An Alternative to Western Rationalism
Cover, Glass/Wood House, Connecticut, America [2010]. Architecture: Kengo Kuma & Associates. Photography: Scott Francis.
Preface
This text is an excerpt from Translating Tradition: Technology, Heidegger's ‘Letting-Be’ and Japanese New Wave Architecture [1997] by Australian architect and scholar in Buddhist studies and Buddhist art, Adrian Snodgrass [1931].
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Synopsis
The Japanese 'New Wave' architects are critical of Western rationality, yet resort to sophisticated technology. This seemingly paradoxical [logically self-contradictory] stance has correspondences on the one hand with some aspects of Heidegger's thinking on technology and with his notion of 'letting-be' [Gelassenheit], and on the other hand with certain traditional Buddhist doctrines.
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Translating Tradition:
Technology, Heidegger's ‘Letting-Be’ and Japanese New Wave Architecture
The Modern Movement repudiated the past. It looked to modern technology for focus and inspiration, and put its trust in a Utopian future determined by technological progress. The post-moderns, in reaction, reaffirmed the relevance of the past, sought to preserve some measure of historical continuity, and tended to be less credulous concerning the inevitability of technological advance to a perfect world.
For the most part contemporary Japanese architects follow the world-wide post-modernist trend in being more conciliatory towards the past and more critical in their attitude towards notions of technological utopianism. Some of them, however, give a distinctively Japanese twist to this general tendency.
A number of Japanese architects reject the Modem Movement not because of its particular notions concerning architecture, but because of its associations with Western forms of rationality and the technological applications of that rationality. They turn to their tradition not, as do post-modem architects elsewhere, to evoke a nostalgic sense of the familiar, to indulge in irony, or to reinforce a sense of local or national identity, but as an alternative and counter to modem Western modes of logic.
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'A number of Japanese architects reject the Modem Movement not because of its particular notions concerning architecture, but because of its associations with Western forms of rationality and the technological applications of that rationality. They turn to their tradition not, as do post-modern architects elsewhere, to evoke a nostalgic sense of the familiar, to indulge in irony, or to reinforce a sense of local or national identity, but as an alternative and counter to modem Western modes of logic.'
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The architect Kurokawa Kisho argues for this rejection of Western rationality in favour of traditional ways of thinking.' In his writings he describes the strategies he employs in his architectural works for expressing such Buddhist notions as Non-duality [funi], Emptiness [ku] and ephemerality [mujo].
He dissolves boundaries, merges inside and outside, emphasises intermediary zones and ambiguous spaces, fuses public and private areas, and uses other such means to create a sense of the ambiguous and the amorphous and to effect what he calls a 'symbiosis,' a non-dual merging of spaces and times.
He regards these strategies not merely as devices for achieving aesthetic ends, but primarily as a counter to the rigid demarcation of categories and the either/or dichotomies of Western thinking, which he blames for the decline of Japanese cities to a state of anti-human chaos, for the present sterility of architecture, and for the excesses of a consumption-driven and increasingly rootless society.
He totally rejects Utopian notions of technological progress.
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'[Kisho] Kurokawa is by no means alone in his thinking. The younger generation of Japanese architects [the 'New Wave'] similarly deplore the deterioration of architecture, the chaos of the urban environment and the waning of Japanese culture. They share Kurokawa's skepticism towards Western modes of thinking and search for architectural ways to revive and preserve the Buddhist tradition as an alternative to Western rationalism.'
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Kurokawa is by no means alone in his thinking. The younger generation of Japanese architects [the 'New Wave'] similarly deplore the deterioration of architecture, the chaos of the urban environment and the waning of Japanese culture. They share Kurokawa's skepticism towards Western modes of thinking and search for architectural ways to revive and preserve the Buddhist tradition as an alternative to Western rationalism.
