Expo '70 as the Ruins of Culture (1970)

Author(s): Haryū Ichirō and Ignacio Adriasola

Source: Review of Japanese Culture and Society , DECEMBER 2011, Vol. 23, Expo '70 and
Japanese Art: Dissonant Voices (DECEMBER 2011), pp. 44-56
Published by: University of Hawai'i Press on behalf of Josai University Educational
Corporation

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 Expo '70 as the Ruins of Culture (1970)
Haryu Ichiro

Translated by Ignacio Adriasola

An editor invited me to preview the nearly completed site of Expo '70 in the middle of
January. Last year, I wrote several essays that were critical of the exposition, but they were
based solely on documentation. This was the first time I had actually visited the grounds
of the exhibit. I admit having felt slightly overwhelmed and curious every time I drove
by the site, watching the observation tower growing taller and taller, the construction
cranes moving, and the colorful roofing and walls being built. However, viewing it
on this occasion, from the third floor of the press center, the site, with its colorful and
bizarre experimental architecture, seemed cozy and neat, like a street made of sweets,
or a miniature garden packed inside a box.
The site inhabits 3,300,000 square meters- it is larger than the previous expo held
in Montreal - and is said to be eight times the size of the Kõshien Baseball Stadium.1
For the Montreal World's Exposition in 1967 , an artificial island was specially built
in the middle of a river, and the plan was acclaimed for fully exploiting the complicated
natural topography and waterways, including the riverbanks opposing the island.
However, for the expo at Osaka, a beautiful bamboo grove was uprooted and turned
into a plateau of red earth. After pouring concrete over it, they split the site down the
middle with a highway, messily cramming the majority of the exhibition's pavilions
into its northern half. As for the architecture, while there are geometric forms that
soar toward the sky and creep along the earth, there are also ghosts of insects and
seashells; in between them, the site is dotted with traditional architectural styles such
as a seven-storied pagoda and a traditional minka- style home.2 It all looks false, like a
façade, and the only impression it leaves is of superficiality. I felt as if strange beings
from a planet afar had arrived, descended, and built overnight a village that no human
being could ever inhabit.

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 Haryu Ichiro

In reality, the mass media had been making noise about the slow pace of the
construction work for Expo '70 two years ago, but everybody seemed to believe that,
if worse came to worse, our special "kamikaze construction methods" would put them
back on course. In this case, this kamikaze mentality and the computer colluded,
rationalizing everything from building techniques to materials, down to the management
of participants, and supposedly succeeded in cutting down the waste of time and labor.
In most of the pavilions, the architecture, similar to prefabricated construction, was made
of units produced in factories, transported to the site, lifted with cranes, and assembled
with bolts and other types of joinery. Therefore, the construction companies and Expo
'70 officials proudly announced that the threat of labor shortage that had been initially
predicted had completely disappeared. Such streamlining of architectural structures and
construction techniques was employed to freely transform shapes and defy gravity so that
people would be surprised upon sight. Because of this, the expo architecture looks like
papier-mâché or origami, in spite of the use of the newest technologies, a large budget,
and its gigantic forms.
Okamoto Tarô's Tower of the Sun, located at the center of the expo grounds,
was meant to oppose the sophisticated modernism of its surrounding architecture, a
thorough anachronism that would celebrate the innocence and power of sheer life-
force. The figure, with its three faces and open arms, even before it recalls a likeness
to Miró, Picasso, or Mexican art, represents the essence of Okamoto: a monument full
of exhibitionistic desire. But seen from afar, it appears as if the Symbol Zone's Grand
Roof is choking its neck, while it painfully fakes a laugh and peeks at the sky. This is
Okamoto himself, the themed exhibits' producer, who has subjectively attempted to reject
the grandiose nationalism and the myth of economic prosperity being promoted by the
government and monopoly capital. And yet, even as he tries to praise the life-force and
possibility of humanity from his anthropological perspective, in effect, he demonstrates
symbolically how this anthropological viewpoint and belief in the life-force are both
becoming important pillars that support the system's ideology.
I am not sure if it is because I first saw the site buildings without any exhibits or
visitors, but, to me, the site seemed like the huge set for a Western film, or a ghost town
abandoned by its residents. Why does this papier-mâché city that dreams about the
future remind me so much of things that are already prone to decay, the things of the past,
or rather, that which exudes the impression of ruins? It is not just because to facilitate
demolition after the event is over that the architecture has been built to be disassembled.
Neither is it because dynamite is already lodged within the concrete walls. It is because
the reality of the everyday and the rawness of the present have been completely stripped
away, and therefore all images of the future momentarily fade, turning into the past.
Even so, the mass media and the corporations have been giddily hyping up the "expo
mood" ( banpaku müdo ), and as this papier-mâché city opens its doors, and the masses
assemble, the impression of ruins will only become stronger. An expo employee told me

