Arata Isozaki 磯崎新 1931 born in Oita City 1954 graduates from Tokyo University; joins Tange Lab 1959 asked to join Metabolism but declines 1960 participates in Plan for Tokyo 1960 at Tange Lab; completes first building: Oita Medical Hall 1962 participates in Metabolist exhibition “This Will be Your City” in Tokyo; plans Clusters in the Air and City in the Air; publishes City Demolition Industry, Inc. 1963 establishes Arata Isozaki & Associates 1964 Iwata Girls’ High School, Oita 1965 designs set for Hiroshi Teshigahara’s film Face of Another 1966 Skopje masterplan with Tange; Oita Prefectural Library 1968 Electric Labyrinth installation for Milan Triennale is set up but not shown 1969 begins “Dismantling of Architecture” articles in Bijutsu Techo magazine 1970 Festival Plaza with Tange, Expo ’70 1971 Fukuoka Mutual Bank headquarters 1974 Gunma Prefectural Museum of Fine Arts, Takasaki; Kitakyushu City Museum of Art; integrates Tange’s and Louis Kahn’s plans for Abbas Abad New City Development, Tehran 1976 participates in “Man transform” exhibition at Cooper-Hewitt Museum, New York 1978 Conceives “Space-time in Japan MA” exhibition, Musée des Arts Décoratifs, Paris; curates “A New Wave of Japanese Architecture” in the US 1983 Tsukuba Centre Building 1985 Palladium Club, New York 1986 Los Angeles County Museum of Art; loses to Tange in competition for the new Tokyo City Hall 1988 starts commissioning architects for public buildings in Kumamoto Prefecture for Kumamoto Artpolis 1990 producer, Expo ’90, Osaka; Art Tower Mito; Palau d’Esports Sant Jordi for Barcelona Olympics 1991 Team Disney Building, Orlando; designs Louis Kahn retrospective at Pompidou Center; designs “Visions of Japan” at Victoria & Albert, London 1995 Kaishi Plan city masterplan for Zhuhai, China 1997 curates “The Mirage City: Another Utopia” at ICC, Tokyo 2001 publishes Unbuilt 2002 Qatar National Library and National Bank proposals, Doha; masterplans Education City, Doha 2003 Milano Fiera Redevelopment 2004 designs for Univer­ sity of Central Asia campuses in Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Kazakhstan 2007 directs Fukuoka city’s campaign for 2016 Olympics 2008 Central Academy of Fine Arts, Beijing 2011 Education City Convention Center, Doha 24 ARATA iSOZAKi 磯崎新 01_Isozaki_022_055_FIN_24JUL11_to TASCHEN.indd 24 10.08.11 08:35 “The Metabolists had no skepticism toward their utopia. I thought they were too optimistic...” Arata Isozaki has maintained an ambivalent relationship with Metabolism ever since he was asked to join them when they came together, named their philo- sophy and published their manifesto at the 1960 World Design Conference. He refused. Yet he participated in the Metabolists’ 1962 exhibition “This will be your city” in Tokyo, shared many of their ideas throughout the ‘60s, and worked with them on Expo ’70 in Osaka. Outside Japan, Isozaki was often mistaken as a member of the Metabolists, though he remained independent and critical of the unquestioning “progressivism” he thought they proclaimed. When the Metabolists dreamt of renewal, Isozaki spoke of ruins. He preferred to keep the company of artists, filmmakers, and writers rather than fellow architects. In this interview (with Hans Ulrich Obrist still on his way to Japan from Europe), Isozaki describes the historical back ground of Metabolism, reaching back not only to their father figure Kenzo Tange—Isozaki’s teacher from 1950–54, his boss until 1963, and a collaborator on masterplanning Skopje and Expo ’70—but further back to the generation of Japanese architects and urban planners who drew new cities on the tabula rasa of Manchuria in the 1930s. Did their grand schemes unleash the architectural ambitions of the Metabolists? As an outsider, Isozaki introduces Metabolism here as the “last avant-garde movement,” and pinpoints the oil crisis of 1973 as the moment when utopia was suspended indefinitely, govern ment plans dissipated, and, for an extended period, “everything stopped.” Do avant-gardes only exist only under strong regimes? Even though he was never officially a Metabolist, he seems to regret that their ambitions were no longer officially encouraged... The interview took place at Office of Arata Isozaki Associates and Ristorante Amore, Roppongi, Tokyo, September 8, 2005 PROJECT JAPAN METABOLISM TALKS 25 01_Isozaki_022_055_FIN_24JUL11_to TASCHEN.indd 25 10.08.11 08:35 Isozaki the insider agrees to meet in a neutral location (his favorite gourmet restaurant) to disclose information on Tange and the Metabolists... 