Architecture in a Simulated City

Volume 14 Article 10

1-1-1992

Toyo Ito

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Recommended Citation Ito, Toyo (1992) "Architecture in a Simulated City," Oz: Vol. 14. https://doi.org/10.4148/2378-5853.1237

This Article is brought to you for free and open access by New Prairie Press. It has been accepted for inclusion in Oz by an authorized administrator of New Prairie Press. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Architecture in a Simulated City

Toyo Ito

Images ofTokyo photographed aerially phone, and so on. These video images like a map are projected onto the floor. are incessantly shuffled and collaged on One is a flat and homogeneous scene the forty-four screens. Only occasion taken from three hundred meters above ally are images repeated. Environmental and graphically processed by a comput music processed by a synthesizer fills the er. Another shows the back of young space from sixteen-channel speakers to boys standing in a row and playing with add another dimension to the scene. game machines. The screen then abrupt ly changes to a scene of an expressway. This is the space entitled "Dreams," the The scene disappears into the depth of third room of the "Visions of Japan" the screen like the speed of Akira on his exhibition held in London. Visitors are motorcycle. By graphic processing, the showered by floating video images and screen is made completely flat without soaked with the sounds. Their bodies depth and the images become those of float on the river of the acrylic floor and dramatic cartoons. sway as if they were seasick. The Crown Prince of]apan, who opened the show, A floating floor ten meters wide and said he wished to have had a cup or two twenty-eight meters long is paved with of sake before he came so that he could opaque acrylic panels. A translucent feel the space more vividly. Prince acrylic screen five meters high undulates Charles, on the other hand, asked what in the longitudinal direction. A liquid could follow from these images. When crystal screen is incorporated along the I answered there might be nothing, he way which can be electronically con as ked if I was an optimist. I said of trolled in its transparency and translu course I was. cency. A side wall is finished with alu minum panels while a translucent cloth Although it was entitled "Dreams" by hangs from the ceiling. These screens Arata Isozaki, the organizer of the show, receive images from forty-four projec the space was originally to be called tors: eighteen suspended from the ceil "Simulation." This name was intended ing cast images on the acrylic floor while to evoke modern Tokyo, the simulated the remaining twenty-six project over city (the title was revised to respond to lapped representations on the screen the opinion of the London side who from behind acrylic or cloth shields. believed the name "Simulation" was too difficult for the general public who Numerous images edited and accumu would visit the show). The experience lated on twelve laser discs show everyday was to be like walking through scenes ofTokyo: flocks of people cross Kabukicho Street at night-exposed to ing zebra-zones, businessmen talking on tremendous video images and showered the platform while waiting for a train, with sounds. By looking into the screen a young man speaking over a public tele- of the video game, one was already with- "Simulation" Space from Visions of Japan. (Photo by Naoya Hatakeyama) 49 in the screen-intoxicated with the designer, Anthony Dunne, look like to the one above. An egg sixteen meters Coincidental to the time of the creation illusion oflight and sound in the space television sets fresh our of their pack long and eight meters in diameter is of the Egg of Winds, a model of similar as suggested by the Japanese Crown ages or comical androids breathing the wrapped with aluminum panels and shape was displayed at an exhibition in Prince, and suspended in a futureless air of information. They convert floats in front of two high-rise apart Brussels. This model for the River City space as implied by Prince Charles. images in response to noises filling in ment buildings. While the Egg is mere Town Gate 21 was shaped like a ship Perhaps we have no future to reach. the space or they generate strange ly an object which reflects the sunlight or a polyhedron with triangular planes. sounds. While commercial television in daytime, it displays video images The Brussels Egg was made with trans There exists, however, a distinct differ sets are packaged in ready-made (including both recorded and live parent acrylic material on the floor and ence between the simulation in the room clothes, (like businessmen in business broadcasts) at night. The images appear covered by translucent cloth and and the reality in Shinjuku. While the suits conveying mainstream informa on internal screens and the partly punched aluminum panels. Visitors real city is endlessly filled with noise and tion unilaterally) these objects are high punched, aluminum-paneled surface . could not enter. it, but could see chairs chaos, the collaged city displayed on the ly personal and poetic, allowing us to when a set of five liquid crystal pro and tables installed inside through screen is soon to be filled with white recognize anew that we are surround jectors are switched on. The Egg is translucent coves with the natural light noise or phased out into a computer ed with noises. We may have already turned into a vague 3-D existence coming from above. They saw a city life graphic stream. In short, the urbane grown an additional organ within the without a sense of reality, as if holo packaged within the Egg like an illu "scene" is destined to lose its clear con body which inhales noises like objects. graphic. Passers-by look up at the egg, sion: transient objects, like a mirage figuration and fade into morning mist. Even though these things are not seen stop for a moment to wonder what it without a sense of texture or existence. All the· realistic images melted into a with our eyes, our bodies, constantly is, and then walk away. The object dif They are. spontaneous phenomena: state of calm enlightenment may be seen exposed to the air of technology, fers in character from television sets ephemeral objects more like a rainbow as a "nirvana." If we are to imagine the respond to them, and synchronize our installed on street posts or a large than structures. future, what conditions other than the biological rhythm with them. Un Jumbo-tron color display which deco extreme state of technological control consciously, we may already have a rates the wall of a downtown building. If we think of the two Eggs of Winds can we expect? robotized body like an android. It is an object of video images which together, we may, perhaps, refer to them can be seen through the information as the "Design ofWinds." When we use In the space, five objects are placed in The Town Gate for Okawabata River filled air of the surroundings. This a filter of some kind to screen the infor the shower of the video images. These City 21, which we call the Egg of image-object comes with the wind and mation-filled, not-yet-visualized air, the objects, created by a young English Winds, is based on a concept similar is gone with the wind. object becomes visual. Acts of architec-

