ARCH7220 Architecture in Asia Professor Yinong Xu May 2009 Z3281292 Joao Gilberto Damo Between Tradition and Modernity: In search for original spaces Tradition, in a sense, depends of modernity to be expressed. Modernity, in this sense, depends of tradition to gain authenticity and integrity. This relationship and the search for equilibrium between these conditions marked the twenty-century architectural field in China and Japan as an intercultural and symbiotic environment. Mutual ben- efits were explored and tested until their limits with great ambition, usually causing serious social discrepancies. By taking advantage of new technologies, Japan had the opportunity to find a new milieu for a struggled nation after the war. Modernism and western methods fitted for the purpose of reconstructing the cities. The foreign concepts were absorbed. Individualism, materialism, uniformity and uncontrolled urban grown became pres- ent. There was an intransigent belief in a continuing progress. Augustin Berque mentioned: ‘Society has in the intervening years been to some extend acculturated to modern individualism.’ 1 William H. Coaldrake also explores the consequences of these practices in the post- war Japan criticizing the trends of an increasing western influenced Japanese society: ‘Coherence created by traditional design or by international architectural influences has been shattered by consumerism and comertialization.’ 2 Nevertheless, the loss of identity has been realized and efforts were taken in order to revitalize the Japanese integrity. The Kenzo Tange’s design for The Hiroshima Peace Centre, completed in 1956 expressed a remarkable equilibrium between traditional and modernity. Coaldrakes comments: ‘a rare ability to articulate the severe modern- ist materials of steel-frame, concrete and glass, to replicate traditional timber-frame buildings. Tange’s interpretation of the International Style opened up long vistas on Japan’s architectural past rather than closing off tradition, which had been common feature of the movement since the 1930s.’ 3 Referring to Tange’s design for National Gymnasium for the Olympic Games, in Tokyo, as a fulfilment of the civic architectur- al intentions, he implies: ‘an eloquent reaffirmation of Japan’s dignity and authority as a nation.’ 4 He continues: ‘In this Tange was extraordinarily effective in invoking the traditional sense of authority conveyed by the great tiled roofs of temples.’ 5 These buildings are considered to have represented Japan nationally and internationally with renewed vigour marking a transition in the nation’s history through architecture. In a later period, Arata Isozaki writes concerning the identity problematic: ‘But, un- less some effort is made to broaden viewpoints beyond that framework, architects end up in the slavish position of doing no more than docilely creating the kinds of build- ings society demands.’ 6 When designing the Tsukuba Centre Building, built in 1983, his efforts to find an origin or centre, inquired the current lack ness of meaning and the inappropriate state representation. National Gymnasium for the Olympic Games, Tokyo, Japan. 12 Tsukuba Center Building, Tsukuba Science City, Ibaragi, Japan. 13
Transcript
ARCH7220 Architecture in Asia Professor Yinong XuMay 2009Z3281292 Joao Gilberto Damo
Between Tradition and Modernity: In search for original spaces
Tradition, in a sense, depends of modernity to be expressed. Modernity, in this sense, depends of tradition to gain authenticity and integrity. This relationship and the search for equilibrium between these conditions marked the twenty-century architectural field in China and Japan as an intercultural and symbiotic environment. Mutual ben-efits were explored and tested until their limits with great ambition, usually causing serious social discrepancies. By taking advantage of new technologies, Japan had the opportunity to find a new milieu for a struggled nation after the war. Modernism and western methods fitted for the purpose of reconstructing the cities. The foreign concepts were absorbed. Individualism, materialism, uniformity and uncontrolled urban grown became pres-ent. There was an intransigent belief in a continuing progress. Augustin Berque mentioned: ‘Society has in the intervening years been to some extend acculturated to modern individualism.’1
William H. Coaldrake also explores the consequences of these practices in the post-war Japan criticizing the trends of an increasing western influenced Japanese society: ‘Coherence created by traditional design or by international architectural influences has been shattered by consumerism and comertialization.’2
Nevertheless, the loss of identity has been realized and efforts were taken in order to revitalize the Japanese integrity. The Kenzo Tange’s design for The Hiroshima Peace Centre, completed in 1956 expressed a remarkable equilibrium between traditional and modernity. Coaldrakes comments: ‘a rare ability to articulate the severe modern-ist materials of steel-frame, concrete and glass, to replicate traditional timber-frame buildings. Tange’s interpretation of the International Style opened up long vistas on Japan’s architectural past rather than closing off tradition, which had been common feature of the movement since the 1930s.’3 Referring to Tange’s design for National Gymnasium for the Olympic Games, in Tokyo, as a fulfilment of the civic architectur-al intentions, he implies: ‘an eloquent reaffirmation of Japan’s dignity and authority as a nation.’4 He continues: ‘In this Tange was extraordinarily effective in invoking the traditional sense of authority conveyed by the great tiled roofs of temples.’5 These buildings are considered to have represented Japan nationally and internationally with renewed vigour marking a transition in the nation’s history through architecture. In a later period, Arata Isozaki writes concerning the identity problematic: ‘But, un-less some effort is made to broaden viewpoints beyond that framework, architects end up in the slavish position of doing no more than docilely creating the kinds of build-ings society demands.’6 When designing the Tsukuba Centre Building, built in 1983, his efforts to find an origin or centre, inquired the current lack ness of meaning and the inappropriate state representation.
