Reviews | Documents

Japan-ness in Architecture

ARATA ISOZAKI

MIT Press, 2006

350 pages, illustrated

$29.95 (cloth)

Since its opening to the world after centuries of

self-imposed isolation, Japanese architecture has been

subject to a two-sided dialectic. From the Euro-

American curiosity with Japanese exotica in the

mid-nineteenth century to Japans willful embrace of

Western styles in the thirties; from Bruno Tauts 1933

proclamation of the Ise shrine and Katsura Villa as the

ultimate Japanese archetypes to Kenzo Tange and

Yasuhiro Ishimotos 1960 documentation of the same

villa as a series of Mondrianesque compositions; and

from Metabolisms capsule towers to Tokyos Disney-

land, both Japanese and Western architects have

with equal narcissismconcocted the complex and

contradictory Japanese architectural scene we

encounter today. Despite this century of cross-cultural

encounters, the premise of what constitutes Japan-

ness in architecture remains as elusive as a Zen koan.

Japan-ness moves roughly in 25- to 30-year

cycles (p. 103) notes Arata Isozaki in Japan-ness in

Architecture, the latest manifesto in this intellectual

lineage, which is at least as sophisticated, if not more

provocative, than his peer Kisho Kurokawas Redis-

covering Japanese Space (Weatherhill, 1989). For

those who know Isozaki, this is a long overdue

compilation of his twenty years of writing packaged

under the eponymous title of Sutemi Horiguchis

1934 predecessor as a tribute to Horiguchis taste,

courage and scholarship (p. 338) and awaited with

as much anticipation as Charles Moores You Have to

Pay for the Public Life anthology (MIT Press, 2001).

For those unfamiliar with Isozakis writings, this is

a refreshing discourse on the problematics of

Japanese architectureindeed on the dilemmas of

all architecture in an increasingly globalizing milieu

by a superior architectural mind, whose impeccable

scholarship, breadth of both Eastern and Western

history, and critical presence in Japanese Modernism

enables him to take on well-worn subjects while

revealing new insights at every turn.

Superbly translated by Sabu Kohso, the books

quartet structure nonetheless seems relatively simple:

Part I consists of seven chapters elaborating Japans

embrace of Modernism and eventual globalization;

Parts II, III, and IV discuss three historic paradigms as

pointers to the dilemmas of Japan-ness. Perhaps one

is better off not being bogged down by a linear

reading, instead darting through it like a set of mul-

ticolored haikuslike Yoshida Kenkos thirteenth-

century Essays in Idlenesseach a whack of a Zen

masters stick. Whether a hypothesis validated by case

studies or conclusions derived from meticulous

research, the point is that there is more to digest in

every individual fragment than the book as a whole.

Isozaki excavates the contradiction lurking

behind the Ise shrines elusive history (Part II): its

repetition of relocation and rebuilding repel[ling]

the blind process of history (p. 146) to preserve its

fabricated origin (p. 169) and identity over time.

An insightful trilogy on the Katsura Villa (Part IV)

challenges Tauts, Horiguchis, and Tanges influential

contemporary interpretations of the infamous re-

treat, positing a new one: Katsura as a subjective

Janus-like construct appearing as either shoin or

sukiya, according to the viewpoint of the observer

(p. 281). Isozaki thus strips away the century-old

veneer that has masked these two buildings as the

predominant allegories of Japan-ness.

As such the books most refreshing contribution

is the fourteen essays on the monk Chogens recon-

struction of the Todai-ji temple (Part III). There are

many things to digest here: Chogens reorganization

of traditional canons, his political strategy to syn-

cretise the worship of Ise and Todai-ji, and an

extraordinary comparison of Chogen and Brunelleschi.

But it is the unveiling of Todai-jis Southern Gate-

housethe Nandai-monas the one extant

Japanese historical masterwork, having neither

antecedent nor offspring (p. 243), that introduces a

new formal constructivist perspective of Japan-ness,

debunking the austere, minimalist stereotype that

has haunted the concept for decades.

Part I affirms Isozakis critical role in the

dilemmas of contemporary Japanese architecture.

Beginning at the cusp of Japans Modernization,

from Wrights Imperial Hotel to Tanges Hiroshima

Memorial, his exposure to the clear advocacy of the

modern subject (p. 55) in the mid-fifties forges his

rendezvous with the Metabolism movement in the

sixties. And his suspicion of the Western plaza as

Japans new democratic paradigm in the seventies

fuels his transplanted urbanism (p. 75) in the

controversial Tsukuba Centerliterally inverting

Michelangelos Campidoglioin the eighties, all

embodying his continuous struggle to marry

Japanese and Western thought: For Japanese

Modernistsand I include myselfit is impossible

not to begin with Western concepts.That is to say, we

all begin with a modicum of alienation, but derive

a curious satisfactionas if things were finally set in

orderwhen Western logic is dismantled and

Journal of Architectural Education,

pp. 6671 2007 ACSAreviews | documents 66

returned to ancient Japanese phonemes. After this

we stop questioning (p. 65).

Perhaps these words best capture Isozakis

conundrum: What is Japanese about Japanese

architecture? The answer drifts somewhere between

Japan and the West, somewhere between Japans own

nostalgia and utopia, recurrently mutating and reincar-

nating itself, evading any fixed recognition. It is hard,

even for Isozaki who has been at the very eye of the

vortex, to objectify Japan-ness even as he cannot stop

contemplating it. LikeWalter Benjamins reading of Paul

Klees Angelus Novusthe Angel of Historyhe

gapes at a wrecking past, even as a storm irresistibly

propels him into a future to which his back is turned.

The debris is Japans traditions; the storm is Japans

mutations.

Vinayak Bharne

67 reviews | documents