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Haryu Ichiro

that the one problem the organizers are concerned with right now is how to manage the
chaos within the site; they don't even have enough toilets. As a spectacle, the expo will
most probably be a success. However, the plan for what to do with the grounds once the
event is over, which should have been part of the original proposal, has not even been
decided upon yet.
The same night of my visit to the exhibition grounds, I attended a rally against
Expo '70 in Suita.3 Since last year, I have attended a number of such events, but here the
feeling of impatience was much more intense. Because of the expense of the expo, Suita
and the surrounding cities are on the verge of financial collapse; expo-related pollution
has spread, yet voices of opposition and the citizen's demands have not materialized.
In fact, this was the first rally to have been organized in Suita. The movement against
Expo '70 spread as part of the struggle against the U.S.-Japan Security Treaty (Anpo).4
For the organizers behind Expo '70, its significance isn't merely that of deflecting the
arrows of the anti- Anpo movement and celebrating super-power nationalism. In terms
of economics, Expo '70 stands for the liberalization of capital, the reorganization and
strengthening of industry in order to achieve economic domination over Asia; in terms of
culture, under the banner of the information revolution, the expo represents the merging
of science and art and the use of technology in order to consolidate and manage ideology
within the system. Considering these various dimensions, throughout this preparation
process, which has been replete with seemingly disparate calculations and miscalculations,
Expo '70 has revealed a blueprint for the structure of domination of the 1970s.
Last autumn's struggle to prevent Prime Minister Sato's visit to the United States
led to a rapid increase of police surveillance, with the so-called New Left sects hitting
the wall.5 Ever since the U.S.-Japan Joint Declaration preceded the restructuring and
strengthening of the Anpo system, the movement against Expo '70 has also reached
its limit.6 The dominant class carelessly laughed off the idea that Expo '70 was a fig
leaf for concealing the reinforcement of the Anpo system, while it simultaneously took
strict measures to guard the expo. Amidst this atmosphere, as belated as it may seem,
the people of Suita needed to plan a reorganization of their struggle against the Anpo
system, using criticism of Expo '70 as a lever. During our debate, we discussed both the
differences and connections between things that must be done and could be done with
a few people, and things that could be done by mobilizing larger numbers of people.
Beginning with the premise that the most important thing was contemplating the total
structure of domination of the 1970s, as I discussed above, and opening up the possibility
of a cultural revolution from below, I explained that it was necessary to see how
different actions are at once related but also different from each other- for instance, the
citizens' movement for transparency in expo finances that aims toward the disclosure of
local government budgets, and public appeals such as street protests. And yet, as I said
this, I could not help but feel, at that time, the distance between the people gathered at
Suita, and the masses of spectators that would soon cover and bury the expo grounds.