01_Isozaki_022_055_FIN_24JUL11_to TASCHEN.indd 26 10.08.11 08:35 01_Isozaki_022_055_FIN_24JUL11_to TASCHEN.indd 27 10.08.11 08:35 PROJECT JApAN: PHASE ONE Mengjiang Eastern Inner Mongolia 1932–1945 Architectural forefathers of Kenzo Tange engage in the was also under the yoke imperial adventure of the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere, of Japan’s puppet regime experimenting in Manchukuo (Japan’s colonial name for Manchuria), in Manchukuo from 1932. Inner Mongolia, and Shanghai on a scale unthinkable in Japan. Eika Takayama Takayama was typical of the Japanese intellectuals of the time: he engaged in this project for exploiting the resources of Inner Mongolia Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere in spite of his exposure to the influence of Marxism. Hajime Yatsuka 3 MANChUKUO r iA 7 6 1 Xinjing INNEgOL ON M 9 Shenyang Datong 5 2 Dalian Tokyo 8 CAHIN 4 S hanghai 10 Bangkok 1 Capital construction, Xinjing, initiated by Shinpei Goto in 1907, continues until 1945. 2 Dalian masterplan, Goichi Takeda, 1916. 3 Manchuria Agricultural Immigrant Communities proposal, Yoshikazu Uchida et al, 1933. 4 Housing projects, Shanghai, Kunio Maekawa, 1939. 5 Datong masterplan, Yoshikazu Uchida et al., 1938. 6 Xinjing mayor’s office, among other projects, Kameki Tsuchiura, 1940–43. 7 Nanhu housing project, Xinjing, Junzo Sakakura, 1939. 8 Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere Monument proposal, Japan, Kenzo Tange, 1942. 9 Aircraft engine factory and dormitories, Shenyang, Kunio Maekawa, 1944–45. 10 Japanese–Thai Culture Center proposal, Bangkok, Kenzo Tange, 1943. 01_Isozaki_022_055_FIN_24JUL11_to TASCHEN.indd 28 19.08.11 10:11 Mengjiang REM KOOLHAAS My first question is political. In an article on Metabolism,Hajime Eastern Inner Mongolia Yatsuka makes a connection between Metabolism and the Japanese occupation was also under the yoke of Japan’s puppet regime of Manchuria. He suggests that architects like Kenzo Tange were stimulated in Manchukuo from 1932. by Japan’s ambition to build in the vast open spaces of Manchu ria, which 1 Eika Takayama afforded Japan its first experience of large-scale planning from scratch. Do Takayama was typical of you think there was a connection between the military and the architectural the Japanese intellectuals adventure? of the time: he engaged in this project for exploiting the ARATA ISOZAKI Well, to give you a little overview, the Japanese military government resources of Inner Mongolia invaded Manchuria in 1932. They placed Pu Yi, the last emperor of China, on the in spite of his exposure to throne as the puppet ruler of Manchukuo between 1932 and 1945, and started the influence of Marxism. Hajime Yatsuka to exploit the region. Everything in Manchukuo was virtually free for designing or planning at that time. RK In what sense “free”? A kind of carte blanche? AI Exactly. They were very right-wing ideologues while at the same time working in a mode that had very left-wing connections. RK A lamination of left and right? AI That’s right. And they were really involved in construction. Many Japanese modernist architects who had studied under Le Corbusier, like Kunio Maekawa 4 and Junzo Sakakura 7 , who won the competition for the Japanese Pavilion at the 1937 World Exposition in Paris, had big projects in Manchuria and China: government buildings, city halls, bank offices—large scale buildings constructed from around 1935 to 1940. It was a bit like when Mussolini invaded Ethiopia, Rhodes, and the Greek islands. RK Were some of the city planning projects also executed? AI Yes, but their city planning was very conventional. One quite interesting project that needs to be documented was the masterplan for Datong 5 in Mengjiang, Inner Mongolia. It was a collaboration between Yoshikazu Uchida and Eika Takayama, who were professors of architecture at Tokyo Imperial University, together with Uchida’s son Yoshifumi and Toshiro Kasahara. It was clearly a Japanese utopian city built around an old Chinese city, along with completely new developed areas. RK Did that kind of thinking trigger Japanese architecture after the war? Did it unleash the architectural imagination—not in Manchuria, but in Japan itself? AI That’s a question I asked myself during the years I spent with Tange, so I made a series of interviews in the mid-’70s with people who lived through the war.2 I had come to know most of the Japanese architects who were active before and after the war. Most were collaborators with the war, in a way. My inter viewees admitted to some continuity between the prewar and postwar generations, but gave no testimony about direct links. So I had to somehow piece together their methodologies, their modus operandi, their manner of speech, what they designed. Basically I thought nothing had changed. Those 20 years—the decade before the war and the decade after—were an unbroken progression. There was no discontinuity. The end of the war came right in the middle. The ideological disruption was only superficial. I knew Tange would never agree to such an interview, so I didn’t ask. Tange never talked about the war years. He never spoke in public about the ideas he had then. During the war he won two major competitions held by the Architectural Institute of Japan: the first was for the monument to the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere 58 in 1942 and the second was for the Japanese- Thai Cultural Center in Bangkok 10 5 in 1943. Those were, in a sense, Tange’s debut projects.