Letter from Tokyo

Architectural Review, The, July, 2000

Tom Heneghan writes from a Japan which blooms, even though the great construction and development boom, so integral to Japanese economic success in the last four decades, seems to be over for the time being.

The Writing's on the Wall...and it says: 'Tenanto'!

'Te-na-n-to bo-shu' (Tenant needed!). An announcement, rarely seen before, that is now almost ubiquitous in Tokyo, pasted on the windows of empty office buildings and shops throughout the city.

The architectural news from Tokyo -- and it is surprising news considering the way Japanese architecture has occupied the limelight during the past two decades, both because of its quantity and quality -- is that there is no news. The party (at least for the moment) is over. It's the morning after.

The vast prestige, projects built by Tokyo government during the economic bubble of the 1980s and '90s, now devour huge running-cost budgets, and are dragging the city close to bankruptcy. We can't afford so much prestige. The Tokyo International Exhibition Hall, 1996 -- one of the world's largest exhibition spaces -- costs [yen]7.4 billion per year to keep open. The Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Modern Art, 1995 (the largest in Asia) runs for [yen]2 billion per year. Rafael Vi[tilde{n}]noly's Tokyo International Forum, 1997, with one of the world's largest capacity halls (see AR November 1996), costs the taxpayer [yen]4.9 billion annually. And, Kenzo Tange's twin-towers, 1991, that are the seat of Tokyo municipal government itself (the tallest buildings in Japan when constructed), require a [yen]6.6 billion annual maintenance budget. The Tokyo Metropolitan Art Space, 1990, which annually sucks [yen]1.7 billion down the hole, has a pipe-organ (one of the world's largest, of course) which costs [yen]10 million each year, just for tuning. (All figures from 1998 city budget.) In the words of the Asahi newspaper, it is 'an unfortunate matter that most of the buildings were built by famous architects (whose complex designs contribute to the running costs)'. How say you, Bilbao? But, the real reason for the problem is more elementary, and more resistant to remedy. Despite the country's success as an international trader, construction is still the motor of the domestic economy -- employing vast numbers of workers. The partiality of these worker/voters to employment, and the partiality of Japanese politicians, to ... er ... 'contributions to their political funds' made by construction companies, has meant that even the smallest mountain villages have soaring bridges and highway tunnels drilled through solid rock to serve them. And they sometimes have an expensively-built conference centre, and/or a museum -- built 'free' with subsidies from Tokyo (but leaving huge maintenance bills). And few visitors. This mutual back-sc ratching has enabled the same political party to win almost every election for the past 55 years. And, it was all OK ... while there was still plenty of pork in the barrel. Which now there isn't.

But, short of any other ideas, the government hopes, thus, to 'buy' its way out of the current crisis. So, Tokyo, even during this very deep recession, has almost as many construction cranes in its skyline as does London during a boom. As Botond Bognar cleverly realized when illustrating his recent book World Cities -- Tokyo, photographs of this continually changing city must be captioned not just with the name of the place, but also with the year and month.

Reflecting its policy of 'scrap and build', thc Ministry of Finance bases building taxes on the assumption that a wooden building will be demolished after 25 years, and a concrete building after 40 years. Which, while far less than their theoretical life span, has been recently found, in many cases, to be an accurate projection. Many buildings erected during the 1970s are now being discovered to have been poorly built, in a rush.

Concrete tunnels along a Bullet-train line recently started crumbling because, it was found, sea sand had been used to make the concrete instead of river sand, because demand had outstripped supply at the time of the construction boom.

Trust in the integrity and workmanship of Japanese companies has been a casualty of recent events, which have shaken the faith most people previously invested in the reliability of The Japanese Way. Competition in the global marketplace has required new efficiencies, and made the very attractive -- but slightly feudal -- notion of a job for life at one company no longer certain.

Problematically, as the social commentator Yoi chi Funabashi recently wrote, 'Since the beginning of Japan's economic growth, Japanese people have relied on their companies to play the role of society'. And, if the company decides it can't continue, your employment, both your job and your society disappear simultaneously. Unemployment is now at its highest since the war. The suicide rate is the highest ever. In 1998, the most recent records released, nearly 33 000 people killed themselves, a jump of 35 per cent over the previous year, the majority being middle-aged males -- the legendary 'salarymen' who had spent their lives raising Japan from nothing into, not so long ago, the World's premier economy.