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Metabolism Revisited: Prefabrication and Modu- Larity in 21St Century Ur- Banism

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Metabolism Revisited: Prefabrication and Modu- Larity in 21St Century Ur- Banism 246 WITHOUT A HITCH: NEW DIRECTIONS IN PREFABRICATED ARCHITECTURE Metabolism Revisited: Prefabrication and Modu- larity in 21st Century Ur- banism Stanley Russell University of South Florida Fig. 1. Hawaii floating city METABOLISM REVISITED 247 Introduction derlying concept. Rather than a movement in- volving the simultaneous participation of vari- In 1960 Kisho Kurokawa, Fumihiko Maki and ous segments of society, metabolism was lim- Kiyonori Kikutake published a manifesto titled ited to a few isolated buildings by individual “Metabolism 1960: Proposals for a New Urban- architects acting independently. These failures ism” to coincide with the Tokyo World Design were due not to a lack of vision of the founding Conference of the same year. The conference members but to a lack of social, economic, or program was conceived by Kenzo Tange to ad- political support in an era when technological dress problems of industrialized growth and advancement could not yet facilitate the im- featured his own “Structuralist” plan for the plementation of such an ambitious movement. reorganization of Tokyo. The metabolism group took Tange’s Structuralism as a point of depar- Metabolism ture to elaborate on their own approach to ur- banization in reaction to the official demise of The current environmental crisis is bringing the modern movement just one year earlier. professionals and communities together in an unprecedented fashion to address the formida- In opposition to the rational western roots of ble problems facing the world. The call for the modern movement, Metabolism was based more efficient, environmentally friendly build- on Buddhist concepts of changeability and re- ings and construction processes has brought newal and the aesthetic of an unfinished im- prefabrication and modularity to the forefront age. The machine-like mechanical model of the of architectural discourse as it has not been modern movement was replaced by a biologi- since the metabolism movement of the 1960s. cal one in which the parts, like living cells, Many of the same issues related to rapid ur- could come to live and die while the entire or- banization that were addressed by the Metabo- ganism goes on living. According to the mani- list manifesto have once again become rele- festo, “the architect’s job is not to propose vant. Kisho Kurokawa said, ideal models for society but to devise spatial equipment that the citizens themselves can “We have gradually come to realize that the operate.” This equipment consisted of prefabri- survival of humanity depends on the symbiosis cated and interchangeable modular space units of the many life forms on our planet and we that could be plugged in and out of a structural can no longer believe that the machine, scien- frame as necessary. tific technology and the human intellect are all powerful.” M to S The architecture of metabolism posed a chal- lenge to the machine age and proclaimed an age of life. The image of the living cell on which it was based encompasses notions of growth, division, exchange, transformation, autonomy of parts, deconstruction, recycling, rings and dynamic stability.1 The goal was to create architecture that would change, grow and metabolize and would encourage the par- ticipation of those who used its products. Me- tabolism devoted a great deal of energy to the topic of technology and human beings and is often thought of mistakenly as a technological movement, but according to Kurokawa, its fundamental concept was in fact symbiosis.2 Architecture and the city were seen as open Fig. 2. Ocean City systems in time and space like living organ- isms. Kurokawa wrote: In practice, however, many Metabolist build- ings had a heavy industrial appearance that “The essential difference between life and a reinforced the very technological bias that they machine is that a machine has eliminated all sought to overcome. Furthermore, they never needless ambiguity being constructed solely on actually achieved the flexibility and inter- functional, rational principles, whereas life in- changeability that was the essence of the un- cludes such elements as waste, the indefinite 248 WITHOUT A HITCH: NEW DIRECTIONS IN PREFABRICATED ARCHITECTURE and play. It is a flowing structure forever cre- Prefabrication ating a dynamic balance.” 