Arata Izozaki
Arata Izozaki
Arata Izozaki
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 Teshigaharas 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 Tanges and Louis Kahns
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, Muse des Arts Dcoratifs, 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 dEsports 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 citys campaign for 2016 Olympics 2008 Central Academy of
Fine Arts, Beijing 2011 Education City Convention Center, Doha
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arata isozaki
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Mengjian
Eastern I
was also
of Japan
in Manch
Eika Taka
Takayam
the Japa
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this proje
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in spite o
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Hajime Y
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In go
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9 Shenyang
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Datong 5
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CHINA
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Shanghai
10 Bangkok
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Mengjiang
Eastern Inner Mongolia
was also under the yoke
of Japans puppet regime
in Manchukuo from 1932.
Eika Takayama
Takayama was typical of
the Japanese intellectuals
of the time: he engaged in
this project for exploiting the
resources of Inner Mongolia
in spite of his exposure to
the influence of Marxism.
Hajime Yatsuka
invaded Manchuria in 1932. They placed Pu Yi, the last emperor of China, on the
throne as the puppet ruler of Manchukuo between 1932 and 1945, and started
to exploit the region. Everything in Manchukuo was virtually free for designing
or planning at that time.
RK
AI Exactly.
They were very right-wing ideologues while at the same time working
in a mode that had very left-wing connections.
RK
AI
hats right. And they were really involved in construction. Many Japanese
T
modernist architects who had studied under Le Corbusier, like Kunio Maekawa 4
and Junzo Sakakura 7 , who won the competition for the Japanese Pavilion
at the 1937 World Exposition in Paris, had big projects in Manchuria and China:
government buildings, city halls, bank officeslarge scale buildings constructed
from around 1935 to 1940. It was a bit like when Mussolini invaded Ethiopia,
Rhodes, and the Greek islands.
RK
AI Yes,
but their city planning was very conventional. One quite interesting project
that needs to be documented was the masterplan for Datong 5 in Mengjiang,
Inner Mongolia. It was a collaboration between Yoshikazu Uchida and Eika
Takayama, who were professors of architecture at Tokyo Imperial University,
together with Uchidas son Yoshifumi and Toshiro Kasahara. It was clearly a
Japanese utopian city built around an old Chinese city, along with completely
new developed areas.
RK
id that kind of thinking trigger Japanese architecture after the war? Did it
D
unleash the architectural imaginationnot in Manchuria, but in Japan itself?
Thats a question I asked myself during the years I spent with Tange, so I made
a series of interviews in the mid-70s with people who lived through the war. 2
I had come to know most of the Japanese architects who were active before
and after the war. Most were collaborators with the war, in a way. My interv iewees
admitted to some continuity between the prewar and postwar generations,
but gave no testimony about direct links. So I had to somehow piece together
their methodologies, their modus operandi, their manner of speech, what they
designed. Basically I thought nothing had changed. Those 20 yearsthe
decade before the war and the decade afterwere an unbroken progression.
There was no discontinuity. The end of the war came right in the middle.
The ideological disruption was only superficial.
I knew Tange would never agree to such an interview, so I didnt ask.
Tange never talked about the war years. He never spoke in public about the
ideas he had then. During the war he won two major competitions held by the
Architectural Institute of Japan: the first was for the monument to the Greater
East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere 58 in 1942 and the second was for the JapaneseThai Cultural Center in Bangkok 10
5 in 1943. Those were, in a sense, Tanges
debut projects. After Japans surrender in the war, he won the competition for
the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park, which was completed in 1954.
I was a student of his from 1952 and joined his studio in 1954. I worked
with him as an assistant, then as his collaborating partner. In all the time I was
in his office, until 1963, I never heard Tange talk about those three projects,
nor after I went independent but continued to collaborate with him, until 1975.
So I know almost everything about Kenzo Tange over those 20 years.
AI
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Hideto K
Kishida w
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Tange w
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and the d
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arata isozaki
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Hideto Kishida
Kishida was on the Japanese
Olympic construction
comm it tee and was quite
influential. He insisted that
Tange was the right person
to design the gymnasia,
and the decision to name
Tange reflected his opinion.
Koji Kamiya
Ise Shrine
The largest and most revered
Shinto shrine in Japan, rebuilt
every 20 years since 690 CE,
according to the same plan
but with new materials.
Yoyogi National Gymnasia
There had been a plan to
hold the Olympics in Tokyo
in 1940, and Hideto Kishida
had intended to design
the facilities. In preparation,
he visited the 1936 Berlin
Olympics and incidentally
wrote a book on Nazi archi
tecture (1943). But war broke
out, and the Olympics were
canceled. Kishida abandoned
his career as an architect
and became a kingmaker
instead. A quarter century
later, he effectively made
Tange king. Kishida was on
the jury in a series of com
petitions, starting with Hiro
shima. Without him, Tange
would never have been as
successful as he was.
