anybody know any good books on japanese arch theory? Looking for books pertaining to both traditional and modern/contemporary arch (not necessarily in he same book). thanks.
unfortunately most of the writing in english romanticises or feeds on the stereotypes of japan, so you need to take a lot of it with a big grain of salt.
for example when people start going on about wabi-sabi, ma, or oku, or go on about the messiness and the high-tech construction mentality you know they are looking through a very special pair of glasses. Not only do most japanese not live that way most of the buildings are not even remotely designed with such considerations. my own view is that japanese architecture is approached the way farmers approach their work; its very practical and specific and the larger picture is not really considered. this makes for a lively and richly inhabited city but it ain't so pretty..
anyway, having said that, some of the classics are:
Ashihara, Yoshinobu
The Hidden Order: Tokyo Through the Twentieth Century
Shelton, Barrie.
Learning From the Japanese: West Meets East in Urban Design
Tanizaki, Junnichiro.
In Praise of Shadows
Hidenobu, Jinnai
Tokyo: A Spatial Anthropology
Engel, Heinrich
The Japanese House: A Tradition for Contemporary Architecture.
others worth looking at are maki's book on collective form (actually anything by him is likely to be good), and i recall reading a few articles by peter popham that were quite insightful (not sure where or when, sorry).
finally, books by bognar and Nitschke are not my thing (basically i think they are awful) but they are supposed to be experts on the architecture here. likewise with Kisho kurokawa's books on symbiosis.
oh yeah, one more ecent raddition by tsukamoto of atelier bow-wow, called pet architecture. It is interesting but again he is seeing only the parts of tokyo that he wants to see so don't take it too seriously. fun though.
kojin karatani had a place at an ANY conference, and from what I read he's an interesting figure. Unlike the reductivist or completely interpretative japanese theory (in english) that jump has mentioned, he's an 'oriental' that turns on western theory, writing on the tradition of critical theory: kant, marx.
on that note, a japanese friend told me he's also incomprehensible in lecture.
reiser umemoto have a good article on the metabolists
also a good piece on the metabolists (more history/summary of their ideas than straight theory - maybe even more helpful for that reason) in the book 'anxious modernisms'. gets into motivations, relationships between the various people working after the war > 60s.
i'll offer one more because it is the first truly useful book on japan i have read (and I've read a lot), but it is about urbanism rather than architecture so maybe not your thing. if you want the sraight poop on why japan is the way it is though, this is the place to get it:
Sorenson, Andre.
The Making of Urban Japan: Cities and Planning From Edo to the 21st Century
be warned that this is an academic book and so is filled with facts rather than opinions and avoids the sort of hyperbole that many writers resort to with the topic. it is nonetheless quite well written.
Ray-Jones, A. Sustainable architecture in Japan: the green buildings of Nikken Sekkei.
Cybriwsky, Roman. Tokyo, the changing profile of an urban giant.
Frampton, Kenneth. A New wave of Japanese architecture.
Barthes, Roland. Empire of signs.
Knabe + Noennig. Shaking the foundations: Japanese architects in dialogue.
Noguchi, M. Invisible language, Tokyo 1990's. Architectural Association.
Try to find stuff on morikawa, on the superflatness and the specifity of techno-urbanism
mano, I like especially barthes' chapter on chopsticks. it's a tongue-in-cheek interpretation by a 'sign-reader'.
steven - i don't know if it's m o r e helpful - this isn't a glamour pageant, is it? I could post a list of library books, or point out a unique webpage by a good practice.
should we can ask the original poster to keep score?
yeah, barthes is fundamental although severely criticizable
jump has a point on not going too much co-co for japaneseness
-they have al written loads about it and coded it as culture-
architecturally is more funky to use a de-mistifying approach
a study of a common urban condition for instance and how
people rreact to it in a daily basis.