50 Egg of Winds, Town Gate for Okawabata River City 21. (Photo by Tomio Ohashi) Tower of Winds, japan. (Photo by Tomio Ohashi) ture today should attempt to discover home to such a kitchen and dining room from a grocery to a house) which super ety which was as obscure and heteroge such a filter for visualization. where his smiling wife and children ficially look quite individualistic. In neous as lava. Therefore, even if archi waited for him. If a Volkswagen or a other words, as observed in car design tects successfully attained homoge The Tower of Winds which I built a Citroen 2CV was parked outside, the of today, homogenized contents permit nization in a universal office space, it few years ago in front of Yokohama image of a new life would be perfect. trivial differences in superficial character. was limited within an enclosed terri Station, Japan, embodied most effi Nor only houses are destined to go in tory. When they took one step out of ciently this Design of Winds. The tower While the ideal life in the electric age the same direction, but also architec~ the office, there extended real and is characterized by being installed in was embodied in essence in this space ture. For example, air conditioning tech muddy spaces. the neon-lit downtown rather than of "modern living," we have not yet nology severs a building from the local beside a museum and the rower's lights found a space suitable for the ideal life climate and allows houses of the same Today, our environment is filled with wink like advertising neon. It is said in the computer age. This is more effec style to be built anywhere in the world; vacant brightness. Just like commodi to give an impression that the air tively reflected in the difference between it can be used in all styles of architec ties filling up the shelves of a conve around it is filtered and purified. This Volkswagen and Citroen of old days and ture. Works which are apparently nience store, our cities have dried up may be so because I intended not to Toyota and Nissan of today than in unique, are as homogenous in content as and become bleak. For the last ten years, cause a substance to emit light into the houses. More precisely, Volkswagen and they are decorated superficially wirh dif cities have been removed of humidity air, but to make the air itself convert Citroen were designed using forms that ferent forms. They are not unlike a per as if they were thrown into a gigantic ed into the light. imply a variety of mechanical functions, ishable fillet of fish wrapped in a sheer of dryer. Although we are surrounded with while Japanese cars of today, mounted Saran Wrap, frozen under homogenous . a variety of goods, we are livi-ng in a The Egg of Winds in the River City with various electronic intelligence, are conditions, and stocked on the shelf of thoroughly homogenous atmosphere. Town Gate 21 was originally intended covered with superficial package a convenience store. Our affluence is supported only with a as a image-model for a future house, designs without a hint of the diverse piece of Saran Wrap film. but, as it took too much money to cre technology inside. Current cars are Since the birth of steel and glass, we have ate the shell, it evolved into the Egg. designed almost as an image which is long sought after a universal space. Simulated life is allowed by the Saran What was originally intended to be seen irrelevant to the mechanism. House However, this universal space, related Wrap film which covers society. For through the filtered air was a new style hold electric appliances are based on a to the coordinates of Euclidean geome instance, men and women stop at places of life in a simulated city. . similar concept. try, did not achieve its theoretical goal of after work to eat, sing, dance, talk, watch homogeneity. The trend toward pure movies, go to theaters, play games, or go The Egg of Winds in Brussels was the While the car and industrial design pur ly homogenous neutrality was checked shopping. The time and space positioned image-model of a city house for myself sue the modern style to answer the fash by orientation toward locality or desire somewhere between office and home (for It represented an urban life which day by ionable needs of consumers, design in for monumentality in architecture. The example, exercise at a sports club) is fully day loses reality in proportion to the rate housing is oriented entirely toward con thorough homogenization of architec fictional. Men and women eat whatever of visualization of city life. What is com servatism (even though it is also super-. ture has been prevented by an almost is served there, as if the dishes were mon in the two Eggs is that they are ficial). In the world of architecture unconscious worship of "architecture" cooked by their mothers, sing and dance containers implying a new life. I want (where functions and forms were not by architects themselves. as if they were movie stars, and discuss ed to show that the loss of reality in city closely related to each other from the topics with whoever happens to be there life is another side of the coin to image beginning), style becomes more and Therefore, the phenomenon of homog as if they were intimate friends. They go like architecture. more nostalgic in expression as Japan's enization in roday's architecture is shopping to have dreams of wealth, and GNP increases. expressed quite differently from the aes exercise in an artificial space as if they In any age, a dream for a new life leads thetic pursuit of universal space. What were running in a field or swimming in into a new kind of space. For instance, What, then, is the new life of today? We is homogenized today is society itself, the sea. These are all simulations from people in the years around 1975 are too busy to give serious thought to and architects are vainly fighting against the space and actions toward whatever dreamed