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En-Han Thaddeus Lee 2018 Writing and Research Sample Contents En-Han Thaddeus Lee 2018 Writing and Research Sample Contents Housing Ideals 3 Danchi Dreams 5 New Towns for Nigeria 6 What is Juutaku? 8 Excerpt - Meiji Slippages 11 3 Housing Ideals Independent research with the Harvey Geiger Travel Fellowship In challenging the myth of Pruitt Igoe and failed social housing in America, I travelled to Stockholm, Helsinki and Japan in search of modernist housing esetates and New Towns that have thrived from the mid-twentieth century, and some, even to this day. Depicted here are works of architecture from Sweden, Finland and Japan that represent varied paradgims for housing. From the Swedish Million Program, where authorities attempted to build over a million units in under a decade, to 1940s utopian garden cities, the research conducted shows that modernist housing has not only survived, but thrived in the right social and cultural environment. Housing Ideals All photographs are by the author, produced as a photo essay on housing ideals. Thaddeus Lee 4 Puu-Käpylä, Helsinki, Finland. One of the earliest examples of Garden Cities in Årsta, Stockholm, Sweden. A satelite town designed and built in the 1940s by Erik Telefonplan, Stockholm, Sweden. Originally conceived as a modern factory and Takashimadaira, Tokyo, Japan. Spread over 1,200 square meters, Takashimadaira Finalnd. and Tore Ahlsen. It features a vareity of programs integrated into a garden city layout. residential complex for the telephone company LM Ericsson in 1964, the site has danchi is one of the largest surviving danchi estates in Tokyo. A new collaboration since been expanded for use by the art school Konstfack, several design offices and between the semipublic Urban Renaissance Agency (UR) and MUJI will see renewed public housing. use of once-coveted New Town residential units. Housing Ideals Tapiola, Espoo, Finland. One of several variations of row houses in Tapiola, one of Södra Ängby, Stockholm, Sweden. Södra Ängby is an example of adapted garden Nagakin Capsule Tower, Tokyo, Japan. Although the Nagakin Tower is often de- Shibazono, Tokyo, Japan. Once touted as the most dangerous housing estate in Ja- the largest garden cities in Finland. city ideals, and perhaps one of the last surviving products of the 1930s Stockholm picted by architects as the height of Metabolist achievement, the idea never caught pan, Shibazono danchi is now home to a new wave of immigrant workers. The area’s Exhibition. on in Tokyo. Now, the tower is left in dire disrepair, and is allegedly slated for demoli- cultural diversity is evident by dedicated Korean and Chinese services, and a slew of tion in late 2017. Halal-certified eateries. Thaddeus Lee Henriksdalsberget, Stockholm, Sweden. Built in the 1960s after drawings by Erik Contemporary development near Årsta, Stockholm, Sweden. While much has Bess Showroom, Japan. A mass-produced geodeisic dome house? Bess is one of House Vision 2, Tokyo, Japan. One of several housing prototypes presented at the and Tore Ahlsen. The Henriksdalsberget estate is part of the later portion of the Mil- certainly changed in the past decades, Some architectural motifs persist, such as several producers of mass modular houses in Japan, but is particularly well known for annual House Vision exhibition. This particular concept pushes the Situationists’ lion Program, an ambitious project of the Swedish government to build a million units the series of individual balconies, now celebrated as colorful features on the build- capturing the vogue of Heavy Duty and a return to country living. concept of city psychogeography to the extreme by envisioning not houses, but of housing in under a decade. ing’s facade. utility walls scattered around the city where groceries and other essentials can be deposited. Danchi Dreams It is said that at the westernmost point of the largest city on of a danchi complex notorious for its gruesome history of suicides. 5 earth, there is a fence that stands against the foot of a hill. This faded housing dream eventually waned with the burst of Beyond that fence sits a shrine, right at the start of a forest that Japan’s Bubble Wealth in 1989. As initially skyrocketing property expands to form the horizon. Looking back within this fragile prices collapsed and remained stagnant, an entire generation boundary, one sees an immensity of a different kind. For as far became stuck on the housing ladder, unable to afford the expected as the eastern bay, there lies a dense metropolis of skyscrapers upgrade or to move beyond public housing. What followed was a and apartment towers surrounded by a suburbia of countless slow retreat of the Japanese population from these danchi. detached houses. Whether you are walking amongst salaried workers through unnamed streets or traversing through com- Chinese migration to Japan grew in the run-up to 1989. As Japan pressed subway tunnels, it is challenging to find an individual’s entered its ‘lost decades’ of the 1990s and 2000s, this migration space or place in Tokyo. abruptly exploded. Occurring primarily through student networks, Chinese nationals began moving