Japanese Theory
anybody know any good books on japanese arch theory? Looking for books pertaining to both traditional and modern/contemporary arch (not necessarily in he same book). thanks.
unfortunately most of the writing in english romanticises or feeds on the stereotypes of japan, so you need to take a lot of it with a big grain of salt.
for example when people start going on about wabi-sabi, ma, or oku, or go on about the messiness and the high-tech construction mentality you know they are looking through a very special pair of glasses. Not only do most japanese not live that way most of the buildings are not even remotely designed with such considerations. my own view is that japanese architecture is approached the way farmers approach their work; its very practical and specific and the larger picture is not really considered. this makes for a lively and richly inhabited city but it ain't so pretty..
anyway, having said that, some of the classics are:
Ashihara, Yoshinobu
The Hidden Order: Tokyo Through the Twentieth Century
Shelton, Barrie.
Learning From the Japanese: West Meets East in Urban Design
Tanizaki, Junnichiro.
In Praise of Shadows
Hidenobu, Jinnai
Tokyo: A Spatial Anthropology
Engel, Heinrich
The Japanese House: A Tradition for Contemporary Architecture.
others worth looking at are maki's book on collective form (actually anything by him is likely to be good), and i recall reading a few articles by peter popham that were quite insightful (not sure where or when, sorry).
finally, books by bognar and Nitschke are not my thing (basically i think they are awful) but they are supposed to be experts on the architecture here. likewise with Kisho kurokawa's books on symbiosis.
oh yeah, one more ecent raddition by tsukamoto of atelier bow-wow, called pet architecture. It is interesting but again he is seeing only the parts of tokyo that he wants to see so don't take it too seriously. fun though.
great list, thanks.
Japan : Towards Totalscape has some decent criticism in it.
haven't read that one yet, though now i look seems my advisor has written one of the articles...small world.
kojin karatani had a place at an ANY conference, and from what I read he's an interesting figure. Unlike the reductivist or completely interpretative japanese theory (in english) that jump has mentioned, he's an 'oriental' that turns on western theory, writing on the tradition of critical theory: kant, marx.
on that note, a japanese friend told me he's also incomprehensible in lecture.
reiser umemoto have a good article on the metabolists
that would be the metabolists.... take it away tony
also a good piece on the metabolists (more history/summary of their ideas than straight theory - maybe even more helpful for that reason) in the book 'anxious modernisms'. gets into motivations, relationships between the various people working after the war > 60s.
and michael franklin ross' 'beyond metabolism'.
i'll offer one more because it is the first truly useful book on japan i have read (and I've read a lot), but it is about urbanism rather than architecture so maybe not your thing. if you want the sraight poop on why japan is the way it is though, this is the place to get it:
Sorenson, Andre.
The Making of Urban Japan: Cities and Planning From Edo to the 21st Century
be warned that this is an academic book and so is filled with facts rather than opinions and avoids the sort of hyperbole that many writers resort to with the topic. it is nonetheless quite well written.
Guys some, stuff direct from Tokyo
Ray-Jones, A. Sustainable architecture in Japan: the green buildings of Nikken Sekkei.
Cybriwsky, Roman. Tokyo, the changing profile of an urban giant.
Frampton, Kenneth. A New wave of Japanese architecture.
Barthes, Roland. Empire of signs.
Knabe + Noennig. Shaking the foundations: Japanese architects in dialogue.
Noguchi, M. Invisible language, Tokyo 1990's. Architectural Association.
Try to find stuff on morikawa, on the superflatness and the specifity of techno-urbanism
Cheers
Mano
mano, I like especially barthes' chapter on chopsticks. it's a tongue-in-cheek interpretation by a 'sign-reader'.
steven - i don't know if it's m o r e helpful - this isn't a glamour pageant, is it? I could post a list of library books, or point out a unique webpage by a good practice.
should we can ask the original poster to keep score?
and ask him/her for grammar corrections - v. tired today
great! thanks a lot guys, this should get me started.
yeah, barthes is fundamental although severely criticizable
jump has a point on not going too much co-co for japaneseness
-they have al written loads about it and coded it as culture-
architecturally is more funky to use a de-mistifying approach
a study of a common urban condition for instance and how
people rreact to it in a daily basis.
mano
A+U special edition: Light in Japanese Architecture by Henry Plummer.
Fabulous.
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