectural theme. From the two photographs I mentioned I discovered
a
solution to the problem of function and form. But the machine objects
in my
analogy are no the mechanical bodies themselves but only parts of
them. Of
course, the mooncraft could be called a complete machine, but in
effect it
was only the nose of a much larger mechanical assemblage. The analogy
between form and function and the machine is derived not from the
whole,
but from the parts.
The particular fighter represented is capable of dealing with
twenty-four
distant enemy targets, six of which can be struck simultaneously with
missiles. The essential nature of the latest weaponry is to be found
in
invisible mechanisms making this kind of action possible. It is not a
characteristic manifested in solid, physical matter.
New products resulting from novel technology have a freshness of shape
that
nourishes the theme of function and form. As l have said, whereas the
architects of the 1920s used the machine as a whole in their
analogies, I
prefer to employ only a part and even then do not always make visual
analogies.
In today's newspaper (July 13, 1981), I saw an advertisement claiming
that
the world's largest electronic brain was contained within a package no
more
than 50 cubic centimeters and could operate one basic circuit
calculation
in 350/l,000,000,000,000 of a second.
Human beings often employ spatial modifiers to express the semantic
contents of words-'high' performance or 'close' relations are
examples.
The classical idea of the relation between form and function was
predicated
on this customary way of thinking. Today, 'big' does not mean
powerful.
Elevating the performance level of calculators depends first of all on
technology for the minimization of heat generation in circuitry. When
this
obstacle was overcome, calculators steadily diminished in size. In
other
words, the simple rectilinear relation between form and function was
invalidated.
The participants in the Modern Movement of the 1920s made form and
function
a central issue and, working with it, developed a series of
revolutionary
solutions. However, it was this same theme that caused some people to
declare, a few decades later, that the Modern Movement had died. It
seemed
then that all beautiful, fresh answers to the issue had been
exhausted.
Technology was altered to render the rectilinear, straightforward
operations of Modern Architecture inefficacious. It is, however,
mistaken
to assume from this that the very issue of form and function has lost
its
validity.
3. Tokyo Anarchy
Boarding a plane in Accra, the capital of Ghana, in the morning, I
arrived
in Geneva while it was still light. The orderly streets of this city,
one
of the cleanest and loveliest in Europe, had a slightly stifling
effect on
me as I walked them. In contrast, the capitals of the several West
African
nations I had been visiting had seemed lively and bustling. Along
their
streets stand buildings copied from their suzerain states, painted in
bright African colors and placed beside small, cheaply built
structures.
The total impression can scarcely be called beautiful from the Modern
architecture standpoint. But the outrageousness of the scene charms,
along
with the brightly clad, gracefully moving people who live there.
By no means a beautiful city, Tokyo has a quality of its own, a mood
that
is totally unlike those of spacious modern European cities with their
great
weight and mass of tradition. Even from the standpoint of Modernist
urban
theory, the main streets of small west African capitals are more
orderly
than what is to be found in Tokyo. No city in the world demonstrates
the
variety of building types or the disorder of decorative surface colors
and
forms that Tokyo offers. Chaos is the only word to describe the total
effect. Still, l cannot unconditionally reject the chaos of this city.
Chaos precedes destruction. But from place to place, in the vast
village
that is Tokyo, vitality and activity charge the streets to make this
one of
the most exciting cities in the world.
In the past, Tokyo was a sprawling aggregate of wooden domestic and
other
architecture practically never more than two stories. A hundred years
ago,
when the nation underwent a reversal of political direction and
launched a
program of modernization and Westernization, the low wooden buildings
were
gradually replaced with copies or imitations of European-style
architecture. The main parts of the city burned in World War II but
have
since been rebuilt on a scale larger than before. The miraculous
development into an industrialized society that made this possible
filled
the city with all kinds of industrial products and the planless
distribution of which was tolerated by an apathetic Japanese society.
One aspect of this tolerance-or absorption power-is the way Japanese
people
use forms and even words borrowed from their parent cultures in purely
decorative ways. If the words look nice, their true meaning is a
matter of
no importance. Foreign words often appear as shop and product names in
situations that are not actually suited to true semantic contents and
in
colorful mixture with Chinese characters and the characters of the
Japanese-syllabary systems. Foreign words and their Japanese-syllabary
transcriptions appear side by side in colors for which there seems to
be no
system of orderly selection. At night, the scene becomes more dazzling
with the inclusion of a high-industrial society's amusement
technology.
Though it is possible to condemn all this as chaos, a 'culture' that
has
advanced to such a stage still deserves a fair evaluation.
