A special talk event at TSUTAYA TOKYO ROPPONGI with director of Mori Art Museum Nanjo Fumio and Rem Koolhaas, who had travelled to Japan to attend the symposium organized in conjunction with the exhibition "Metabolism, the City of the Future: Dreams and Visions of Reconstruction in Postwar and Present-Day Japan". In a series of five posts, Tokyo Art Beat will take you through the event. Here is the report by Tokyo Art Beat writer Naoki Matsuyama, who moderated the talk.
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Coinciding with the exhibition "Metabolism, the City of the Future: Dreams and Visions of Reconstruction in Postwar and Present-Day Japan" at Mori Art Museum, leading architect Rem Koolhaas and curator Hans Ulrich Obrist will be publishing their new book Project Japan on October 28.
Special Talk to commemorate the publication Project Japan: Metabolism Talks...
By Rem Koolhaas and Hans Ulrich Obrist.
Photo: Mikuriya Shinichiro
To celebrate its launch and limited pre-sale, Koolhaas and Mori Art Museum director Nanjo Fumio spoke at TSUTAYA TOKYO ROPPONGI on September 18, in which I participated as the moderator. In this series, we will look at the thoughts presented in this talk, to search for the reason behind the resurfacing of the interest in Metabolism.
Metabolism, the first Asian avant-garde movement, according to Project Japan, was founded in 1959 by young Japanese architects, theorists and designers like Kurokawa Kisho and Kikutake Kiyonori against the background of the rapid postwar economic growth in Japan. As their name suggests, the Metabolists responded to urgent problems like the sudden increase in population and expansion of cities by proposing large-scale architecture and urban planning that would continue to change in form organically. Epitomized by their involvement in the architectural planning of the era-defining World Exposition held in 1970 in Osaka, their influence went well beyond the realm of architecture, extending to the formation of the image of the nation and its future.
"Metabolism, the City of the Future: Dreams and Visions of Reconstruction in Postwar and Present-Day Japan"
Installation view: Mori Art Museum
Photo: Watanabe Osamu
Through his publications that continue to have a huge impact on architectural theory, Koolhaas has established the significance of urban phenomena such as shopping malls that were often not regarded as worthy of attention, casting an unflinching eye supported by a voluminous research. In this research, Metabolism emerges as a new matter of interest. Where does this interest stem from? Why Metabolism today?
If I look at the global situation now, it's my personal conviction that the level of architecture in Japan is higher than in rest of the world. And if you were to think why that is so, the answer is obviously because there has been the presence of a group of architects that were exceptionally gifted, and who also worked together as a group. If you look at the current landscape of architecture around the world, you see a number of individuals, and those individuals almost never talk to each other. In fact, they're constantly competing with each other and there is not even a remote sense of an architectural community.
Moreover, It is very clear that the initiative in culture is now switching from the West to Asia. And for that reason, I think it's very interesting to look at how the Metabolists, who actively participated in the ending of the Western hegemony of architecture, succeeded in establishing their position.
■Relevant information
・Rem Koolhaas x Nanjo Fumio
(1) Why Metabolism now?
Looking back at the period of the Metabolists through the eyes of today
(2) Why Metabolism now?
Is Metabolism a thing of the past for a shrinking Japan?
(3) Metabolism and Politics
Are politicians and bureaucrats the real "architects"?
(4) Architecture Today and Its Problems
What kind of limitations does Koolhaas feel as an architect?
(5) Architecture Today and Its Problems
・"Metabolism, the City of the Future:Dreams and Visions of Reconstruction in Postwar and Present-Day"
17 September (sat), 2011 - 15 January (sun), 2012
・Mori Art Museum on Flickr
"Metabolism, the City of the Future: Dreams and Visions of Reconstruction in Postwar and Present-Day Japan"
