INSIGHTS

2018.10.26

R&D DISCUSSION Vol. 04

Thinking about future redevelopment from postwar "buildings" [Part 2]

Shunsuke Kurakata historian

R&D DISCUSSION TOP

Please tell us which postwar buildings in Tokyo you think are being reevaluated.

A: For example, "SHIBUYA 109" (1978, floor plan: Tomohiko Komada, facade design: Minoru Takeyama). There are few commercial buildings whose shapes immediately come to mind, but this is an exception, and anyone can picture that cylindrical shape. Not only is it iconic, but it also carefully considers how people will behave on the ground, such as creating a terrace by taking advantage of the slope of Shibuya.
I would also like to see more praise for the Imperial Theater (Imperial Theater Building, International Building, 1966, designed by Yoshiro Taniguchi and Mitsubishi Estate). It is not talked about as much as the Nissay Theater (Nippon Life Insurance Hibiya Building, 1963), also located in Hibiya, designed by Togo Murano, perhaps because its exterior looks like an ordinary building. But rather, its era is reflected in that. It is a masterpiece of a building. When you look at the cross section, you can see that the theater is embedded three-dimensionally into the building, with offices and vertical traffic lines in the gaps. Yoshiro Taniguchi designed facade and the interior of the theater, and he used techniques such as lining up and hanging cheap industrial products such as perforated panels on the walls inside the theater and highlighting them with light effects, and he placed stained glass by Genichiro Inokuma and sculptures by Michio Ihara in the lobby space, creating a bold fusion of art and architecture. It is truly modern that the theater space is created just from the interior. Yoshiro Taniguchi worked on many commercial buildings, including the main lobby of the Hotel Okura Tokyo (1962, currently under reconstruction), and many of his works were only facade or interiors. This reflects Taniguchi's talent for creating designs that exude a unique sexiness, but this aspect seems to have been overlooked in journalism at the time, when public buildings were the mainstream.
The first installment of the Dokomon series was the New Shinbashi Building (1971), designed by Matsuda Heita Sakamoto Architects (now Matsuda Heita Architects). facade is a familiar sight on TV news, as it is often seen in the background of interviews with salarymen on the street. It is made of several precast concrete panels combined to create a mesh pattern, creating a moire effect. The designers were inspired by "op art," abstract paintings that use optical illusions and the principles of vision, which were popular in the 1960s. At night, the mesh pattern creates a tangle of light leaking from inside the building and the surrounding light from outside. The commercial floors on the lower floors have no entrance hall, low ceilings, and a plan that allows people to walk around easily. The seedy atmosphere that stands out even at night reminds us that this was a black market after the war. However, it was not published in the major architectural magazines of the time. We were able to find the designer's words in a modest magazine.
These three buildings are still in use today. Although they were not discussed in the mainstream journalism of the time, I feel they hold clues for future urban design. We should not only refer to the works of architects who have been considered famous up until now.

SHIBUYA 109
Imperial Theatre
From "Tokyo Modern Architecture Walk" (photo by Shinobu Shimomura)
Imperial Theatre Lobby Space
From "Tokyo Modern Architecture Walk" (photo by Shinobu Shimomura)
New Shinbashi Building from "Tokyo Modern Architecture Walk" (photo: Shinobu Shimomura)

What have we learned from postwar buildings?
Should this be used in future redevelopment projects?