of"modern living" in a space it as a plethora of posh, small items and it. The more an architect relies on char is gained there. Moreover, these simu with electric apparatuses. This lifestyle spaces catches our eyes. Foods, clothes, acteristic or rather personal expressions, lated spaces and lives have invaded was epitomized by a flat-roofed house and daily necessities on the shelves of the more homogenous become his offices and houses instead of modestly with large openings or a brightly-lit department stores and convenience works, as if points on the coordinates staying in the neutral zone such as house covered by a low-gradient roof, a stores shine brightly, as if to help us real of Euclidean geometry are similarly con downtown. Our families and jobs are kitchen with a built-in refrigerator and ize our dreams. But when we have eaten, nected. Now is the time when all of all simulated; we now cannot distin gas oven, dining chairs with chrome worn, or installed them in our houses, society is being covered in a gigantic guish reality from unreality. plated pipe frames and thin bentwood they lose their brightness and look faded. Saran Wrap film. backs, and so on. A nuclear family was From that very moment, we are doomed We have lost not only the visual sense, supported in such a modernized life with to look further for new items. Once, architects longed for homoge but also taste, hearing, feeling and smell bright images. A father in a white shirr nous grids because society was opaque in regard to reality. We are not sure any worked in a modern office constructed Homogenization is constantly pro and turbid. They tried to incorporate more what is really tasty, what we hear, with steel and glass materials and came gressing behind these products (ranging transparent and neutral grids into a soci- what we feel. Our body has changed even 51 though we are not aware of it. This is a simulated city. One is how we can cre image-like architecture. For the sec addition, I tried to create images which because the communication systems ate a work of architecture-as-entity while ond problem, we need to learn how to were more natural than nature itself by among us (or between ourselves and goods-as-entities are losing their signif make ephemeral or temporary archi building an artificial landscape on the goods) have undergone radical changes. icance. Another is how we can build tecture. I do not mean that architec originally flat site in projects such as the We have transformed our body so that architecture which endures time while ture should be replaced with video Guest House for Sapporo Breweries and we can reverse the relationship between local communities are nullified, and the images or that temporary buildings Gallery 8 in Yatsushiro. reality and unreality by a simple move network of communications-via-media should be used. We should, rather, ment of an image. appears and disappears incessantly. build fictional and ephemeral archi These manipulations are all simula tecture as a permanent entity. tions. Ideally, there would not be any The progress in media has isolated words Both problems are as difficult to solve architecture which is not simulated in from goods and diluted the reality of as they are contradictory. One challenges We should utilize the power we simulated cities. For instance, the earth those goods. We are able to develop us to make something real while goods obtained from these cities in order to fill in the approach to the Gallery 8 in images even if they are not accompanied hardly have reality. The other asks us to create a space. We should fully use the Yatsushiro is a quite fictional, man with an entity. Thus, the simulated life create a permanent space in a constant effect of fictional architecture. Cities made hill. Once completed it seems to has self-proliferated into other areas. As ly changing city. What kind of archi offer generous advice in this regard. I have been sitting there for hundreds a result, communication without entity tecture can be possible under such con suggested fictional and ephemeral of years. Reality today seems to be cre (communication through media) has tradictory conditions? images by utilizing the light and video ated beyond such fictionalism. We are become a necessity in our daily life. The for the Tower ofWinds and the Egg of now living in the border-less world of communication which was once deeply There seems to be no definite answer to Winds. I attempted to evoke fictional, reality/unreality, and the same is rooted in an area or in a local community solve these questions. What is certain to ephemeral screen images like natural applicable to materials in architecture. has lost its significance. What is thriving me, however, is that it is meaningless phenomena in the proposal for the Today, wh en our entire society is in our cities is based on a network of for us to stand outside of these condi Japanese Maison de Ia Culture in Paris, wrapped in an enormous sheet of film, instantaneous, ephemeral, and unspecif tions or take a position where we do not as wells as in the Nakameguro T what we can still do is to beautifully ic but numerous media which deny a recognize the two problems as contra Building and F Building in Minami visualize the content of the wrapping physical distance. dictions. What, then, can we still do Aoyama, by using glass screens holding rather than to make the content look to narrow the gap? For the first prob liquid crystal film between them. (For real. The fate of architecture will now We are challenged to solve two difficult lem, we are required to solve the ques the latter two projects, mere stripes were depend on how we find the structure problems when we build architecture in tion of how to make fictional or video- created by pasted-on silkscreen films.) In of the fiction.

52 T-building, Nakameguro. (Photo by Tomio Ohashi) Yatsushiro Municipal Museum.