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 Haryu Ichiro

I have already visited Expo '70 twice since its opening. On the day of the
opening ceremony, there were six thousand guests and six thousand policemen; what
most impressed me was that there were police placed every few meters between the
airport and the expo site. Still, at noon, those typical Japanese tourist groups raised their
flags and marched in, wearing their sashes and ribbons, and soon became the bizarre
protagonists of Expo '70. These visitors had probably signed contracts with their travel
agents over a year ago, decided on a schedule built around the opening ceremony, and
waited hopefully for this day to arrive. Ever since forgetting the true significance of
the festival ( matsuri ), people have waited patiently and submissively for their "mas-
ters" ( okami ) to bestow a festival on them.7 Once spectators arrive at the place they
have longed to visit, they are forced to wait in long lines everywhere and rush through
the exhibits regardless of choice or their preferences, and then buy matching hats and
gifts at the shop. The moment at which they are released from their status as passive
spectators and feel liberated and ecstatic as they become the true protagonists of the
festival never really arrives. Other than the satisfaction of the memory of having visited
Expo '70, the only thing that will remain is deep exhaustion. But isn't the driving force
behind Japan's economic prosperity what both enables Expo '70 and is celebrated by
it- a fearsome industriousness that hides beneath a seemingly perfect passivity? Every
time I meet such groups of tourists I feel the urge to shake their hands, and think, "Oh!
Your masters have trained you so well!"
Most of the scholars, artists, designers, and engineers that have participated in
Expo '70 are in essence just like those agricultural-cooperative-led tourist groups. One
day, their "master" set up a festival called "Expo '70" and these patient industrious
worker-ants swarmed to the job, overcome by a sense of purpose to boost Japan's
cultural prowess and condense the future into a single point. Since the end of the
shogunate, for Japan, universal expositions have served as a panorama that brings
together all of the world and civilization, establishing a roadmap for the future.
However, there is the peril of such a map of the future being misapprehended as
reality. The participants in Expo '70 must gradually confront the rift between public
appearance ( tatemae ) and private thoughts ( honne ). They cling to the logic of
appearances, while waiting for the day the festival will start, and yet the moment of
a true feeling of liberation never arrives. While spectators come expecting to satisfy
their individual desires, they are co-opted by superpower nationalism and economic
prosperity, and they, who are the shrine maidens ( miko ) of this festival, end up merely
satisfying their own individual desires under the public aims of the future city and
the information revolution. We ourselves can't claim to be disconnected from this
link between spectators and shrine virgins. Yet if this is indeed the case, who then
is this invisible god enshrined at the heart of this enormous festival?

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Haryu Ichiro

Tange Kenzô's basic plan for the expo site aimed to create the future city: the Symbol
Zone- its information center- would be the tree-trunk; the monorail that is suspended
in the sky and the moving walkways, its branches; and the exhibition spaces that lie in
between, blooming flowers. Above the Symbol Zone, the Grand Roof made of polyester
film, 108 meters wide by 292 meters long, is supported by six pipes. Not only does
the roof protect against the rain, filtering the sunlight and shining in the sky by night: it
also serves as the promenade that connects the suspended theme exhibits. Incidentally,
the use of the space frame as the Grand Roofs structure came from Yona Friedman's
plans for the Spatial City.8 However, in this case, there is no proposal for residences
or transportation. Like the spectators who inadvertently walk through this attic prove,
this semi-transparent street was simply built to be passed over. The Tower of the Sun I
mentioned earlier penetrates the middle of the roof and also serves as a staircase.
The Festival Plaza, which lies north of the tower, was designed by Isozaki Arata' s
group to combine the characteristics of a town square, a theater, and an environment
( kankyõ ).9 It is full of light and opens to the outside, but it differs from an outdoor
plaza in that it is a "mechanic space" staged by a computer system, furnished with
two robots, lighting, sound, and control devices. Further, unlike a theater enclosed
by walls, the moving spectators' seats and stages are scattered about. The difference is
not only that a scenario is being played out, the spectators themselves also react to
accidental events: this is an "environment as an interactive site." Isozaki' s group is
against creating monumental forms, such as the ones seen at past universal expositions.
For them, the experience and situation of the people who have gathered at the expo
is itself an "invisible monument."

This plan to create an invisible monument is the only one at Expo '70- which
dreams about an optimistic future based on technological development- that considers the
unfathomable "present," and succeeds in achieving its aim: to make people conscious o
the everyday as it is. And yet there is no other instance in this expo where concepts have
been more brutally betrayed by reality than in the case of the Festival Plaza. This pla
which was meant to be an "invisible monument," is wholly undermined by the Tower
the Sun's exaggerated claim to monumentality. Upon entering the plaza and looking u
at the gigantic image, the spectator suddenly perceives his own insignificance. In suc
a wide-open, monotonous space, can people meet, interact, and lose themselves in th
experience? The majority of the events that take place here are either shows by famo
performers or traditional dances, and musical performances from various countrie
events that all prevent spectators from freely participating. One day, when a group
young men and women started go-go dancing to the music during an interval betwee
scheduled performances, the expo guards immediately stopped them. It is said that sin
then the organizers have adopted an extremely defensive attitude toward happenin
taking place at the plaza. The plaza, which was supposed to liberate people from the

