Professional Documents
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k-024-055 Koolhaas Project Japan Va Litho GB 06769 PDF
k-024-055 Koolhaas Project Japan Va Litho GB 06769 PDF
1931 born in Oita City 1954 graduates from Tokyo University; joins Tange Lab
1959 asked to join Metabolism but declines 1960 participates in Plan for Tokyo
1960 at Tange Lab; completes first building: Oita Medical Hall 1962 participates
in Metabolist exhibition “This Will be Your City” in Tokyo; plans Clusters in the
Air and City in the Air; publishes City Demolition Industry, Inc. 1963 establishes
Arata Isozaki & Associates 1964 Iwata Girls’ High School, Oita 1965 designs
set for Hiroshi Teshigahara’s film Face of Another 1966 Skopje masterplan with
Tange; Oita Prefectural Library 1968 Electric Labyrinth installation for Milan
Triennale is set up but not shown 1969 begins “Dismantling of Architecture”
articles in Bijutsu Techo magazine 1970 Festival Plaza with Tange, Expo ’70 1971
Fukuoka Mutual Bank headquarters 1974 Gunma Prefectural Museum of Fine Arts,
Takasaki; Kitakyushu City Museum of Art; integrates Tange’s and Louis Kahn’s
plans for Abbas Abad New City Development, Tehran 1976 participates in “Man
transform” exhibition at Cooper-Hewitt Museum, New York 1978 Conceives
“Space-time in Japan MA” exhibition, Musée des Arts Décoratifs, Paris; curates
“A New Wave of Japanese Architecture” in the US 1983 Tsukuba Centre Building
1985 Palladium Club, New York 1986 Los Angeles County Museum of Art; loses
to Tange in competition for the new Tokyo City Hall 1988 starts commissioning
architects for public buildings in Kumamoto Prefecture for Kumamoto Artpolis
1990 producer, Expo ’90, Osaka; Art Tower Mito; Palau d’Esports Sant Jordi for
Barcelona Olympics 1991 Team Disney Building, Orlando; designs Louis Kahn
retrospective at Pompidou Center; designs “Visions of Japan” at Victoria &
Albert, London 1995 Kaishi Plan city masterplan for Zhuhai, China 1997 curates
“The Mirage City: Another Utopia” at ICC, Tokyo 2001 publishes Unbuilt 2002
Qatar National Library and National Bank proposals, Doha; masterplans
Education City, Doha 2003 Milano Fiera Redevelopment 2004 designs for Univer
sity of Central Asia campuses in Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Kazakhstan 2007
directs Fukuoka city’s campaign for 2016 Olympics 2008 Central Academy of
Fine Arts, Beijing 2011 Education City Convention Center, Doha
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1936 Sakakura, working
in Le Corbusier’s Yoyogi N
office in Paris, inspects There ha
La Ville Radieuse with hold the
Pierre Jeanneret. in 1940,
had inten
the facili
he visited
Olympic
wrote a b
tecture (
out, and
canceled
his caree
and bec
instead.
later, he
Tange kin
the jury i
petitions
1951 Maekawa listens to Corbu, his 1955 Mentors and protégé: Tange (arms folded)
shima. W
former boss, while in the UK for CIAM. with Hideto Kishida (hand on face), his professor
would ne
at Tokyo University and later a collaborator and
successf
advisor, and Maekawa, his first boss (left).
Hajime Y
Tange and tradition
690 Ise Shrine: Shintoism’s most 1331 Imperial Palace, Kyoto: 1620 Katsura Detached Palace,
sacred shrine. wings enclosing courtyards. Kyoto: raised on pilotis.
1942 Monument to the Greater 1943 Japanese-Thai Culture Center, 1955 Hiroshima Peace Memorial
East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere: Bangkok: palatial Shinden-zukuri Museum: traditional architectural
Shrine-like building for the (compositional form). proportion painstakingly rendered
“sacred” zone of public in high tech earthquake-proof
celebration. concrete.
Okamoto
< 19
rial
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ay
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Tange an
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1959 The pair first cross paths on Okamoto’s Ikojima, aka suppose
Ghost Tokyo, an island of leisure that would float on Tokyo environm
Bay. The scheme is part of a radical new masterplan for it to be in
the entire city, for which Tange contributes expertise and faceless
dispatches his student, Isozaki, to assist. For Expo ’70, an unlikely collaboration forms: no façad
Tange the harmonizer and Okamoto the provocateur, exchang
drinking, smoking, and gesticulating... Then Ok
factiona
make so
So he pu
it. It was
act again
Okamoto’s Tower of the Sun penetrates
Jomon is
Tange’s Big Roof at Expo ’70.
it literally
rope aro
is regard
and pop
Yayoi, w
polished
aristocra
pictures
and said
Forget a
face, go
depth!”
Tange wi
cation an
Jomon, r
deeper t
Akira As
strong ro
Asada w
general,
to help o
ference w
at MIT in
convene
the Meta
up to the
Team 10
Otterlo,
the meet
(Congrè
d’Archite
collapse
by Team
his recen
Kagawa
building
House a
(1958).
Group Fo
“Our idea
stands fi
image w
tecture f
years: th
a single
in itself.”
“Toward
Metabol
Two Tendencies
RK or me, there are two interesting tendencies in Metabolism: one is very formal,
F
very strong, and very harsh, the other shapeless and undefined. [ Draws two
building shapes—one with a striking form, the other blurry.]
AI robably the latter is Group Form, of Maki’s conception. Tange and I, of course,
P
are on the formal side.
