Kisho Kurokawa

Kisho Kurokawa (黒川紀章, Kurokawa Kishō, born April 8, 1934) is a well-known Japanese architect and one of the founders of the Metabolist Movement.

Biography

Born in Nagoya, Aichi, Kurokawa studied at Kyoto University, graduating with a bachelor's degree from the Department of Architecture in 1957. He continued his studies at the University of Tokyo's School of Architecture under the guidance of Tange Kenzo, achieving a master's degree in 1959 and a doctoral degree in 1964.

Together with some colleagues, he co-founded the Metabolist Movement in 1960; its members were known as Metabolists. It was a radical Japanese avant-garde movement pursuing the merging and recycling of architecture styles around an Asian philosophy. The movement was very successful, peaking when its members received praise for the Takara Cotillion Beautillion at the Osaka World Expo 1970. The group broke up shortly thereafter.

Kurokawa has a daughter from his first marriage, who works as a landscape architect. His second marriage is to Ayako Wakao (若尾文子 Wakao Ayako), an actress with some notable films in the 1950s and 1960s and who still appears on stage. Kurokawa's younger brother works in industrial design, but has also co-operated with Kurokawa on some architecture projects.

Kurokawa is the founder and President of Kisho Kurokawa Architect & Associates, established on 8 April 1962. The company has its head office in Tokyo, and branch offices in Osaka, Nagoya, Astana, Kuala Lumpur and Beijing. The company is registered with the Japanese Government as a First Class Architects Office.

In 2007, he ran for Governor of Tokyo in the Tokyo gubernatorial election, 2007, and then for a seat in the House of Councillors in the Japanese House of Councillors election, 2007, but lost both elections.

Kisho Kurokawa, born in Nagoya in 1934 is one of the most internationally acclaimed Japanese architects. He was a founder of the Metabolism Movement in the 1960s. He has an extensive amount of written work concerning philosophy and architecture and has lectured widely. In 1972 he received a grant from the Graham Foundation to deliver a lecture at the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago. Kurokawa wrote that there are two traditions inherent in any culture: the visible and the invisible. His work, he says, carries the invisible tradition of Japan.

Looking at his architecture, at metabolism, tradition may not seem to be present, but underneath the hard skin of the surface, his work is Japanese. It is difficult to claim that the modern technologies and material used has inherited from Japanese tradition, and that the traditional forms of Japanese architecture can be recognized in his modern concrete or steel towers. However, Kurokawa’s architecture evolves from Japanese tradition and one can sense the Japanese aesthetic behind his work. Kurokawa’s work focused on keeping the invisible concepts Japanese traditions, especially materiality, impermanence, receptivity and detail. These 4 points were specifically discussed by Kurokawa in his explanation for a new wave of Japanese Architecture.

Impermanence

Kurokawa noted that with the exception of Kyoto and Kanazawa, most Japanese cities were destroyed during World War II. When western cities are destroyed, brick and stone remain as proof of their past existence. Sadly, remarks Kurokawa, Japan’s cities were mostly built of wood and natural elements, so they burnt to ashes and disappeared completely. He also notes that both Edo (now Tokyo) and Kyoto were almost entirely destroyed on several occasions during battles of the Warring States period in the 15th and 16th century. The shifting of power caused parts of Japan to be destroyed. On the same note, historically speaking, Japan’s cities have almost yearly been hit with natural disasters such as earthquakes, typhoons, floods and volcanic eruptions. This continual repeated destruction of buildings and cities has given the Japanese population, in his words, “an uncertainty about existence, a lack of faith in the visible, a suspicion of the eternal.”

In addition the four seasons are extremely clearly marked in Japan, and the changes through the year are dramatic. Time, then, in Japanese culture is a precious entity that forces every candles, every beings, every entity to fade at one point. The idea that buildings and cities should seem as natural as possible and that they should be in harmony with the rest of nature, since it is only temporarily there, helped created the tradition of making building and cities of “temporary” structure.

This idea of impermanence is reflected in Kurokawa’s work during the Metabolism Movement. Buildings were made so to be removable, interchangeable and adaptable. The concept of impermanence stemmed his work to be open systems, both in time and space.

