Project Japan: Metabolism Talks...

Description

“Once there was a nation that went to war, but after they conquered a continent their own country was destroyed by atom bombs ... then the victors imposed democracy on the vanquished. For a group of apprentice architects, artists, and designers, led by a visionary, the dire situation of their country was not an obstacle but an inspiration to plan and think ... although they were very different characters, the architects worked closely together to realize their dreams, staunchly supported by a super-creative bureaucracy and an activist state... after 15 years of incubation, they surprised the world with a new architecture —Metabolism—that proposed a radical makeover of the entire land... Then newspapers, magazines, and TV turned the architects into heroes: thinkers and doers, thoroughly modern men… Through sheer hard work, discipline, and the integration of all forms of creativity, their country, Japan, became a shining example ... when the oil crisis initiated the end of the West, the architects of Japan spread out over the world to define the contours of a post-Western aesthetic....” —Rem Koolhaas / Hans Ulrich Obrist Between 2005 and 2011, architect Rem Koolhaas and curator Hans Ulrich Obrist interviewed the surviving members of Metabolism —the first non-Western avant-garde, launched in Tokyo in 1960, in the midst of Japan’s postwar miracle. Project Japan features hundreds of never-before-seen images —master plans from Manchuria to Tokyo, intimate snapshots of the Metabolists at work and play, architectural models, magazine excerpts, and astonishing sci-fi urban visions— telling the 20th-century history of Japan through its architecture . From the tabula rasa of a colonized Manchuria in the 1930s, a devastated Japan after the war, and the establishment of Metabolism at the 1960 World Design Conference in Tokyo to the rise of Kisho Kurokawa as the first celebrity architect, the apotheosis of Metabolism at Expo ’70 in Osaka, and its expansion into the Middle East and Africa in the 1970s: The result is a vivid documentary of the last moment when architecture was a public rather than a private affair . Oral history by Rem Koolhaas and Hans Ulrich Obrist Extensive interviews with Arata Isozaki, Toshiko Kato, Kiyonori Kikutake, Noboru Kawazoe, Fumihiko Maki, Kisho Kurokawa, Kenji Ekuan, Atsushi Shimokobe , and Takako and Noritaka Tange Hundreds of never-before-seen images, architectural models, and magazine excerpts Layout by award-winning Dutch designer Irma Boom Further reading Review: A great book that does justice to its subject matter. - Going into this book I knew very little about the metabolist movement in architecture. I found that the format of quickly alternating interviews and history pieces kept me engaged and interested as a reader. Well-chosen photos and graphics illustrate the text tastefully. The interviews with metabolist architects were great, and managed to not only record the important history and facts about metabolist architecture, but also gave insight into the personal lives, career development, and group dynamic of these Japanese architects who all contributed to the movement in different ways. As a designer I can relate to the metabolist's desire for architecture to play a role in solving the many complex problems in a rapidly changing world. Only by working together to advance the architecture profession in Japan were they able to achieve some level of success. With the focus today so much on the individuality of each famous designer, it is refreshing to read about this not-so-distant movement that happened because of a group of individuals working toward a common way of thinking. I have not come across any other books that describe the process of a movement taking shape quite like this book does. It goes to great lengths to provide as many viewpoints as possible from the people who were there when it happened. It is an architecture book that is also about how these architects interacted with their world to promote their vision. It feels like a large amount of respect and care went into the making of this book. Rem Koolhaas and Hans Ulrich Obrist clearly knew that the metabolist movement in architecture has tremendous historical importance and a serious lack of recorded historical documentation. They did a wonderful job compiling and presenting all the information in this book! Review: Reimagining Urban Futures - Project Japan: Metabolism Talks by Rem Koolhaas and Hans Ulrich Obrist presents a vivid exploration of the Metabolism movement, reflecting on Japan’s postwar architectural avant-garde. This work dives into the Metabolists’ grand utopian vision—cities that grow, adapt, and transform—juxtaposed with the reality of modernism’s limitations. While Metabolism’s monumental structures may seem outdated, Koolhaas deftly examines their philosophical relevance in today’s urban sustainability challenges, spotlighting a fundamental tension: the dream of limitless growth versus nature’s boundaries. A remarkable documentation of a fleeting yet transformative era in architectural history