Made In Tokyo

Architectural Review, The, Oct, 2001 by Yoshiharu Tsukamoto, Momoyo Kaijima, Junzo Kuroda

Translated by Marika Neustopny

The numerous nameless hybrid buildings of Tokyo might seem like the worst excesses of architecture, but they can also be seen as intriguing responses to particular conditions and have lessons that might be applied in the search for a more fluid and humane urbanism. Yoshiharu Tsukamoto, Momoyo Kaijima and Junzo Kuroda explain the background to their research into this phenomenon, illustrated by some of Tokyo's more exotic architectural inhabitants.

Unlike European cities, almost all the buildings in Tokyo have been constructed within the last 30 or 40 years. This has resulted in some very curious spatial compositions and functional combinations, unthinkable in the traditional European city. Roads and train lines run over buildings, expressways wind over rivers, and the huge volumes of golf practice nets billow over tiny residential districts. How is it that Tokyo can allow such apparently shameless architecture to flourish? How has Japan managed to arrive at such a different urban fabric to Europe, despite having the same building technologies?

In Japan, as elsewhere, critical criteria tend to be derived from examples of overseas architecture and historical precedent. If such orthodox values are applied to Tokyo, the city is revealed as being full of architecturally inconsequential and ugly buildings. However it must be possible to redefine and take advantage of them. Such buildings cannot simply be regarded as a consequence of a general architectural, social and economic melee, but are in fact complex and practical responses to urban conditions.

Survey origins

In 1991, a small spaghetti shop was discovered squeezed into the space under a baseball batting centre. Neither a spaghetti shop nor a batting centre are unusual in Tokyo, but the combination of the two seemed odd. Yet despite the faintly ridiculous marriage of functions, the building also aroused a sense of expectation in its uninhibited energy and wilfulness. It seemed to epitomize Tokyo. These mutant structures became the subject of an extensive photographic and documentary study. This marked the beginning of Made in Tokyo, a survey of the city's strange and nameless buildings.

All the buildings surveyed were characterized by a stubborn honesty in response to their surroundings and programmatic requirements. They became known as 'da-me architecture' (no-good architecture), a term intended to reflect an equal mixture of affection and disdain. Most are anonymous and architecturally unremarkable. In fact, many could be used to demonstrate what architecture should not become. But in terms of observing and reflecting the reality of Tokyo through built form, they are often more acute than any buildings designed by architects. And by collecting and cataloguing them, the character of the city gradually becomes apparent.

Defining da-me

Certain guidelines emerged in the definition of da-me architecture. From the start, some styles of architecture were avoided, such as obvious eclecticism and historical pastiche. Examples were selected based on the way in which they related directly to use. By emphasizing and examining the functional relationship between different elements, the built object was isolated without preconceived meanings and categories. Divisions between high and low culture, beauty and ugliness, good and bad were also ignored. Such a 'flat' way of seeing suited the nature of Tokyo, which is an agglomeration of countless different types of physical structures.

The format of the survey came to resemble a guidebook. In terms of organizing the way the city is used, guidebooks can be a tool for urban planning. However, a guidebook does not necessarily need a conclusion, clear beginning or order. Again, this seemed appropriate for Tokyo, locked into a perpetual cycle of construction and destruction.

Urban symbiosis

The buildings of Made in Tokyo are not beautiful. They are mongrel, low status types, such as car parks, batting centres, hybrid containers or civil engineering works. They are not designed by famous architects. They do not respond to cultural context and history. They are highly economical and efficient solutions, arrived at by the minimum of effort. In Tokyo, such direct responses are expected. They are not burnished with the gloss of culture; they are simply physical 'building'. They utilize. whatever is at hand -- rooftops, walls, gaps between lots. Spaces are often used for two different functions, giving rise to hybrids such as the department store/expressway, where a shop nestles underneath. a motorway. The department store depends on the expressway for its structure, hut conversely, the expressway depends on the department store for its existence in a busy commercial area. Neither can exist on its own - they are symbiotically interdependent. Such buildings seem anti-aesthetic, anti-historic, anti-plan ning and anti-classification. The examples surveyed do not necessarily embody all these criteria, but are simply arrived at through a desperate response to the here and now. In many ways this is what is so refreshing about them.