Hajime Yatsuka
He graduated in 1938, but the mystery is before 1945: the 10 years from 1935
to 1945.
What I would argue is that Tange was the most significant person who
established an ideology in design before the war ended. Back then, his mentor
at Tokyo Imperial University was a young professor called Hideto Kishida, who
was in a position to judge competitions and plans for international expositions
and the Tokyo Olympics of 1964. He had a new design strategy for interpreting
Shinto architecture in a modernist manner, though he himself didnt design.
He was juxtaposing images of ancient buildings such as Ise Shrine, the Kyoto
Imperial Palace, and Katsura Detached Palace with his own photographs.
Tange responded to this strategy. He used precisely those three ancient buildings
as models for the three competitions I mentioned previously. And of course,
Kishida was on the jury for those competitions. You could say that Kishida
discovered Tange before the end of the war as the modernist architect who
could represent Japan.
I recently wrote a study on Michizo Tachihara.3 The same generation as
Tange, he was a beautiful poet and a modern architect. Not in the Italian
Fascist mold, but more like Speer, a northern, Scandinavian classicist. He gave
considerable thought to what Japanese sensibility should be. Also a student
of Kishida, as an architect and poet, he was in the same milieu as Tange, who at
the time was only concerned with Corbu and European modernist architecture,
not with Japan. Tachihara must have been worried about Tange. He later asked
him to think how they could work together on the Japanese situation. My
assumption is that Tachihara pushed Tange toward a Japanese romanticism
to which he himself belonged.
RK
AI
o become more Japanese. And that was during the 10 mystery years from
T
1935 to 45?
Yes. Tange managed to establish Japan-ness in modern architecture. In my
essay, I compare him to Giuseppe Terragni, who tried to use the abstract vocab
ulary of modern architecture to create something beyond the Mussolini period.4
RK
A parallel.
AI Yes,
a parallel. That was before the war. After the war, Eero Saarinen was also
a parallel. Tange always had some parallel competitor.
Okamoto
RK
AI The
Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park was probably Tanges first major work
to be built in Japan after the war, which was built on ground zero of the atomic
bomb. His second project of national importance was the Yoyogi National
Gymnasia for the 1964 Tokyo Olympics. The third was Expo 70 in Osaka.
Tange had a close relationship with the artist Taro Okamoto, who designed
the funny sculpture in Expo 70 called Tower of the Sun. They were friends,
but completely different in character and expression. Always fightinga lovehate relationship. [ laughs ] I know because I was always in between them.
Okamoto had studied art in Paris among the Surrealists and Abstract School.
He was also associated with Batailles group. Coming back to Tokyo a little
before the war, he started an avant-garde movement. I think Tange became
very close to him and was influenced, through him, by the European style of
avant-garde.
RK
AI
into the army. His activities started after the war. In 1954, when I finished
graduate school, he took me to Okamotos studio to assist him. One day
Okamoto asked me to bring as many maps of Tokyo and reference materials
about the future of Tokyo as possible. He said he wanted to plan a utopian city,
like Jean Dubuffet and other European artists were doing. It was a proposal
project Japan Metabolism Talks
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(1935). W
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for a kind of virtual Tokyo or second Tokyo, right in the middle of Tokyo Bay.
It was publicized as a collaboration with Tange. Okamotos genius was calling
it Ghost Tokyo ( Ikojima, Island of Leisure). His innovation was to orient the citys
growth from the Imperial Palace toward a new island on Tokyo Bay, whereas
a radial expansion was already underway outward from the Palace, just like
Greater London. He said, lets take refuse landfill as our starting point and
make another Tokyo. Anyone living in Tokyo who gets frustrated...
RK
Lets go there! Was Okamotos project part of Tanges Plan for Tokyo 1960
or independent of it?
AI
RK
A scandal.
AI
es. Many young art critics asked me what I thought about it. The roof had
Y
become a kind of skin, a membrane penetrated by the tower. Okamoto thrived
on polarities. He always brought in an opposing element and focused on the
tension created in between. Tange, conversely, always produced synthesis;
he resolved oppositions. The discrepancies between the two men working
together generated a kind of dynamism.
The Man behind the Scene
RK
The emergence of Metabolism around the time of the Tokyo Bay plan is a very
complicated story. As with Deconstructivism, everyone and no one belongs
to it. Would you say it began with the World Design Conference? Did the move
ment emerge spontaneouslyas simultaneous insights shared by like-minded
peopleor was it more like a branding campaign? Because you can read it
both ways.