to Tokyo first to study, and then In Warabi, some 40 minutes from downtown Tokyo, an unfolded to work, through the 1990s. As each moved up their career path mass of concrete structures stand in defiance of an other- in Japan, they brought over their relatives, and person by person, wise monotonous suburb. Built in 1978, Shibazono Danchi family by family, this move eventually transitioned into a significant (danchi may be literally translated as ‘group-land’) stretches migration pattern at the turn of the century. Most of the migrants Danchi Dreams Danchi across 20-acres. Fifteen-storey residential blocks — some were middle to upper class, skilled and from larger cities in China, 2500 households — zig-zag to shield rare greenspace from were willing to work the jobs outside of rigid Japanese employment the aggressive cityscape of Japan’s capital. Conversations hierarchies and traditional business conglomerates. Due to formal, are overheard in Mandarin Chinese and Korean grocery stores and informal, restrictions on properties available for rent to foreign- stand across from chain convenience stores and a row of Halal ers, a large number of these new Chinese immigrants ended up catering services operate from across the street. Today, in a city living in danchi. Its low rent and communal qualities were a good fit where less than 3% of the population is comprised of registered for an entire community not yet accustomed to Japanese lan- foreign residents, Shibazono is a heterotopia, a break from a guage and society. Shibazono Danchi exists as an example of one homogenous Japanese milieu that makes space for growing of these communities that has now firmly taken root in Tokyo. Chinese, Korean and, to a smaller extent, South Asian popula- tions. However, that has not always been the case for danchi. Housing ideals typically project highly specific visions of society, but as populations experience social, economic and even de- During the Japanese Economic Miracle of the 1960s to 1980s, mographic shifts, their relevance is modulated towards different seemingly endless economic growth created a burgeoning groups of people. What started as a solution to housing shortages middle class, and along with it, a need for varied, high-quality in the United Kingdom after the Second World War, and imported homes. While the Japanese Housing Corporation (now Urban into Japan as such, eventually became the embodiment of a Japa- Renaissance Agency, or ‘UR’) had been experimenting with New nese modernity. The typology and the image of modern living that Thaddeus Lee Towns since the mid 1950s, the danchi model was implement- danchi projected were sufficiently elastic to be able to accommo- ed in the early 1960s, delivering mass housing with modern date the aspirations of newly wealthy populations, whether that be amenities to an entire post-war generation of Japanese urban- the Japanese of the 1960s, or the new immigrants of the 1990s. ites. Boasting a variety of housing grades, from 1K (Room with An upcoming collaboration between Muji and UR to renovate adjoined kitchen) to 3LDK (three rooms, dining, kitchen), danchi Takashimadaira Danchi for young urbanites even offers a tantaliz- became part of a ‘housing ladder’ that served as an indicator of ing glimpse into the future of Japanese mass housing. For now, socioeconomic progress. In fact, due to its high standards of while the danchi has long departed from the ‘Japanese dream’, it construction and the privacy it afforded, these public-housing has instead become a vital part of that of new immigrants, and as units were often preferred by middle class families over the Japan looks to immigration reform in the near future, this role is set average house and thus became the image of modern living. to change once more. There was an implicit relationship between the danchi concept and the normative ‘course of life’ of postwar Japan. Sociologist Yukio Nishikawa alleges, for example, that the layout and size of mass-housing units helped determine the post-war nuclear family model and ensure its persistence through to the late Originally published in Paprika!, “Borders”, Sept 2016 1980s. As families progressed from generation to generation, there was an appropriate unit type for their changing composi- tions and the expected level of income from the family’s bread- winner, the salaryman. For a good two decades, danchi essen- tially succeeded where Pruitt-Igoe never had the chance to. By the late 1970s, however, a myriad of social issues came to be associated with danchi living, ranging from anomie to an escalation of violent crimes. In fact, roughly five miles from Shibazono, the Takashimadaira Danchi in Itabashi is an example 6 New Towns for Nigeria Archival resarch and long-form writing project for Portal 9 Critic: Todd Reisz Co-authored by Thaddeus Lee, Jacqueline Hall and Cecily Ng Archival Researcher: Thaddeus Lee This project follows the involvement of foreign experts in two major modernization projects in post-independence Nigeria: the construction of Kainji Dam in the 1960s and the creation of Abuja over a decade later as the new capital city of Nigeria.
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