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 Haryu Ichiro

everyday existence, has, on the contrary, become a symbol of Expo '70: a plaza built by
power and imposed on the spectators.
Like the decision to place the Festival Plaza at the heart of the expo site shows,
much importance was given to the various plazas that structure the site. Serving as
terminals for the elevated monorail and moving walkways, as well as the ground-level
roads, these seven smaller plazas are named after the days of the week. There one
finds restaurants, shops, phone boxes, and information booths; the place is designed
to resemble a city's downtown area ( sakariba ). However, benches lacking even backs
to lean on line the concrete floors and these green-less, grassless spaces are barren
landscapes that are not conducive to relaxation. While a large Japanese garden was
built at the northern side of the site, as if to embody the essence of all the traditional
arts, the surroundings of the exhibition pavilions completely lack natural elements.
People merely sit down for a moment, drink, eat, and shop as fast as they can, and
simply move on. This is not a liberated public square that was earned from fighting the
authorities: it is a square from which rest, dialogue, and the exchange of commodities
and information is entirely missing; it is merely a miniature version of the reality of
contemporary Japanese cities.
Many of the pavilions soar into the sky and burrow into the underground. The
exhibition rooms center around projected images, are dark and labyrinthine, and the
spectators wander up and down the womb-like space, as if at a funhouse. Outside, the
moving walkways and the monorail dominate all that can be seen. If you are tired and
try to use one of these modes of transportation, there is no option other than joining the
long lines to climb the stairs. Moreover, the moving walkways move at the same speed
as humans and run parallel to the walkways on the ground- they lack any function
except as a pedestrian bridge. This is supposed to tell the story of the development of the
future city, but it appears, rather, as a mere extension of the chaos of the contemporary
city, where today we walk through underground passages, cross over pedestrian bridges,
and pass through busy streets. In other words, here, the position of the spectator who
walks on the ground is completely ignored. It is obvious that there was no proposal to
solve actual congestion and pollution, including that of the electric cars and ropeway
that traverse the expo grounds.
In contrast with the Montreal Expo, where an artificial island was built in the middle
of a river, at this expo a bamboo grove was cleared to make way for an artificial pond,
where large works by sculptors from around the world were placed amid fountains. The
Fuji Group Pavilion and the Mitsui Group Pavilion, along with the American Pavilion,
highlighted the air as an important architectural element. The joint Scandinavian Pavilion
however, whose three countries have the world's cleanest air and water, decided to feature
environmental pollution as its common theme. And yet despite being the nation that has
the worst pollution in the world, Japan has not even attempted to address this in any of
its pavilions. As its symbols for the future, Japan proudly promotes district cooling and

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Haryu Ichiro

an artificial sun, even if in Europe and the United States regional and district heating has
been a reality for quite some time, thus ignoring the fact that for these countries such
amenities are a bare civil minimum.

The international architecture symposium "Viewing the Expo Site: Considering

Possibilities for the Future City" (Banpaku kaijõ o mite, mirai toshi no kanõsei o kangaeru)
took place in early April with a keynote speech by Tange Kenzõ and was moderated by
Kurokawa Kishõ. The five foreign architects that took part in the symposium severely
criticized the fact that the expo neglected its real protagonist, humanity, and that the
individual tastes of spectators were ignored. Yona Friedman, the architect whose work
Tange based his Grand Roof on, denounced the project as too beautiful as an experiment
and lacking in spaces for everyday use- without even a single residence. Friedman is
preparing a project for the 1976 Philadelphia Exposition, in which exhibition pavilions
will be inserted into a large skeletal structure to create a floating city. After the exposition
ends, these pavilions will become permanent residential capsules. These capsules
will be responsive to the individual tastes of its residents and will be designed to leave
enough room for free choice. Canada's Moshe Safdie won praise for his Habitat ' 67 , a
collective housing project he designed for the Montreal Expo: a structure made out of a
combination of units that can be freely transformed. After the exposition was over, this
building remained as a residential complex and was leased out to citizens. Safdie was
surprised at the long lines inside the Osaka Expo site, and said that if individual liberty
was to be respected, introducing a reservation system for the pavilions was imperative.
I was reminded of the foreign artists who attended last year's "International Sculpture
Symposium" to discuss the works they would set up at the expo site, and how they said
that the Japanese expo was all about industrial and technological success and did not
promote a philosophy of humanity.
Even among the participating architects of Expo '70, Kurokawa Kishõ, the
moderator of the symposium, stands out as part of the school of futuristic optimists, who
cannot distinguish the divide between public appearances and private thoughts. Taking
as an example his own plans for the Toshiba IHI Pavilion and the Takara Beautilion, he
commented that the most important idea in expo architecture is that architecture is not
unmovable real estate but a durable consumer good.