3 The contemporary movement towards a built The field of industrial ecology which has con- environment that is more in tune with natural tinued to gain popularity since the early 1990s systems resonates with the Metabolism theory reiterates Metabolism theory based on the idea of the 1960s. The modularity and prefabrica- that mechanical and biological processes both tion embraced by the Metabolism movement is involve the transformation of matter and en- relevant to our current environmental crisis in ergy and that therefore industrial manufactur- several key ways. Prefabrication of building ing processes can perform like—and together components in factories results in a minimiza- with—natural ecosystems. Architecture is now tion of construction waste and entire capsules being seen as one component of a larger natu- or parts of them can be readily designed for ral system just as the Metabolism movement reuse. Capsules also have the possibility of proposed.4 The philosophy of metabolism op- being regionalized with locally produced, re- posed western dualism and the opposition be- newable materials. This strategy would over- tween man and technology and began with the come the homogenizing effect of mass pro- assumption that man and machine can live in duced, generic architectural elements and symbiosis. The architecture of metabolism was would reduce the carbon footprint of buildings. conceived as the architecture of temporariness, The inherent accessibility of individual compo- as expressed by Buddhism’s concept of im- nents optimizes the potential for commission- permanence. It was an alternative to the west- ing and controllability of building systems in ern aesthetic ideals of the universal and eter- modular buildings. nal. Ise Shrine, Izumo Shrine, and the Katsura detached Palace, because of their respective Another attractive feature of the pre- histories of renewal, were sited as the pretext fabrication process is enhanced quality control. for the movement .5 Significant resources are spent on conventional construction projects to ensure that construc- In his book From Tradition to Utopia, Kiyonori tion is proceeding according to plan but results Kikutake reflects, are variable at best. Also, as energy usage in buildings has become a focus of attention in “I began to seriously consider methods that our global efforts to build sustainably, the utilize natural resources without waste, that promise of enhanced quality control through reuse materials by dismantlement and reas- prefabrication has become more attractive. sembly and allow for reconstruction. Metabo- Quality is enhanced in a factory due to control lism was based on this idea.” 6 of the environment, improved supervision, automation and a greater focus on specific The concept of Metabolism is universal and the tasks. designs placed an emphasis not only on the whole but on the existence and autonomy of parts. The movement addressed the relation- ship of cities to natural systems, buildings to the city and building components to the build- ings. They were at once interdependent and autonomous. With the idea of autonomy of the individual came the expression of capsule ar- chitecture where each individual living unit has an independent identity. Capsule architecture was not intended for mass production but was instead intended as deconstructed architecture and sought to create a plurality of new possi- bilities of combination.7 The inherent modular- ity of the capsule concept lent itself to prefab- rication and started a wave of interest and re- search into prefabricated modular housing ion Japan in the 1960s and 1970s. METABOLISM REVISITED 249 In the US, the perception of affordability in prefabricated buildings has come with the negative perception of inferior quality. Accord- ing to Dwell magazine “the manufactured housing industry is stigmatized.” The Dwell home design invitational, an international de- sign competition to design an affordable prefab home, has championed the image of prefab housing by producing reasonably priced pre- fabricated houses skillfully designed in con- temporary styles. Dwell’s mission was not only to design affordable houses but also to pro- mote the image of prefabrication and modern architecture.8 Perceptions of prefabrication, however, may be culturally related and vary from place to place. In Japan for example, pre- fabricated housing has been the norm for nearly a generation. There is a sense that pre- fabricated homes are modern and well suited to contemporary lifestyles. As Japanese people are also very fond of their automobiles, one clever advertising campaign showed a man who had just finished washing his car turn the hose on his waterproof vinyl house to wash it as part of his weekend ritual. This is perhaps indicative of a move in Japan, away from the extended family structure towards the nuclear family where the house, like the automobile, is viewed more as a commodity than a perma- nent structure to serve a family for genera- tions. With the increasing mobility and imper- Fig. 3. Nakagin Capsule hotel manence of the American populace, this view of the house as a shorter term recyclable Affordability commodity is not out of the question. As the cost of housing and construction prices Recent
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