AI
In my view, the idea of a Metabolist group came from Tanges partner Takashi
Asada. He was a strange engineer, almost a mad engineer, but very interesting.
I was very influenced by him. Tange wasnt so technologically oriented, but
Asada had lots of ideas on technology that were sometimes quite strange and
not so successful. But he exerted a strong influence on Tanges technological
side. Kurokawa and I were his pupils and at the same time his friends. He taught
us a lot. But Asada always tried to start from zero, to create from complete
tabula rasa. So once the Metabolist group was actually formed with his efforts,
Asada said, OK, you guys go aheadyoure on your own. Ill do something
else. He left them, as always. Thats why his name isnt on the list, but he was
behind the scenes at the beginning. Asada had a very strong role all through
the World Design Conference.
RK
Who came?
AI
It was right after the Team 10 meeting. Alison and Peter Smithson were invited,
and Aldo van Eyck. Louis Kahn and Paul Rudolf came from the United States.
There was also Jean Prouv.
RK
AI
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COLONIzING OITA
independ
While wo
Tokyo 19
develope
project f
which wo
fit the M
Hajime Y
Herbert S
1820190
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Our idea
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tecture f
years: th
a single
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Toward
Metabol
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arata isozaki
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lots of work going in Tange Lab. I was on his team for Plan for Tokyo 1960.
I was still a young member of Tanges studio with no plans to go independent,
so for one thing I didnt need to join them.
independent
While working on Plan for
Tokyo 1960, Isozaki also
developed his City in the Air
project for Nishi-Shinjuku,
which would have perfectly
fit the Metabolist book.
Hajime Yatsuka
Herbert Spencer
18201903, British social
philosopher who coined
the phrase surv ival of
the fittest.
Group Form
Our idea of Group Form
stands firmly against the
image we have had in archi
tecture for thousands of
years: that is, the image of
a single structure, complete
in itself. Maki and Otaka,
Toward Group Form,
Metabolism 1960.
Utopia
RK
AI
I dont know, maybe Kikutake. But I was thinking about their concept of time:
time is linear and grows or progresses from the beginning to become a utopia
in the end. Its a linear progression with no
RK
No deviation.
AI Right.
When Japan surrendered in 1945, I was still very young, but I could feel
that history was disrupted. At the same time there was a sense of complete
stillness, from which maybe another time or another history could start. Like
in the movie The Matrix, two or three parallel worlds were crossingthis kind
of thinking preoccupied me.
RK
AI
I had no idea of planning per se. We needed targets for planning. In order
to create any kind of utopia, planning efforts had to be systematic. Or so wed
learned from 19th-century Marxist ideas and utopian thought inherent in
Herbert Spencers Darwinistic, progressive social order. I knew this wasnt what
was actually happening, but I couldnt explain why. The only doubt I had about
the Metabolists was that these architects had no skepticism toward their utopia;
they represented only a form of progressivism. I thought they were too optimistic.
They really believed in technology, in mass production; they believed in systematic
urban infrastructure and growth. Change and growth were Team 10 subjects
too, of course. We learned a lot from Team 10.
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 shapesone with a striking form, the other blurry.]
AI
robably the latter is Group Form, of Makis conception. Tange and I, of course,
P
are on the formal side.
RK
es, I know. Im 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. Heres the
contradiction.
RK
AI
RK
AI
RK
Connections.
project Japan Metabolism Talks
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RUINED MEGASTRUCTURE
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 megastructures demise into Roman ruins. A Metabolic preemption
and absorption of decay, or a cynicism about the future that the
Metabolists are incapable of?
arata isozaki
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Progress
1962 Just before leaving Tange Lab to set up his own office,
Isozaki develops, privately, Clusters in the Aira more radical
solution to Tokyos mess than his teacher might allow. Striding
over (ignoring) the chaos of Shibuya, the Clustersa variation
on the joint core systemallow habitation that begins only
at the limit of Tokyos 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
Inte
The model.
For
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arata isozaki
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PRESERVATION
1963 Isozaki, 32, still relatively unknown, exercises political muscle
with a poetic project in the popular weekly Shukan Asahi. While the
developer Mitsubishi begins to demolish the historic red brick town
of Marunouchi (Tokyos central business district) in order to build what
the critic Teiji Itoh calls Stalingrad, Isozaki presents a counterproposal,
using megastructure as a tool of protest. Starting at 45 meters up,
a network of interlocking tetrahedrons hovers over the existing buildings
rather than destroying them, creating an elevated artificial ground for
habitation, liberated from the density and the traffic of the streets below.