4. Progressive Anarchy
At one time I participated in a judging panel for the 'Consultation
internationale pour L'amenagement du Quartier des Halles,' in Paris. I
was
slightly surprised to hear the ease with which French architects talk
about
urban axes and urban symbolism. A Japanese architect who lives in
Paris
explained to me that this was not unordinary, but A could not help
reflecting that the application of such terms to town planning in
Japan
would require cautious consideration. The axis in Europe stirs up
associations with planning during imperialism of Fascism. But
symbolism
for Japanese is automatically associated with emperor worship.
For me, the city must be considered with Tokyo as a starting point.
Pursuing the European city image is an illusion, as were the
megalomaniac,
technologically ordered city projects fashionable twenty years ago.
This
is more than a matter of taste; I can see no other valid starting
point
than the chaos that is Tokyo.
Small wooden houses are still a part of Tokyo anarchy. Their strictly
ordered interiors suggest the persistence, even in fragmentary form,
of the
culture that produced the tea ceremony, ikebana floral arranging, and
the
No drama. But the effective limits of these old customs extend only to
the
small, immediate spaces of daily life and not as far as local
neighborhoods, let alone the city. Still the same system of order
transcends the city space to find application in politics and society,
where it provides an old-fashioned vertical hierarchy for the symbolic
emperor system and for the organization of big business.
The European system, in which personal freedom is established in the
small
space of the home and leads to the planning of republican freedom in
the
larger city space, is a inversion on all levels of the Japanese One.
In the design of a single building, the method whereby anarchy is
expressed
as a major subject can lead to the establishment of an architectural
logic.
This is not to say, however, that the problem of anarchy is solved on
a
miniature scale. Any building that sets out to be no more than a part
of
anarchy is unable to deal with anarchy. I have no use for miniatures
that
adulate anarchy.
In Tokyo's busiest districts, each building, each signboard, seems
convinced that it is the most beautiful and the most conspicuous in
the
neighborhood.
Anarchy cannot logically be a method: simplification and abstraction
are
opposed to it. Expectations can be placed on anarchy, not from a
planning
standpoint, but only from the standpoint of probabilities. The
greatest
probability for anarchy to produce vitality and liveliness occurs when
buildings designed and produced on the basis of the most advanced
technology of the age and replete with totally decorous beauty are
submerged in the planlessness of the street.
If this too is unsatisfactory, the architect could try to plan
specified,
orderly regions using ideas raised by brilliant skin to a religious
level,
not unlike the 'ville radieuse'. But, no matter how much brilliance
used
to design them, even radiant cities are likely to be buried in drastic
chaos by their surrounding regions. The illogical gap between this and
orderly spaces nourishes the vitality of chaos.
To ensure its continued vitality, progressive anarchy must constantly
alter
its structure. Vitality is in a sense synonymous with urban freedom. A
city that is ceaselessly generating such vitality is mankind's
greatest,
unintentionally created machine.
5. An Interlude
The masters of Modern architecture pursued the combination of form and
function in some works with religious self-control. Architects eager
to
produce works that were opposed to the spirit of Modernism boldly
disregarded the classical rule between form and function. In other
words,
they capriciously combined forms that were thought to have no need to
conform to functional demands.
Architects felt free from functional restraints and directed their
attentions towards operations upon
forms. They placed operation on top of operation and pursued this
simplistic one-way street to still further operations. Modernist
thought
had strongly stressed experiments in conforming to new materials and
structures, new techniques, and changes in domestic and social life.
The
opponents of Modernist thought, however, consider all this
meaningless.
Though they have acquired maximum freedom in the creation of forms,
their
architecture is nevertheless destined to follow a one-way
street. Modern Architecture can be compared to a long first act of a
play.
The audience had become bore towards the end and now welcomes a brief,
Light, comical interlude full of irony and parody on the action that
has
already taken place. But the audience accepts this only as an
interlude
that does not need to be taken seriously. "Everyone laughs at a good
joke
on first hearing. Repeated hearings of the same
anecdote rarely provoke mirth."*l
Attempts of this kind represent differentiations and reinterpretations
of
history divorced from their significant context, and reassembled in
comical
parodies. It is a fashion. It is logically correct for anti-Modernist
architecture to reintroduce the old styles that Modern architecture
rejected, as long as reintroduction incorporates the operations of
differentiation and reinterpretation.
The orthodox interpretation of traditionalism is one in which the
present
culture is seen through the past. The time gap between the time at
which
the so-called traditional element was created and the time when it is
used,
involves unintentional differentiation and reinterpretation that are
difficult to avoid, Architecture in which this process is intentional
and
in which method is central is of an entirely different kind.
Corresponding to a disillusionment with technology some Japanese
architects
abandoned their pursuit of Western thought and attempted to find new
architectural knowledge in old Japanese traditions. In cultural
fields, it
is not uncommon, especially in Japan for artists to return after a
period
of vigorous exploration, to an evaluation traditional values in their
old
age. This approach presupposes encounters
with mythical spaces that transcend all historical fact. Though
characterized by a different circuit, this too is a kind of
traditionalism.