There is nothing distinctively Japanese in deploring many aspects of modernity, in noting the consequences of an excessively rigid application of rationality, or in turning back to the past for a sense of cultural identity. Many postmodernist thinkers in the West share these tendencies. What differentiates the attitude of the Japanese from other postmodernist architects is the means they adopt to rehabilitate their tradition.
Whereas, on the one hand, they declare a rejection of Western rationality, on the other hand they do not abandon technology, but use it in its purest and undiluted forms.
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'They make no effort to revive handcraft or the materials and techniques of earlier times. Quite on the contrary, Kurokawa and the New Wave are masters of the most sophisticated and advanced technology. Nor do they use technology, as do some other postmodernist architects, to reproduce the superficial forms of the architecture of the past ... but to preserve the unseen tradition, the spiritual heritage of Japan.'
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They make no effort to revive handcraft or the materials and techniques of earlier times. Quite on the contrary, Kurokawa and the New Wave are masters of the most sophisticated and advanced technology. Nor do they use technology, as do some other postmodernist architects, to reproduce the superficial forms of the architecture of the past. Their aim is not to quote the styles of previous periods. It is not to reproduce the visible tradition or endorse any sort of stylistic revivalism, but to preserve the unseen tradition, the spiritual heritage of Japan.
Kurokawa and the New Wave aim not to quote the tradition but to translate it into the language of technology. They use technology to evoke a sense of the passing of the seasons, the ceaseless flow of all phenomena, the subtle sadness that tinges beauty, the silence that lies beyond sounds, and in this way emulate the traditional arts of Japan, which aimed to evoke intimations of the impermanence of all things, their suchness, their Emptiness, and the non-duality of forms and Emptiness.
To this purpose they use metal and glass surfaces to mirror natural changes in the light, sky and weather; they design courts to reflect the play of the sun, cloud shadows and the rain, and thus draw attention to natural processes even in the midst of the city; they hang metal screens to create an 'anemorphic' architecture, its forms changing and resonating with the breezes, to evoke a sense of subtle transformation and immateriality; they use technological means to manipulate planes and spaces and to dislocate geometries so as to give a sense of implied space, to express 'fluctuations' [yuragi] and to create architectural forms redolent of nature and to evoke images of a 'primal landscape' deemed to reside in the collective memory of the Japanese.
In all of this they avoid the use of the materials, techniques or forms of traditional architecture, but employ hi-tech means which have no connection with those of earlier times. The architectural forms they produce are not calculated to evoke memories of past styles. Although their architecture draws upon the vocabulary and syntax of the traditional arts - the use of understatement and the unspoken, the evocation of 'betweenness' [ma], the opening up of empty space, and so on - these are conveyed by strictly technological means which have nothing in common with the arts of former days.
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There is, obviously, a basic contradiction here. On the one hand the Japanese architects express an antagonism towards Western rationality and its manifestations in modern Japanese life, but on the other hand their buildings are state-of-the-art examples of the use of advanced technology, a technology which has resulted from and expresses the Western rationality they seek to reject.
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There is, obviously, a basic contradiction here. On the one hand the Japanese architects express an antagonism towards Western rationality and its manifestations in modern Japanese life, but on the other hand their buildings are state-of-the-art examples of the use of advanced technology, a technology which has resulted from and expresses the Western rationality they seek to reject.
Is this acceptance of the uses of technology and the simultaneous rejection of its rational base a case of having one's cake and eating it? Does it evidence either hypocrisy or unthinking naivety? Or does it, perhaps, stem from some darker, xenophobic source? Is it simply a new expression of 'Japanese Spirit, Western Technology' [wakon yosei], the anti-foreign slogan of those in the nineteenth century who aimed to protect Japanese culture from the incursions of the Western powers?
Or is it a manifestation of the nihonjinron belief in the uniqueness and superiority of a Japanese sensibility, the 'logic' of which will forever remain inaccessible to outsiders? It would be foolish to deny that these forces may well play a part in the thinking of the Japanese architects we are discussing. Nevertheless, it would be too hasty to dismiss that thinking out of hand on the grounds of irrationality or xenophobia.