RK es, I know. I’m also on that side, unfortunately, so I always have the feeling
Y
that the other side is more interesting. [ laughs ] Do you have any comment
about that side?
AI I guess everyone was on board with the idea that the city is formless and
accidental. However, one does need form to make a project. Here’s the
contradiction.
RK hat I find interesting about Maki is that he himself can’t do “formless”
W
anymore—he also came over to our side! [ laughs ]
AI Any architect who wants to design architecture will. [ laughs ]
Cultural Connections
RK ne Metabolist, Noboru Kawazoe, was a journalist. Was there any connection
O
with writers and other intellectuals? In other words, was architecture at
that point part of a larger cultural movement? Were there Metabolist writers
or Metabolist artists?
AI I don’t think the Metabolists seriously considered their concepts or their
architecture in any cultural context. They were more following developments
in modern architecture or industrial product design. There were artists,
composers, theatre people, photographers, and writers back then in Japan,
of course; not actual groups, but…
RK Connections.
While working in Tange Lab on Plan for Tokyo 1960, Isozaki develops
a new kind of megastructure: the joint core system, with branches
growing off in different directions, creating a hovering network of build
ings. Then, very quickly, his artistic side takes over and he imagines
the megastructure’s demise into Roman ruins. A Metabolic preemption
and absorption of decay, or a cynicism about the future that the
Metabolists are incapable of?
1962 Just before leaving Tange Lab to set up his own office,
Isozaki develops, privately, “Clusters in the Air”—a more radical
solution to Tokyo’s mess than his teacher might allow. Striding
over (ignoring) the chaos of Shibuya, the Clusters—a variation
on the joint core system—allow habitation that begins only
at the limit of Tokyo’s building height law, 31 meters. “Tokyo
is hopeless,” Isozaki declares. “I am no longer going to consider
architecture that is below 30 meters in height … I am leaving
everything below 30 meters to others. If they think they can
unravel the mess in this city, let them try.”7
Eleva
For
Elevator
Escalator
Conveyor belt
Highway
Metro
Integrated transport.
no antipa
Isozaki: “
a peculia
Metabol
belonge
apparen
as a Met
perspec
ing such
foreign p
quoting
work as
Metabol
busy cor
some tim
back, I w
“The only photographer in Japan after the war.” of Metab
Shomei Tomatsu, Ise Bay Typhoon Devastation (1959). member
I particip
organize
Working
to see gr
the diffe
and think
Shinkenc
we thoug
Isozaki w
and it se
was dep
The conc
Plaza wa
produce
source fo
Winter: tensions rise as Tange, suited, and Isozaki, the spac
wearing the sweater, plan the new Skopje. The rapt Friedman
attention of the Japanese clashes with the evident burned w
skepticism of the Westerners. determin
a huge s
the plaza
Summer: Tange draws directly on the tabula rasa of Skopje, for this n
watched by an enforced and ever-enlarging collaboration. ever, rath
the Festi
wanted t
ban spac
immedia
means o
instant c
was grea
Archigra
Walking
this site
Isozaki c
people in
luc inator
duced b
a huge d
scheme
bureauc
urban sp
duced.
Toyo Ito
After Exp
For Japa
1969–70
war turni
national
Tokyo O
’70, the g
my rever
a period
was no lo
pan for T
Kikutake
rest of th
the youth
they pos
Toyo Ito
1966 Tange and Isozaki, attempting to account for Skopje’s ancient remnants and natural
surroundings, nevertheless plan a hypermodern new city replete with joint-core structures.
The masterplan features a classic Tangean central axis and a road system—on multiple
levels, in loops, and merging with the buildings—drawn from their last collaboration,
Plan for Tokyo 1960.
Writing
different
“At first
inevitabl
Working again with graphic designer Kohei Sugiura, Isozaki Kurokaw
expands the boundaries of his profession in a series of covers the two b
for alternative architecture magazine Toshi Jutaku (Urban house). of Tange
long bef
ting quit
acclaim—
‘architec
two iden
The doub
of Isozak
seems to
sible for
works, u
radic als.
never wo
example
Hajime Y
Joseph G
An editor
research
for the M
JOSEPH Grima I was curious to see your recent library and bank projects in Qatar.
How do you feel about the fact that such visionary projects have been totally
decontextualized? There are obviously very similar visual references, but what
do you think about the social context for which your original visionary projects
were conceived versus where they’re being planned now?
RK Can I answer that question? [ laughs ] Sorry.
AI Let me tell you a very funny story. When I was introduced to the Emir of Qatar,
I showed him my book. Looking through it, he stopped at the City in the Air
project from 1962 and said, “Oh, this is very interesting!” I said, “It’s a project
from my student days. Impossible to realize. Just a dream.” But the Emir said,
“No, I want this.” It was very simple. Back in Tokyo I started to work on it,
but still I didn’t want to use the exact same form. At first, I was pushing the top
of the buildings like a stealth aircraft, but he said, “No, no, no!” [ laughs ]
RK He wanted the real thing.
AI The original is so much better!” [ laughs ] The Middle East is a very strange
“
place.
JG It’s really interesting in this regard. But don’t you think it’s become a kind of
logo, a symbol that has been totally decontextualized and reapplied?
RK But that’s where my answer comes in. I think the great newness of Metabolism
super-bi
In 2010, I
a super-
for Chan
Manchu
a museu
the form
a concer
(Inner M
Note
I wrote this story in 1962 when Tokyo was on the first
wave of rapid economic growth, blending the reality
and dream (fantasy) that I then saw.