Kenzo Tange and the Metabolist Movement: Urban Utopias of Modern Japan

Kenzo Tange and the Metabolist Movement: Urban Utopias of Modern Japan

Zhongjie Lin

Language: English

Pages: 292

ISBN: 0415776600

Format: PDF / Kindle (mobi) / ePub


Metabolism, the Japanese architectural avant-garde movement of the 1960s, profoundly influenced contemporary architecture and urbanism. This book focuses on the Metabolists’ utopian concept of the city and investigates the design and political implications of their visionary planning in the postwar society. At the root of the group’s urban utopias was a particular biotechical notion of the city as an organic process. It stood in opposition to the Modernist view of city design and led to such radical design concepts as marine civilization and artificial terrains, which embodied the metabolists’ ideals of social change.

Tracing the evolution of Metabolism from its inception at the 1960 World Design Conference to its spectacular swansong at the Osaka World Exposition in 1970, this book situates Metabolism in the context of Japan’s mass urban reconstruction, economic miracle, and socio-political reorientation. This new study will interest architectural and urban historians, architects and all those interested in avant-garde design and Japanese architecture.

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environment, placing a particular emphasis on urbanism.21 The historic fourth CIAM meeting assumed “Functional City” as its theme, resulting in a commanding series of proposals on town planning, later published in The Athens Charter in 1942. 22 This document directed planning efforts toward a rigid alignment of functional zones in town layouts, including dwelling, work, recreation, and circulation. It became a dominant methodology in city design as CIAM rose to prominence after the Second World

people in fields other than architecture to speak at the gatherings, opening up discussions to broader issues of history, technology, and philosophy. Among the people who came to Ryugetsu ryokan was an atomic physicist Mitsuo Taketani. Taketani was a Marxist scholar and co-founder of the leftist intellectual group Riken, meaning “scientific research group.” Riken attracted a number of progressive scientists who were influenced by Marxism and advocated Marx’s theory of scientific dialectics. In

fascinated not only by the master architect’s capacity as a sculptural form-giver in architecture, but also his grand visions for the modern city. What Tange saw in the scheme of the Soviet Palace was a powerful architectural image that combined technological progress and urban continuity, and represented a harmonious balance between social order and democracy. These qualities permeated the ensemble of Le Corbusier’s works, which contrasted with the radically discontinuous urban environment

in legitimizing the imperial institution. This continued even after the Meiji Restoration, when the country transformed itself into a modern nation.87 Architectural historians in the prewar period – prominently among them Chuta Ito (1867–1954) – tended to present Ise as the cornerstone of a national culture, lauding it as “architecture that manifests the spirit of simplicity that is characteristic of the Japanese people.”88 Such nationalist rhetoric was common in the interwar period when Ise

© 2009 Artists Right Society (ARS), New York/VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn: 2.9 © 2009 Artists Right Society (ARS), New York/Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation, Scottsdale, AZ: 2.11 © 2009 Artists Right Society (ARS), New York/ADAGP, Paris/FLC: 2.25 © 2009 Artists Right Society (ARS), New York/Beeldrecht, Amsterdam: 2.29 CNAC/MNAM/Dist. Réunion des Musées Nationaux/Art Resource, New York: 5.15 Huilai Shi: 2.24 International Ocean Exposition Okinawa: 2.31 Jieun Kim: 2.4 Kisho Kurokawa Architect & Associates:

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