National Gymnasium for the Olympic Games, Tokyo, Japan.12 Tsukuba Center Building, Tsukuba Science City, Ibaragi, Japan.13
ARCH7220 Architecture in Asia Professor Yinong XuMay 2009Z3281292 Joao Gilberto Damo
At the same time, he expressed the individualism of the elements in conjunction with traditional architectural forms exposing a relationship between Traditional and Moder-nity in a twined way. When saying that Las Meninas, a western art painting, and the Capitoline Piazza, in its inversion, had inspired him in the concept of the design as an expression of absence, he conformed to the idea of an inherent symbiotic relationship between the West and Japan. In China, there were critical transitional events as well. Between 1915 and 1927 there was a national debate to find new models for the country as Jianfei Zhu relates: ‘Chi-nese tradition and Western modernity were conceived of as opposites, and the former was rejected in favour of the latter.’7 The ‘Chinese Form’ movement came to respond this decline of tradition incorporating Chinese architectural features into their designs as per example, Chinese roof on top of a concrete or steel structures, traditional decora-tive elements and traditional space organization. The Mausoleum of Dr Sun Yat-sen in Nanjing by architect Lu Yanzhi expressed a national revival and a transition in China architecture through a combination of western principles with Chinese traditional and historical elements. After the wars in 1949 there was ‘the founding of the Republic of China under Mao Zedong and the Communist Party. Foreign architectural influences, largely from the Soviet Union, were incorporated. Zhu relates: ‘Modernism and the International Style were condemned as an expression of Western imperialism, capitalism and bourgeois culture.’8 There were serious economic and social problems in this period, caused mainly by great urban migration and industrialization. At the end of 1950s, The Great Leap Forward, a government initiative, commissioned architects for ‘Ten Grand Projects’ in Beijing, in celebration of the tenth National Day on 1st October 1959. The Cultural Palace of Nationalities and The Great Hall of the People are among the produced buildings, with political and symbolic importance, as Zhu comments: ‘In the Evolution of the Chinese Beaux Arts Model, the ten projects as a whole marked a transition from the tradition-based National Form to an ideologically based political symbolism.’9
In these transitions, the Chinese and Japanese relationships between Tradition and Modernity have been unbalanced and difficult. Considerable social and conceptual problems remained until the end of the past century, when signs of improvement could be perceived. Peter G. Rowe comments: ‘The specter of the veritable Chinese distinc-tion between ti (standing for body, essence and foundation) and yong (standing for use function, application, or form) as well as it final disposition, remains very much in play. More over, judging for the history of Chinese struggle with modernity and modernism in architecture, it seems very unlike that any further substantial capitulation will occur without a corresponding broad theoretical alignment of how the balance between ‘es-sence’ and ‘form’ is to be maintained.’10
Shaghai residents, Shanghai, China.15 Sun Yat Sen’s Mausoleum, Nanjing, China.14
ARCH7220 Architecture in Asia Professor Yinong XuMay 2009Z3281292 Joao Gilberto Damo
ARCH7220 Architecture in Asia Professor Yinong XuMay 2009Z3281292 Joao Gilberto Damo
The Dongjiadu church project in Shanghai is a good example of the effort to stabi-lize the conceptual meanings while looking for new approaches. The resurgence and preservation of the church as starting point to develop the surrounding areas, exposes new concepts in the organization of the space and gives hope for future urban revital-izations. Ackbar Abbas comments: ‘The city as remake, a shot-by-shot reworking of a classic, with a different cast, addressed to a different audience, not ‘Back to the Fu-ture’, but ‘Forward to the Past.’11 This optimistic vision resonates with the actual Japanese architectural production. Projects such as the Kumamoto Artpolis, born in 1988, with Arata Isosaki as the first commissioner, demonstrate the preoccupation to improve the architecture culture in Japan, and perhaps, to be perceived as models internationally.
Notes
1. Augustin Berque, Japan: Cities and Social Bonds, translated by Chris Turner (Yelvertoft Manor, Northamptonshire: Pilkington Press, 1997), 163. 2. William H. Coaldrake, “Tange Kenzo’s Tokyo Monuments, New Authority and Old Architectural Ambitions,” in Architecture and Authority in Japan (London: Routledge, 1996), 253. 3. Ibid.,258. 4. Ibid.,257. 5. Ibid.,261. 6. Arata Isozaki, “Of City, Nation, and Style,” in Masao Miyoshi and H.D. Harootunian (eds.), Postmodernism and Japan (Durham: Duke University Press, 1989), 54. 7. Jianfei Zhu, “Beyond Revolution: Notes on Contemporary Chinese Architecture,” AA files 35 (Spring 1998): 3. 8. Ibid.,4. 9. Ibid.,6.10. Peter G. Rowe,” Modernization in China,” AV Monographs 109-110, nos.9-12 (September-December 2004): 9.11. Ackbar Abbas, “Play It Again Shanghai: Urban Preservation in the Global Era,” in Mario Gandelsonas (ed.), Shanghai Reflections: Architecture, Urbanism, and the Search for an Alternative Modernity (New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 2002), 38.12. Robin Boyd, New Directions in Japanese Architecture (London, England: Studio Vista, 1968), 114.13. Arata Isozaki, Four decades of Architecture (London, England: Thames And Hudson, 1998), 120.14. Edward Denilson and Guang Yu Ren, “Nationalism and Modernity,” in Modernism in China (Chichester, England: John Wiley & Sons Ltd, 2008), 110.15. Edward Denilson and Guang Yu Ren, “Shanghai Future,” in Building Shanghai: The story of China gateway (Chichester, England: John Wiley & Sons Ltd, 2006),237.16. Pierre Clément “Shanghai: Squares an public spaces,” In Seng Kuan and Peter G. Rowe, Shanghai Architecture & Urbanism for Modern China (Freising, Germany: Prestel Publishing, 2004), 155.