On one hand, the future society will become diversified in its expression of
human individuality and individuality in housing. On the other hand, mass
production of housing runs the risk of regulation and homogenization. But
if mass production of individual rooms, toilets, bathrooms, heating, and air
conditioning units is carried out and residents and homes are allowed original
expression in the way that they are put together, it is possible to advance the
technological revolution and mass-produce humane residences.10

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 Haryu Ichiro

What Kurokawa is articulating here is an architecture of movement that postulates people

as homo movens, an extension of the Metabolist belief in the endless transformation and
renovation of the city. But in reality, this is no different than made-to-order architecture,
resembling customized cars. Kurokawa' s vision is based on the premise that in an
information society the alienation of industrial society will vanish and that harmony
between technology and humanity will naturally prevail. In this sense, he perfectly
embodies the role of flagbearer for the official ideology of "progress and harmony."
But Kurokawa deliberately disregards how this stunning process of transformation
and renewal is born not out of human desire, but provoked by the entreaties of capital.
In order for these units to be freely assembled, different types of units, responding to
diverse desires, must be mass-produced. If this trend continues, capital will be capable
of manipulating- perhaps even manufacturing- desire. Computers will be capable of
turning people's desires into numbers to be calculated, and in doing so, strengthen the
manipulation and domination of the masses.
Made-to-order production, as a negotiation between mass and single-item
production, does not necessarily bring individuality and collectivity into harmony.
Rather, a situation emerges where individual desires are bypassed and wrapped in a
false notion of the public, while capital supporting private enterprise monopolizes
individuality and freedom of expression. The information society that Kurokawa
paints with rosy colors is transformed into a tightly controlled society based on a
techno-structure. The only ones who uncritically praise the harmony of technology and
humanity are those who satisfy their individual desires as part of these so-called "avant-
garde experiments" -supported by the national budget and corporate capital, and
justified by the false notion of the public that "the future" provides. Inevitably, there
will be a backlash by those trying to open up the "future" through their own means in
defiance of this giant management apparatus and in opposition to the planning of the
"future" as a mere extension of technology.

In this expo, the number of pavilions that do not use image projections can be counted
on one hand: image-based shows have completely overtaken those based on real objects.
This was not unforeseen as the product displays at the Japanese Pavilion in Montreal were
unpopular because of their naked commercialism, while the multi-screen projections at
the Czechoslovakian Pavilion and the Canadian Pavilion drew considerable attention.

The theory of "informatization," which contends that the value of information in

contemporary society is rising compared to that of real objects, has made everyone fr
executives, producers, designers, down to the artists flock to the image as a mediu
And yet the images that flicker restlessly on the ceilings and walls, from one pavil
to the next, strike one as completely dreary and vain. The great majority of these
merely present novel techniques or are shown for their sheer scale. These are show

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Haryu Ichiro

the spectators can't take part in- mirages that they can't even touch. While a single
photograph can show a cross-section of things that lie beyond people's consciousness
and give a glimpse of the structure of the world, the majority of the images shown here
are conscious and arbitrary constructs.
For instance, the Japanese Pavilion, with its cherry-blossom logo, appears, at first
sight, to be the place where trust in mechanic reproduction of images is most complete.
This is because the "Past" section, which displays all of Japan's cultural development
from ancient to contemporary times, the "Present" section, which deals with Japan's
industry and nature, and the "Tomorrow" section, which showcases the most up-to-
date technology and international endeavors hardly contain any physical objects: these
sections only exhibit models, photographs, graphs, and films. Reproductions of haniwa
clay figures are displayed in a tube-like plastic case. A model of the sand-gardens at the
Ryõanji Temple, which has been placed in a corridor and is reflected in a mirror, looks
as if it were floating in the sky. The graphs included in "Japan in Statistics" - an
" orgorama " display made of one hundred twenty slides showing the dynamics of
industry and population - move so fast they are impossible to read. The spectators
walk around disingenuously among these banalities that have become the official truth ,
which take them from the dazzling traditions of the past to progress and prosperity.
Nowhere will they discover anything new about Japan, nor are they led to reflect on
anything at all. In other words - and perhaps this was the chief producer Kawano
Takashi's intention- from beginning to end, images are the main means of display. There
was a small controversy regarding the exhibit on the atomic bomb, which displayed a
tapestry depicting the peaceful use of atomic energy in order to avoid any impression of
atrocity. This abstract quality of display pervades the Japanese Pavilion.
Together with the Japanese Pavilion, another exhibit that reveals the ideology of
Expo '70 in its purest form is the Mitsubishi Future Pavilion. Here the image stands not
only as a simple mechanism for reproduction. Its large scale manages to literally pull
in the viewers. A belt conveyor crosses the sky, like a hanging bridge, and the images
projected on the screens left and right are amplified by mirrors placed above and below,
and in back and in front, violently assaulting the viewers. The first scenes show a storm
at sea, then a volcanic explosion, and are meant to tell the story of how the Japanese
people have fought the threats of nature since ancient times. The scene that then follows
shows the monitoring of a typhoon from a space station and the fantastic landscape of an
underwater city. A voice-over explains that Mitsubishi is at the forefront of submarine
exploration. At the end, the viewer is presented with a scene of nature and technology
in perfect harmony: a residence of the future, placed on an ample lawn with a view of
Mount Fuji, inside which we find an array of gadgets, starting with an electronic brain.
However, what is completely overlooked is the fact that what has destroyed nature and
caused many forms of pollution is the selfishness of private enterprise and a political
system that privileges monopoly capitalism. The Mitsubishi Corporation is not only