Tradition is wide, therefore, at the necessary time, it will allow
free
interpretation, but tradition is mighty and so will always invalidate
any
mistaken interpretations.
I have always regarded the Japanese architectural tradition seriously
and
through my association with it evolved a number of definitions
concerning
the character of Japanese space. The Japanese architectural tradition
has
provided me with both concepts and methods fundamental to my
architecture
at the present. It paved the way for my abstract architecture.
Today, tradition no longer occupies my thoughts. I regard present
reversions to tradition and history as being nothing more than
interludes,
and l suspect that soon the second act of Modern architecture will
begin,
and it will begin with a redefinition of function.
6. Homage to the Spirit of the 1920s
Orderly, geometric, identical steel-and-glass high-rise buildings
arranged
along a spine vanishing to a point such as those in 'le viIIe
radieuse'
crystallized the method and thought of architecture of the 1920s. But
history left its dreams unfulfilled with 'le ville radieuse' being
only an
ephemeral, bright apparition in architectural history.
>From the early stage of my career, my concept of the city connoted
chaos.
Nonetheless, I still have great respect for 'Le viIIe radieuse' as a
summation of the spirit of the 1920s. Its blueprints are fiction, but
not
illusion.
A rigorously ordered, transparent building of steel and glass was once
planned and such revolutionary answers to the issue of the combination
of
form and function demonstrated the essential nature of the Modern
architecture of the twenties. This outstanding architect of the time
created an almost religious regularity between form and function. He
strove
to produce maximum meaning through minimum
vocabulary and syntax. Although one system and one form unifies their
entire spaces, this was not his final goal. He sought unbounded
freedom
above all. My initial goal was to evoke definite expressions in a
single
space by using one theme and a minimum number of operations. White
responding to Japanese architectural tradition, I had the greatest
admiration for the masters who produced splendid solutions to the
question
of function and form operating within a different environment but a
common
context.
I no longer attempt to unify all spatial elements for the sake of one
major
theme, even at this new stage in my career, l sense a freedom in using
minimal elements and syntax. For this reason, I revere the architect
who
produced primary spaces in steel and glass for the sake of ordering
everything to a single intention.
It is unlikely that the Modern architecture of the 1920s would, if
resuscitated, have any meaning. In the early part of my career. I
tried
not to follow the way of Western Modern architecture via its Japanese
counterpart. An emotional encounter with the Japanese architectural
heritage encouraged me to give up my former speciality for
architecture and
helped me choose my architectural starting point.
This led me to freeze temporarily the admiration I have then for the
architecture of the twenties. Then, following its own particular
contextual course, my own architecture gradually approached the
machine,
that crystallization of the spirit of the 1920s. I even now employ the
same word. My passage through the spirit of the 1920s was essential.
7. Zero-degree Machine
Since I do not believe in the existence of total meaninglessness, I am
convinced that something relative can result even from elements that
have
lost meaning and have been reduced to the zero degree. A major theme
of my
work, the search for zero degree established a context in which
meaning was
eliminated from symbolic space. l do not plan to return along the path
I
have trodden but turn to start again in a new direction. My new
destination is a primary space, a functional space. Since what l
call my second style, I have used various adjectives to describe the
points
I have passed: neutral, inorganic, naked, and so on. Tangents drawn
through these points all meet in the domain of the machine. Since the
late
seventies, the machine has been my major theme.
I selected the machine, one of the elements that is thought to have
made
Modern architecture barren, as a means of visualizing my own ideas
about
architecture. Though this may look an anachronism, it is, in fact
something
that has autonomously developed along the path my architecture has
followed.
If symbolic meanings remain, they are stripped away. Parallel with
this, a
check operation is performed to halt all movement in the direction of
conceptual assembly. I call a machine a physical system in which
objects
are simply joined together in a 'sachlich' manner.
Unquestioning faith in technology resulted in 'la ville radieuse' and
the
'glass skyscraper'. The machine as an architectural analogy connoted
sleekness, clarity, and unity. The outstanding architects of the 1920s
had
a vision of the near future of society and the city. Their brilliant
projects were happy synchronizations of the fact and functions in a
period
of social revolution.
The machine I am attempting to put together is a set of parts with
zero
meaning. Even I am not certain what rules I shall find most suitable
for
the joining of such parts. Anarchy and clumsiness are parts of both
the
city and technology that arrest my attention at the present. My
zero-degree machine will be assembled under the same conditions as the
machine used as an architectural analogy in the 1920s, since it will
have
'function' as its keyword. But my machine will not be international.
It
will have a name and nationality clearly indicated.
*l: Bruno Zenvi pointed this out in a lecture he delivered in Tokyo,
in
March 198l.
Sérgio
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