Residents move at three different speeds and in three different trajec
tories around the megastructure: vertically, via express elevator in the
core; diagonally, via escalators sliding along the buildings edges; and
horizontally via conveyor belts in the horizontal beam connecting the
tetrahedrons. 8
Elevator
Escalator
Conveyor belt
Highway
Metro
Integrated transport.
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PROTEST
Electric L
Isozakis
in collab
Sugiura
Shomei T
raphy) an
(music),
the publi
occupati
nale. On
work sho
at ZKM , K
exhibitio
rated by
Hans Ulr
no antipa
Isozaki:
a peculia
Metabol
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as a Met
perspec
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foreign p
quoting
work as
Metabol
busy cor
some tim
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of Metab
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I particip
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Working
to see gr
the diffe
and think
Shinkenc
earthqua
Stories o
rebuildin
their des
often rep
in Japan
rable. In
was dest
quake, T
competit
the city,
several t
a final sc
great dea
of immed
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des troye
Yugoslav
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several y
the work
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plan, and
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That is un
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Koji Kam
42
Tsukiji pr
Also in 1
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presiden
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a compr
arata isozaki
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Electric Labyrinth
Isozakis installation, made
in collaboration with Kohei
Sugiura (graphic design),
Shomei Tomatsu (photog
raphy) and Toshi Ichiyanagi
(music), never opened to
the public due to the student
occupation of the Milan Trien
nale. Only in 2002 is the
work shown for the first time,
at ZKM , Karlsruhe, in the
exhibition Iconoclash, cu
rated by Peter Weibel,
Hans Ulrich Obrist, et al.
no antipathy
Isozaki: I myself have had
a peculiar relationship with
Metabolism. Though I never
belonged to the group, I was
apparently making projects
as a Metabolist from a larger
perspective. And not know
ing such domestic details,
foreign people began
quoting or referring to my
work as an example of
Metabolism, which kept me
busy correcting them for
some time. But now as I look
back, I was an assimilator
of Metabolism, if not its
member. As a proof,
I participated in an exhibition
organized by the group.
Working in this way, I came
to see gradually but clearly
the difference of my method
and thinking from theirs.
Shinkenchiku, April 1978.
earthquakes
Stories of people immediately
rebuilding on the ruins of
their destroyed homes are
often reported in newspapers
in Japan as something admi
rable. In 1963, when Skopje
was destroyed by an earth
quake, Tanges team won the
competition to reconstruct
the city, and I went to the site
several times to help develop
a final scheme. We learned a
great deal in Skopje. Instead
of immediately constructing
houses on the sites of
des troyed build ings, the
Yugoslavs created provisional
shelterstent hutsin the
suburbs and lived in them for
several years. They began
the work of construction only
after developing a master
plan, and then gradually re
turned to their former districts.
That is unfortunately quite
difficult to do in Japan.
Koji Kamiya
Tsukiji project
Also in 1964: a colony of
buildings connected with joint
cores. After the death of Dentsu
president Hideo Yoshida, the
project was completed in
a compromised form.
es, connections. For example, the art critic Shuzo Takiguchi, a friend of Andr
Y
Breton and Marcel Duchamp from the same generation. To me, he was a
modern artist-architect, my guru of sorts. Many artists like Yoko Ono and
composers like Toru Takemitsu felt the same way toward him. Among them was
the photographer Shomei Tomatsu. To look at his work after the war, one would
feel he was the only photographer around. He was once asked to be a member
of the Metabolist group, so he contributed photographs to the second book
of Metabolism, which never got made, but it wasnt really his best work anyway.
Starting with the aftermath of the Nagasaki atomic bombing right after the war
up till now, hes continued to document the hidden side of Japanese society.
Hes completely different from Nobuyoshi Araki, who is my friend. Tomatsu
is much more serious. For me, Tomatsu was the only photographer in Japan
after the war. He represented and documented all for us. I asked him to
contribute photographs to my installation Electric Labyrinth at the 1968 Milan
Triennale, but he said Ill collect all the images taken after the atomic bomb and
give them to you. So he gave me maybe 50 photographs, and with one of them
I made a panoramic montage entitled Hiroshima Ruined for the Second Time.
I think hes a very important photographer. I was also close to the writers
Kenzaburo O and Kobo Ab, who wrote really fantastic novels influenced
by Kafka.
AI
RK
AI
he film Woman of the Dunes (1964) was based on his novel. I already knew
T
Kobo Ab before he was published. Kenzaburo O and I were close because
he was a student of Professor Kazuo Watanabe, whom I immensely respected.
He was an expert on humanism and introduced Rabelais to Japan.
RK So
AI
RK
He had culture.
AI
RK
an you tell us something about the Skopje project? Does it actually exist?
C
Because its one of these strange phenomenaits status is completely
ambiguous.