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 Haryu Ichiro

involved in the development of submarine oil fields, but it is well known that they are
at the forefront of special procurements for the war industry in Vietnam. While hiding
these truths, they proclaim that nature and humanity will achieve harmony automatically,
as an extension of the growth of industry and technology. Just like the passage cited
earlier by Kurokawa Kishõ, this is a classic piece of modernization theory. Indeed, the
Mitsubishi Pavilion's hypocritical display makes us painfully aware that a green
environment and the sun, as well as the restoration of humanity, will become the new
slogans of the government and monopoly capital.
In other industry pavilions multi-screen projections are being employed full force,
projecting different images onto a single giant screen. For example, in the Midori
Pavilion's "Astorama" a tubular dome is covered with projected images, making
one feel the thrill of being in a car speeding through a sinuous mountain path. Or in
Toshiba's IHI pavilion, spectators' seats rise up into a dome where nine screens show
the lifestyles of young people from around the world. And at the Mitsui Group's "Space
Revue," where spectators are put on three circular platforms that move up and down and
rotate, they are overwhelmed by scenes projected from all directions on a hemispheric
dome that shows giant waterfalls and flowing molten steel. The multi-screen originates
from the desire to take in simultaneously the various and discordant contradictions of
contemporary society through a fictional account that, while flattening the images one
dimensionally, allows the viewer to appreciate them in their plurality and chaos. In this
sense, the multi-screen originates from the same intention as assemblages in fine art.
However, what makes this method effective is the moment when these images that lack
any coherence advance simultaneously, clashing and invading each other, allowing us
to foresee the unknown structure of the world that escapes our everyday consciousness.
With the multi-screens at this expo, however, the hope is that something other will be
born out of the unintentional ensemble of images gathered and melded together arbitrarily,
without the subjectivity of the producers.
Of all these projections, the one that I comparatively liked was the "Multi Vision"
at the Fuji Group Pavilion, which used multi-screens and slide shows to weave together
images of black people and thalidomide babies. This projection preserved the primitive
function of the image- the exploration through the camera eye of an ignored aspect of
reality. However, it was weakened by the fact that these images were conflated and that
the structure of the pavilion was such that the public, while looking at the images, sat
on a round platform that rotated.
Accordingly, the multi-screens at Expo '70 all share a very particular thought. The
people that appear in them, excluding a few examples, are overflowing with good will and
happiness, having cast aside the shadows that the majority of human beings experience
in their daily lives. Generally speaking, in the case of advertising, direct reference to
the product is avoided and an attempt is made to place the image of the industry in the
context of universal desire. Advertisements tend to resort to a rosy, happy view of the