Materiality

Kurokawa explains that the Japanese tried to exploit the natural textures and colors of the material used in a building. The traditional tea room was intentionally built of only natural materials such as earth and sand, paper, the stems and leaves of plants, and small trees. Trees from one’s own backyard were preferred for the necessary timbers. All artificial colors were avoided and the natural tones and texture of the material were shown to their best advantage. This honesty of materiality stems from the idea that nature is beautiful in itself already. The Japanese feels that food taste better, wood looks better, material is better, when natural. There is a belief in the maximum enjoyment of the natural state.

This tradition on materiality is alive in Kurokawa’s work which treats iron as iron, aluminum as aluminum and makes the most of the inherent finish of concrete. The tradition of honesty of materiality is present in Kurokawa’s’s capsule building. In there, Kurokawa showed technology with “no artificial colors”. The capsule, escalator unit, elevator unit, and pipe and ductwork were all exterior and exposed. Kurokawa had open structures shown as they were with no attempt to hide the connectives elements, believing that beauty was inherent in each part by themselves. This bold move created a texture of elements that became the real materiality of the whole.

Receptivity

The notion or receptivity is a crucial Japanese idea. Some would even venture to say that it is a “tradition”. Kurokawa states that Japan is a small country. For more than a thousand years, Japan has lived with an awareness of neighboring China and Korea; and in the modern age the empires of Portugal, Great Britain and America, to name a few. The only way for a small country like Japan to avoid being attacked by these empires was to make continual attempt to absorb foreign cultures, to study, and while establishing friendly relations with the larger nation, preserve its own identity. This receptivity is what allowed Japan to grow from a farming island an imperial nation using first Chinese political systems and Chinese advancement, then Western techniques and knowledge. Japan eventually surpassed China and stumbled upon itself during World War II. After the war, Japan, using this same perspective absorbed American culture and technology, eventually surpassing Her too.

Kurokawa’s architecture follows the string of receptivity, but at one point, tries to diverge and find its own identity. At first, Kurokawa work followed the modern movement that was well introduced by Tange, Isozaki and their peers. Tange showed the world that Japan could build modern building. His peers followed and continued it. Then at one point, in the 1960s, Kurokawa and small group of architect began a new wave of contemporary Japanese architecture believing that previous solution and their imitations were not satisfactory to the new era: life was not present in modernism. They coined their work with the word “metabolism”. Kurokawa’s work became receptive “to his own philosophy, the Principle of Life”. (There he saw architecture and cities as a dynamic process where parts needed to be ready for change. He mostly used steel open frame and units that were prefabricated and interchangeable.)

Detail

Kurokawa’s explains that the attention paid to detail in Japanese work derives essentially from the typical attempt to express individuality and expertise. In Japan the execution of details was a process of working not from the whole to the parts but from the parts to the whole. Every wood connection in a house was carefully crafted from inside to outside. Japan is a country that moved from a non-industrial country to a fully industrial nation in less than 50 years during the Meiji revolution. This sharp jump from producing goods from craftsmanship to using industry was so rapid that the deep-rooted tradition of making real good craft as a statement of the creator did not disappear. As a result Japanese maker still carries a careful preoccupation with detail that can be seen in contemporary architecture art and manufacturing. The attention to detail, an invisible part of their tradition, forms a uniquely Japanese aesthetic.

Similarly, Kurokawa’s architecture has careful details of connections and finishes. Kurokawa said, “This attention to detail is also an important key to understand my own architecture. The belief in the importance of details also suggests the new hierarchy.” Kurokawa believes that while the Western architecture and cities have been organized with a hierarchy from infrastructure to parts and detail, his new wave of contemporary Japanese architecture focused on the autonomy of parts. Metabolism is based on the notion of life and every small intricate aspect of life. Conclusion

Kurokawa’s work is an attempt of using very modern technology to adapt to an ever changing society. His work may on the one hand never seem “Japanese," but on the other hand, after careful analysis, one will realize that fundamental Japanese tradition are expressed. He stated that he is pursuing the “invisible” traditions and practicing it as a proud Japanese.

Projects

(sorted by the year of completion)

1970s

Nakagin Capsule Tower (Ginza, Tokyo, 1970-1972)
Sony Tower (Osaka, 1972-1976)
Tateshina Planetarium (Hiroshima, 1976)
Headquarters of the Japanese Red Cross Society (Tokyo, 1975-1977)
National Museum of Ethnology (Osaka, 1973-1977)

External links

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Biography

Impermanence

Materiality

Receptivity

Detail

Projects

1970s

1980s

1990s

2000-

See also

External links