AI
RK
I n a way, for me, its the most pure Metabolist project because earthquakes
like the one in 1963 provide good conditions for accelerations.
AI
In 1965, Tange was selected in the UN competition from among eight
international architects and planners. Id already gone independent, but didnt
have work so he asked me to come back to his studio to work on the Skopje
project. I think it was the first project under my personal lead. Right after
designing the Olympic gymnasia in 1964, Tange was concentrating on big
projects including the Tsukiji project for the Dentsu headquarters, and he was
almost completely exhausted. This was the situation behind the Skopje project.
RK
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nothing a
Tange lat
insignific
concept
and reali
was not
vidual ar
which is
here, bu
and mod
tells us t
tween th
Hajime Y
we thoug
Isozaki w
and it se
was dep
The conc
Plaza wa
produce
source fo
the spac
Friedman
burned w
determin
a huge s
the plaza
for this n
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
196970
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 Skopjes 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 systemon multiple
levels, in loops, and merging with the buildingsdrawn from their last collaboration,
Plan for Tokyo 1960.
44
arata isozaki
01_Isozaki_022_055_FIN_24JUL11_to TASCHEN.indd 44
10.08.11 08:36
nothing at all
Tange later said that not an
insignificant part of their
conception was respected
and realized in Skopje. He
was not speaking of indi
vidual architectural forms,
which is Isozakis concern
here, but of general layout
and modules in plans. This
tells us the difference be
tween these two architects.
Hajime Yatsuka
we thought
Isozaki was Tanges brain,
and it seemed that Tange
was dependent on his ideas.
The concept of the Festival
Plaza was probably largely
produced by Isozaki. The
source for that large roof was
the space frames of Yona
Friedman, but Tange himself
burned with an abnormal
determination to implement
a huge space frame covering
the plaza as a potent object
for this national event. How
ever, rather than an object,
the Festival Plaza that Isozaki
wanted to create was an ur
ban space that would be
immediately implemented by
means of information: an
instant city. Undoubtedly, he
was greatly influenced by
Archigrams Plug-In City and
Walking City, from 1964. On
this site for a national event,
Isozaki conceived a scene of
people intoxicated by a hal
luc inatory urban space pro
duced by two robots, as if in
a huge disco. However, his
scheme was hindered by
bureaucrats, and a visionary
urban space was not pro
duced.
Toyo Ito
After Expo 70
For Japans top architects,
196970 was the major post
war turning point. After two
national events, the 1964
Tokyo Olympics and Expo
70, the growth of the econo
my reversed and we entered
a period of introversion. There
was no longer a place in Ja
pan for Tange; and Otaka,
Kikutake, Kurokawa, and the
rest of the Metabolists lost
the youthfulness and vigor
they possessed in the 60s.
Toyo Ito
ur proposal was approved, but I actually dont know how it was realized
O
in the end. I was having big fights every day in Skopje. I once even tore up the
drawings and went home. I have bad memories. When I got there, I found that
wed won first place, with 51 percent. In second place was a Croatian architect.
Very traditional, nothing new. They got 49 percent. The percentage was so
close, the United Nations decided Tange and the Croatian should work
together. In came another team: Doxiadis from Greece, very close to Macedonia,
working more on traffic and regional planning, but they also had a say. And to
top it all, the UN named their own supervisory team from Warsaw. Everyone who
worked on the reconstruction of Warsaw, which was deemed such a success,
moved to Skopje.
If thered been only two of us, it would have been OK, even if we were
fighting all the time. But more and more came in, more conservative people,
over our heads. After a few months of working there, I was completely
exhausted. I thought, My God, I cant do this anymore. And Tange said,
OK, its time to compromise and go home. So we did. This was exactly when
Tange started to work on Expo 70. He took me on again. For me, the Skopje
project basically died, or was killed, at that point. Just a few weeks ago,
someone who had been to Skopje came to Tokyo and
AI
RK
AI
RK
Can you explain the main structure you built for Expo 70?
AI
e didnt have many ideas; it was to be a kind of frame for activities. At that
W
time we proposed a movable roof on topI was thinking of a big 300-meter
long frame. But actually Tange designed the frame and I designed all the
equipment underneath, including the suspended robot and the walking robot.
The suspended robot served for computer-controlled architectural lighting.
We proposed the concept and exterior design for the Festival Plaza in 1966
or 67. Tange, as masterplanner, designated the location in 1967, and I made
a proposal with an artist and some others that this Festival Plaza should
accommodate all kinds of activities including artistic performances underneath
the roof, because the weather in Japan is unstable in the summertime. It rains
a lot, so we thought we better have some kind of skin or roof.