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Haryu Ichiro

world. Moreover, this image of happiness does not transcend the dominating structure
of the "welfare state." Every conceivable image of personal desire becomes endlessly
absorbed into the state system. The multi-screen unintentionally ends up exposing the
framework of such a view of the nation by lining up people from all over the world into a
cheap brand of internationalism that says, "Humanity is one family." At the Toshiba IHI
pavilion, a Czech woman and a young Japanese monk appear simultaneously, and while
the inescapable differences between these people from two different countries should
be problematic, the discontinuity is easily overcome through the format of simultaneity.
During the preparatory stage of the Montreal Expo, a plan was discussed to
abandon the national pavilion system and have each country participate freely within
themed exhibits. This is probably because international exhibitions, the apparent aim of
which is to provide a bird's eye view of world civilizations, in fact only serve to reproduce
superpower nationalism in its pure form, making such events inevitably obsolete. And
yet, at Expo '70, rather than the multi-screens that so cheaply appeal for international
solidarity and peace, I was deeply moved by those images that appeal to the country as an
idea and address national problems. For example, the Dutch Pavilion, which is covered
in photographs and projections, portrays every aspect of the daily lives of its citizens
without artifice. While lacking any sort of innovative display, it really makes one feel
how much people are respected in that country. Or, for instance, the Algerian Pavilion
uses a large mirror to expand images that impressively show the nature and everyday
life of this country, which has experienced colonialism and a war of liberation.
During the international architect's symposium that I previously mentioned, Tange
Kenzõ discussed Expo '70, which takes place in the transition from an industrial society
to an information society, in the following terms: "There, hardware exhibits such as a
rock from the Moon, or rockets, are unimportant, for the spectators already know them.
What is important is creating a space for information, making people participate and
exchange opinions. Let's call this the creation of a software environment that disperses
new energy. This is how I want to develop the concept of the future city."
However, there seems to be a fundamental misunderstanding regarding the quality
of such information. In reality, the reason that so many spectators cram themselves
up inside the American Pavilion, with its Moon rock and artificial satellites, or in the
Soviet Pavilion with its displays of everything from Anton Chekhov's diary to space
exploration, is not merely because of their admiration and curiosity concerning these
super powers. It is because a material impression of the world that cannot be turned
into mere information hides beneath these real objects. The majority of the images
used at the expo site erase such impressions: contrary to Tange's declaration, software
is ignored in favor of hardware. Like the architect Denis Crompton countered during
the symposium, if this were an information city, the long lines at the expo site would
have been eliminated through the feedback mechanism of a computer. When the Japan
Airlines Yodo flight was hijacked, none of the screens showed any information about

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 Haryu Ichiro

the incident. When people in Japan speak of information and mechanisms, they do not
talk about objects or the environment. To them, it means, rather, an ether that envelops
us that does not communicate or assert anything.
In Japan, people traditionally substituted symbols and images for things and lived
entrusting themselves to the mononoke (the spirit of things). In my opinion, today, under
this system of mass production and mass consumption, and due to the demands of an
information society, while we think we are buying things, we are once again buying
symbols. We float amidst information, at a distance from objects. Fueled by the gigantic
structure of contemporary civilization, we are returning to traditional views of nature
and a sense of the transience of life. On the other hand, at the present time, when it is
difficult to see the connection between our contemporary civilization and humanity, the
ambiguous element of information offers a glimpse of a path that seemingly mediates
between them. In this sense, information functions as today's mononoke , and charms
people offering a new form of fetish." The grounds of Expo '70 repeat ad nauseam a
blueprint of this mononoke' s domination of humanity.

Notes

ture] (Tokyo: Kashiwa Shobo, 2001). Eisaku's joint statement of November

[Translator's Note] Built in 1924 3. 21, 1969. In the statement, the two
and currently known as the Hanshin [Translator's Note] Suita is the admin- countries agreed on the importance
Kõshien Baseball Stadium - after istrative division (shi, or city) that lies of strengthening the Treaty of Mutual
to the north of Osaka, which was the
its current occupants, the Hanshin Cooperation and Security of 1960.
Tigers- the Kõshien Stadium isactual
thesite of Expo '70. For the Japanese, this implied that the
oldest structure of its type in Japan.4. Its government would not consider rene-
[Translator's Note] Its official English
overall area is 38,500 square meters. gotiating or eliminating it, and would
2. name is the Treaty of Mutual Coop- instead allow its continuation. See

[Translator's Note] The Daijirin
dictionary defines minka as a type of 5.
residence - usually, a freestanding
building where common people live.
More precisely, this typology can be
eration and Security of 1 960.
[Translator's Note] Prime Minister
Satõ Eisaku was scheduled to visit
the United States in November 1969
Richard Nixon, Richard Nixon: Pub-
lic Papers of the Presidents: 1969.
(Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government
Printing Office, 1971): 953-57.
7.