A : In the May 2018 issue of the magazine "Tokyojin", there was a special feature called "Tokyo Building Walk". I think it was a groundbreaking feature for the magazine, which has taken an excellent stance that cannot be said to be positive about redevelopment, and it was the first time that it covered the current redevelopment. I contributed an article entitled "Tokyo Building." In this article, I summarized my current thoughts on postwar buildings, which I have been thinking about for 10 years since the Tokyo Architecture Guide Map.
What is a "building" in the first place? Building is a Japanese abbreviation for "Building", but the first opportunity to popularize the word "building" in Japan was the "Tokio Marine Building" (1918, designed by Sono Chujo Architects) built in Marunouchi in the Meiji era. At that time, it was a building = office building. The original "building" of today was the "Marunouchi Building" (1923, Mitsubishi Joint Stock Company, Kotaro Sakurai), which was also built in Marunouchi during the Taisho era. Although it was an office building, it was opened to the public by combining commercial facilities on the lower floors, and for the first time, the "building" was seen not only as an office worker but also as a cityscape. Nicknamed "Marunouchi Building", it even appeared in the lyrics of the popular song "Tokyo March", which was a big hit in 1929. It was demolished in 1999 and replaced with the current "Marunouchi Building" (Mitsubishi Jisho Design in 2002), but it continued to be used throughout the modern, post-war, and modern periods.
To summarize what I've talked about so far, in "Thinking about Tokyo 'Buildings'," I summarized the unique characteristics of "buildings" that I think we should learn from postwar buildings. The first is "mixed-use". It can be said that an important point of the "building" is that it consolidates not only offices, but also commercial facilities, theaters, station buildings, etc., which were built separately before the war and had their own styles. The second is "simple facade", where a "building" must not only be complex, but also have a suitable appearance in order to be perceived as a cityscape. Simple, straightforward, and dignified proportions are what make a building a building. The third is "publicness." Buildings are basically private buildings, not public buildings. However, after the war, the inside of the building was able to pass through, and the eaves height were aligned with the neighboring building, and I felt a strong will to "take charge of the public."
These three traits are common to both the works of famous architects and not-so-famous buildings. One representative of the former is the "Kinokuniya Building" (Kunio Maekawa, 1964) in Shinjuku. In addition to the bookstore, the famous shopping district on the lower floor and the theater hall on the upper floor are combined into one, and the facade The driven tile exterior walls on both sides show an unshakable presence, and the through passage connecting the main street and the back street is included. It can be said that it is one of the ideal forms pursued by the building after the war.

The coolness of postwar buildings is the coolness of "redevelopment." Although the scale of the buildings listed here is different from modern ones, they are worthy of the name "redevelopment" as they cleaned up the city, tidying it up, and opening it up to the public. They give a sense of the spirit of tearing down the existing buildings and creating new hope.
In architecture, too, there are many things to be proud of and to learn from Japan's past history. First, there is the tradition of craftsmanship and living styles, centered on wood, that dates back to before the Edo period. Next, we may mention the efforts toward modernization and their achievements since the Meiji Restoration. These are relatively easy to talk about. However, I believe that there is much to learn from postwar Japanese architecture. Rather than viewing postwar architecture as something that has already been overcome and is immature from the present, by taking a calm historical perspective for the first time, we should be able to see how to connect ideals that still have room for growth to the present. Construction acts that connect to the future will surely be born from such considerations.
How can we bring the concept of the building that has been nurtured into the future? We believe that what we need is truly exciting redevelopment.

“Tokyojin” (Toshi Publishing / May 2018 issue)
Back to Part 1

PROFILE

Architectural historian

Shunsuke Kurakata

Shunsuke Kurakata

Born in Tokyo in 1971. Architectural historian. Associate professor at Osaka City University. Completed doctoral course at Waseda University Graduate School of Science and Engineering. In addition to researching the history of modern Japanese architecture, he is active in bringing architecture and society closer together, such as serving as an executive committee member of the architectural public event "Living Architecture Museum Festival Osaka" and a director of "Tokyo Architecture Access Point." He has written many books, including "Tokyo Modern Architecture Walks" and "Tokyo Retro Architecture Walks" (both published by Exknowledge), co-authored "Tokyo Architecture: Seeing, Walking, Telling" (Keihanshin L Magazine), "Dokonomono" (Nikkei BP), and "Yoshizaka Takamasa and Le Corbusier" (Okokusha).

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Update : 2018.09.21

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