RK
AI
underneath and the two robots; Kurokawa and others were asked to build
capsules within the roof for various architects to exhibit in.
RK
es, we invited architects like Friedman, Hans Hollein, and Archigram to exhibit
Y
in the capsules. We thought the core members of Team 10 were already a little
too established to invite.
Before 1970, Tange had no experience designing an expo. That was really
a first for him. But he always found himself in such situations and he did well.
This is just my own idea, but it seems to me that Tange played a major role as
the architect representing Japan for 25 years until the countrys power declined
in the 1970s. After Expo 70, no offers came to Tange from the Japanese
government so he had to go into exile. He did lots of work in Saudi Arabia
and many other countries. Of course, he had commissions in Japan, but
nothing major. Even the Metabolists had more major commissions than Tange.
AI
Writing
RK
AI
01_Isozaki_022_055_FIN_24JUL11_to TASCHEN.indd 45
45
10.08.11 08:36
ISOZAKI, EDITOR
radical id
Isozakis
70 was c
heavily in
Yet befor
deep frie
garde ar
edly spo
support
tion. Dur
strife of 1
conceal
the stude
state pow
for Festiv
mation p
to alter s
within. A
through
attempte
own self
and actio
conceale
the fract
of that ti
Toyo Ito
everythin
Expo 70
end of a
to shine
devastat
bition fro
by an op
wages w
happy so
However
1973 and
tion of th
supporte
impossib
cent abo
ern civiliz
an acute
civilizatio
fundame
Masato
everythin
In 1971, i
be the tim
Tanges o
others d
period o
was a me
of Rome
read the
to Growt
impact o
clear tha
civilizatio
collapse
the oil cr
The cond
by The L
developi
predicte
Koji Kam
different
At first
inevitabl
Kurokaw
the two b
of Tange
long bef
ting quit
acclaim
architec
46
arata isozaki
01_Isozaki_022_055_FIN_24JUL11_to TASCHEN.indd 46
November 1969.
December 1969.
10.08.11 08:36
radical ideas
Isozakis experience of 196970 was complicated. He was
heavily involved in Expo 70.
Yet before that, he maintained
deep friendships with avantgarde artists, and he repeat
edly spoke and acted in
support of national revolu
tion. During the university
strife of 196869 he did not
conceal his sympathy for
the student struggle against
state power, and his plan
for Festival Plaza as an infor
mation plaza was an attempt
to alter state protocol from
within. At the very least,
through such statements he
attempted to validate his
own self-contradictory words
and actions. He had an un
concealed bewilderment at
the fractured circumstanc es
of that time.
Toyo Ito
everything stopped
Expo 70 took place at the
end of a period that seemed
to shine after the postwar
devastation. It was an exhi
bition from a time governed
by an optimism that said
wages would double and a
happy society would arrive.
However, with the oil crisis in
1973 and the sudden cessa
tion of the energy supply that
supported Japan, it became
impossible to feel compla
cent about the future of mod
ern civilization. There arose
an acute sense that modern
civilization was a system with
fundamental difficulties.
Masato Otaka
everything stopped
In 1971, it just happened to
be the time for me to leave
Tanges office, and many
others did as well. It was a
period of transition. Tange
was a member of the Club
of Rome, and asked me to
read their book The Limits
to Growth. It had a powerful
impact on me. It became
clear that our oil-centered
civilization would eventually
collapse, and just like that,
the oil crisis occurred in 1973.
The conditions described
by The Limits to Growth are
developing today just as
predicted.
Koji Kamiya
different domains
At first [Isozaki] was
inevitably compared with
Kurokawaas one of
the two bright boys out
of Tanges stable. But it wasnt
long before he was attrac
ting quite different critical
acclaimas Isozaki, the
architects architect. Each
AI
Well, I did try. [laughs] You do get straight to the point! That was 30 years ago.
It was very difficult to write. Even obtaining information directly from each
architect was difficult; source materials were limited. Anyway, I tried to edit
them and put them into another context. The major point was that 60s
movements were radical, not avant-garde. Metabolism was the last movement
that tried to be avant-garde. To be an avant-garde, one needs a manifesto.
So the Metabolist manifesto in 1960 was the last in modern architecture.
RK
I agree.
AI
fter that weve had no manifestos at all. Of course, there have been many
A
interesting words and statementsHans Hollein, for instance, saying that
everything is architectureyet those ideas dont belong to a traditional utopian
avant-garde movement. They were more radical, meaning they pushed the
situation to extremes until it exploded and ended abruptly. Radic alism was
a major characteristic of the 1960s, and really erupted in 68. Expo 70 was
a kind of avant-garde showpiece for traditional modern architecture, yet inside
there were more radical ideas.