characterized as follows: (1) minka
is a type of vernacular residential
architecture; (2) it is a broad category
that encompasses the abodes of farm-
ers ( nõka ), fishermen ( gyõka ) and
in order to discuss the continuation of[Translator's Note] Haryü' s wry use
the Anpo Treaty, which approached of "okamï' masters) to refer to the
its tenth anniversary. After its tenth state authorities playfully creates a
year, the treaty would undergo double-entendre: on the one hand,
automatic re-ratification. Student the word connotes a semi-feudal

townsmen {chõka) - and, occasion- relationship between citizenry and

activists- who sought to prevent Satõ
ally, it will even be used to refer to from departing- clashed with riot po-
authorities in the allegedly democratic
the houses of lower-rank samurai; postwar Japanese state. At the same
lice in a spectacular showdown by the
(3) as a typology, minka combines airport. Their ultimately unsuccessful time, it intimates that at the pinnacle
of its structure there is the emperor
life and work (seigyõ) functions, as attempt resulted in a massive backlash
some areas of the house would be himself- who is also okami- thus
that crippled the student movement.
destined to non-domestic labor. Nihon 6. revealing the relationship between
Minzoku Kenchiku Gakkai, ed. Zusetsu [Translator's Note] Haryu refers the capitalist structure of domination
here to U.S. President Richard Nixon
minzoku kenchiku daijiten [Illustrated and the concealed emperor-system
Dictionary of Traditional Architec- and Japanese Prime Minister Satõ( tennõsei ).

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Haryu Ichiro

8. 9. societies. The critic portrays a contin-

[Translator's Note] Yona Friedman [Translator's Note] For a definition of uum-a move from the fetishization

(b. 1923) is a renowned visionary kankyõ and its relationship to experi- of busshin or industrial products as
architect and theorist. Friedman pro- mental art, see Midori Yoshimoto's commodities in industrial societies,
posed the idea of "infrastructure"- introduction to this issue. to a new fetishization of information

a mobile, skeletal metallic frame 10. as commodity. These he sees not

superimposed on the pre-existent Yomiuri Shimbun (25 January 1970). necessarily as opposites, but rather as
built environment, and where space [Translator's Note]: The actual marking different stages in material
is defined by lightweight, trihedral citation seems to be the following:historical development, and there-
elements enmeshed within it. The Kurowaka Kishõ, "Mirai toshi no fore prefiguring a new structure of
Spatial City - an entire city based kanõsei:
on bankokuhaku no jikken domination. His use of mononoke to
the tenets of Friedman's mobile ar- kenchiku" [The Possibility of the refer to this new kind of commodity-
Future City: Expo 70's Experimental fetishism is significant, as it remits
chitecture-represents the most radi-
cal use of such infrastructure. Yona Architecture], Yomiuri Shimbun us to the origins of the notion of
Friedman, L' Architecture mobile: ( Yükan ) (26 January 1970). fetish in eighteenth-century philos-
vers une cité conçue par ses habitants 11. ophe Charles de Brosses' history of
[Mobile Architecture: Toward a City [Translator's Note] In this final section, religions.
Conceived by Its Inhabitants] (Paris: Haryü sketches a theory of the demate-
Casterman, 1970). rialization of the fetish in postindustrial

On the Author

Haryü Ichiro (1925-2010) was one was expelled from it for his criticism Biennale of 1968, and the Bienal de
of Japan's foremost art and literary of the party strategy against the U.S.- Sao Paulo of 1977 and 1979. His
critics in the postwar period, famous Japan Security Treaty of 1960 (Anpo). major publications include the six-
for his avant-gardist leanings and left- Haryu was influenced by heterodox volume anthology Haryü Ichiro's
ist politics. He began writing criticism Marxism, and translated works by Critical Writings (Haryu Ichiro
in 1952, after joining the Yoru no Walter Benjamin and Györg Lukács. hyõron, 1969-70) and The Rise and
kai (Night Society), artist Okamoto Besides being a prolific writer, he or- Fall of Postwar Japanese Art (Sengo
Taro' s avant-garde group. Haryu was ganized exhibits at home and abroad. bijutsu seirui-shi,1979).
politically active; he joined the Japa- Notably, he was the commissioner of
nese Communist Party in 1953, but the Japanese Pavilion for the Venice

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