Japanese Architecture as a Collaborative Process. . - Japan Builds - book review

Architectural Review, The, May, 2002 by John Winter

By Dana Buntrock. London: E & FN Spon. 2001. [pounds sterling]32.50

'There is no more satisfying experience than building in Japan' says Cesar Pelli, and most of us envy a country that has a building industry with a care for craft, a wish to innovate and a tradition of co-operation.

Dana Buntrock describes the history and setup of the Japanese building industry as seen from an American perspective. This makes for a very interesting book. How strange that the architects of Japan and the West seem to belong to a single culture, yet the means of realization of their buildings are worlds apart.

The picture that emerges is of an efficient industry committed to the avoidance of disputes, of great teams sharing the aim of creating a fine building. Buntrock is clearly impressed by the co-operative stance of the different members of the building team, with blue collar workers contributing to design ideas and to the solution of technical problems. Contracts, we are told, are deliberately incomplete, with contractors pricing on 1:100 drawings and detailing being evolved as the structure goes up. Fumihiko Maki states in his forward that a good Japanese building is 'beautiful not just because it appeals to the eye, but because it represents the product of human collaboration'. That's a far cry from the Western notion of the architect as lonely genius.

Decisions in the Japanese building industry are reached at endless meetings. Architects can expect to spend 40 hours a week in meetings, but as they also have to do their normal work an 80-hour week is the norm. Buntrock pulls no punches here, and the shortcomings of the system are becoming more apparent now that money is tighter. Maki states that their building methods are not exportable and is extremely gloomly about the future for Japanese architecture. One is left with the conclusion that the Japanese system has produced some wonderful buildings, but perhaps life in Europe is more pleasant.