RK
It was an incubator.
AI
es, some things overlapped. Anyway, after Expo 70, all these things became
Y
completely kitsch. Society didnt want it. The Japanese government no longer
needed it, nor was able to supprt it. After the first global oil shock, which
brought on a recession in 1973, it was no longer possible to continue with
these kinds of avant-garde ideas. Everything stopped.
RK
I snt it ironic that avant-gardes only exist when theres a strong government, but
fall apart when theres a weak government? Theres both nothing to react against
and nothing that could possibly support the fantasies. I think one great weakness
of architecture since the 70s is that we can never find the support we need.
AI
I think the 70s and the 80sfrom 1968 until 1989 when the Soviet Union
crashedwas a period of suspended animation in which nothing happened.
All we could do was tweak and replace little things. No revolution, no radical
change. So-called Deconstruction, for example, which was so popular then,
was mannerist manipulation that brought no radical change. After 1989 we may
have felt many things were going to happen, but for me those 20 years from
1969 to 1989 were so difficult. Nothing changed.
Two Domains of Culture
RK Did
you or any of the Metabolists have affiliations with political parties? Were
there Communists? Were there left-wing architects or right-wing architects?
AI
ersonally, I was very close to the Communist Party when I was a student. I had
P
lots of friends who were Communists. [ laughs ] Some of Tanges friends were
RK
Communists?
AI
es. From around 1968, I was non-political. I didnt trust the Communists
Y
or any other parties.The Zengakuren activist students league was already
demonstrating. It was just like the student movement in the West. I wasnt
political after that, either. Tange had some feeling for it, but was hesitant to visit
politicians. Government bureaucrats found Kikutake not only talented, but easy
to work with, so he did many different public projects. But Kurokawa was the
closest to politics. He appeared in the media with politicians and was always
very close to top government figures; he was a kind of star. Kurokawa and I
lived in different domains of culture, as architects, which were actually carefully
demarcated in a latent way. These domains never overlapped, so I never
competed with him. I was very critical of his work.
project Japan Metabolism Talks
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47
10.08.11 08:36
ISOZAKI, ARTIST
of his bu
was a se
with quo
ironies, a
asides fo
connoiss
Kurokaw
first livin
architect
regular T
conceiva
on every
of stalk.
tectural D
1977.
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
48
arata isozaki
01_Isozaki_022_055_FIN_24JUL11_to TASCHEN.indd 48
10.08.11 08:36
I want to talk about your text City Demolition Industry, Inc. (see p. 52) and
your two identities therein: Arata the timid Stalinist versus Sin in the Trotskyist
killer. I think its one of the most interesting texts written by an architect.
AI
RK So
this was when you accused the Metabolists of not being skeptical enough,
of being too Marxist and linear?
AI
RK
AI
RK
AI
RK
wrote it when I published the book Unbuilt in 1999.12 In 1962, the character
Arata makes a little company and tries to destroy the city and city life. The other,
Sin, establishes the company policy. Back then, I thought the character was
almost Trotsky, but also partly Stalin. The Stalinist criticizes Trotsky and
confuses things. That was the first part. In the second part, the character Sin
is based on Trotsky. When Arata meets him 40 years later, he is more than half
dead. You disappeared 40 years ago, Arata says, and you did it very well.
You destroyed the city so well. But now youre so timid. I have more ideas.
[ laughs ]
A funny thing happened with the original part. An editor at The Japan
Architect magazine asked me to write something for the front of the magazine,
but he wasnt very specific. So I wrote City Demolition Industry, Inc. He read
it and said, We cant publish this on the front, so he buried the essay at the
back in the advertising pages. Nobody read it. [ laughs ] When I published
a collection of essays around the beginning of the 1970s, I put it up front,
subverting a decade of posteriority.13
AI I
RK
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 theyre 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, Its 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 didnt 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 ]
JOSEPH Grima
RK
AI
JG
RK
The original is so much better! [ laughs ] The Middle East is a very strange
place.
Its really interesting in this regard. But dont you think its become a kind of
logo, a symbol that has been totally decontextualized and reapplied?
But thats where my answer comes in. I think the great newness of Metabolism
project Japan Metabolism Talks
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10.08.11 08:36
RECYCLING
context
True, Iso
Air, supp
cores, ha
with the
enjoy the
from the
context.
of the M
projects
Europea
des igned
in the cit
to their c
city (mos
Hajime Y
super-bi
In 2010, I
a superfor Chan
Manchu
a museu
the form
a concer
(Inner M
50
arata isozaki
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10.08.11 08:36
context
True, Isozakis City in the
Air, supported only by giant
cores, had minimum contact
with the ground and could
enjoy the maximum freedom
from the constrains of local
context. However, most
of the Metabolists urban
projects were, unlike their
European counterparts,
designed for specific sites
in the city, and thus related
to their conc eption of the
city (mostly Tokyo).
Hajime Yatsuka
RK
AI
super-big
In 2010, Isozaki is designing
a super-big masterplan
for Changchun, formerly
Manchukuos capital, Xinjing;
a museum in Harbin, also in
the former Manchukuo; and
a concert hall in Datong
(Inner Mongolia).
ange often did, but I only worked with him and Louis Kahn on the Abbas Abad
T
New City (197375), a very large project in the center of Tehran (see p. 610).
Tange and Kahn worked together on this big development project sponsored by
the Pahlevi family. One developer, I dont know where they were from, was very
close to the Pahlevi family, and they asked the two architects to work together.
Excellent taste, eh? [ laughs ]
T hat was my last collaboration with Tange. I was asked by Tange to work
between the two masters and put their ideas into one project. Tange and
I worked on it first together, then we had a workshop with Louis Kahn in Japan,
then Kahn sent us a scheme from the States two months before he passed
away. It might have been Kahns last project. In the end, I had to finish it, which
I somehow did. [ laughs ] Then came the Iranian revolution. The Pahlevis fled
the country and that was that. The Qatar National Library was the first project
of my own in the Middle East. Now my office is loaded with work for the Aga
Khan: we have a series of campuses for the University of Central Asia in
Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, and Kyrgyzstanreally difficult places. But I thought
the idea of creating campuses in such locations would be interesting: no
technology at all, more like medieval monasteries in the mountains.
RK
AI
There are no middle-size projects; theyre either very small or super big.
RK
AI
I dont think so. I think every moment is very difficult, terrible! [ laughs ] There
were no good periods in the last two decades; they came only in the 1960s,
70s and early 80s, when we still had small-scale, individual architectural
projects. But by the end of the 1980s big developments started in a few places,
and throughout the 90s the wave of large projects spread gradually from
London to Berlin to Seoul to Las Vegas and Singapore, and finally its arrived
in Milan.
RK Dubai?
AI
ubai and Abu Dhabi. In those places, sites are always more than one or two
D
hundred thousand square meters. Huge. No longer human scale.
RK
No intimacy.
AI
References
1 Hajime Yatsuka, The Alter-Ego
and Id Machines of Modernist
Architecture, ArchiLabs Urban
Experiments (London: Thames and
Hudson, 2005).
2 Arata Isozaki, Nihon kenchiku
no 1930-nendaiKeifu to
myakuraku (Japanese architecture
in the 1930s: connections and
context) (Tokyo: Kajima
Shuppankai, 1978).
3 Arata Isozaki, Zenshin deno
mi no makasekiriTange Kenzo no
Nihon (Total surrender with whole
bodyJapan by Kenzo Tange),
Shinkenchiku, July 2005.
4 Arata Isozaki, Japan-ness in
Architecture (Cambridge, MA:
MIT Press, 2006).
5 Isozaki, Shinkenchiku,
July 2005.
6 Arata isozaki, Japan-ness
in Architecture, 2006
7 Teiji Ito, Moratorium and
Invisibility, in David Stewart, eds.
Arata Isozaki Architecture 1960
1990 (New York: Rizzoli, 1991).
8 Mitsubishi Jisho ni mono
mosu (Protest against Mitsubishi
Jisho), Shukan Asahi, February 1,
1963.
9 Isozaki, Shinkenchiku,
July 2005.
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51
10.08.11 08:36
arata isozaki
01_Isozaki_022_055_FIN_24JUL11_to TASCHEN.indd 52
10.08.11 08:36
in vicio
civiliza
murde
in any
We pra
1. Ph
We sh
facilitie
power
2. Fu
The ag
system
encou
of pois
comm
house
enforc
3. De
The en
plannin
ment a
the ma
reside
cities
O
kinds o
endea
at the
the ab
to this
go on
You ha
resolv
sentim
He inte
compa
at all.
N
design
persua
of his c
the pro
togeth
was w
conclu
physic
T
ber To
The sc
to noth
senten
uninha
to con
a body
ed
d hurt
called
the
ity,
still,
which
hat in
ssion
act
othing
es.
roy
s
ding
ing
ely
orted
and
gance
deco
eople,
mon
ole;
ass
he
on,
may
istic
o
us
hich
ptual
gan
so it
der
inion
s and
when
it
only
t only
se,
n
s the
er
of
ged
01_Isozaki_022_055_FIN_24JUL11_to TASCHEN.indd 53
53
10.08.11 08:36
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.
(Translated by Richard Gage)
54
arata isozaki
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55
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