It may be extremely difficult for most of us leading quiet and calm lives trying to put ourselves in the place of those people who went through major disasters and lost their dear ones and their homes during such tragedies.
Natural phenomena such as deadly earthquakes, tsunami and massive storms have become rather frequent, prompting us all to realise how personal lives may easily change in just a few tragic seconds.
While the shock of losing everyone and everything is an indelible psychological and physical scar for those who went through it, there are tiny glimpses of hope in the aftermath of such events.
These moments of hope were the inspiration behind the research for the Japanese Pavilion project “Architecture. Possible here? Home-for-All”, winner of the Golden Lion for Best National Participation at the 13th Venice International Architecture Biennale.
Commissioned by Toyo Ito, the project moved from one main aim, gifting a home to all the people who lost theirs during the March 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake. Yet, what started as a project for a biennale, soon turned into a discovery process and an opportunity to ponder a bit about the future of society and architecture.
After the first talks about the project, the team involved - including photographer Naoya Hatakeyama and emerging architects Kumiko Inui, Sou Fujimoto and Akihisa Hirata - visited the disaster victims and their temporary housing sites in Rikuzentakata only to be confronted by a completely new reality: survivors had found new ways to create living spaces and recreate their human bonds.
Modern architecture has so far been considered and rated for its originality expressed by the individual and distinctive vision of the architect, but the team behind the project realised that in these areas the main problem was the possibility and necessity of architecture.
Further dilemmas revolving around themes such as art, design, modernism and contemporary spaces arose, prompting the team to go back to the sites were disaster survivors had established their quarters and develop an intense dialogue with them.
While the main purpose of the team was at the very beginning that of creating a new architecture, it soon became clear that it wouldn't have been possible without talking to the locals and listening to their complex expectations and suggestions.
Eventually, one of the survivors, Mikiko Sugawara, together with a group of other people who had started using a tent as a small gathering place, showed them the way towards a sort of universal architecture, built not on style but on people's experiences, memories, needs and hopes. The damaged areas represented indeed a new society taking shape: though fragmented, it already had a sense of community and a strong will to get together.
Realising there was no precise concept and no set direction for this project, though there was a lot of courage from the locals, the team started using the materials that were lying around the area, creating several models of houses (the various steps of the project are showcased at the Japan Pavilion in Venice) that featured different elements, extentions, balconies and spaces ideal to gather and congregate.
The story of the Takata-Matsubara pine forest that had been entirely washed away by the tsunami also provided a great inspiration: local people used the forest as a place to visit and relax, so the new project, a sort of shared house and gathering place that somehow recalled in its structure the Ugoku-Tanabata floats for the Rikuzentakata Tanabata Festival, was made with torn up, swept away and salt damaged trees and built on memories of lost homes.
Though temporary, the structure - made together with local people to create an exchange between builders and residents - symbolises not just recover, rebirth or the power of architecture in rebuilding society, but the positive values behind a new type of architecture not made "by oneself for oneself", as Toyo Ito states, but built on the genuine needs of human beings, a place where people looking for a home can gather, share meals and support, recreating a sense of community.
The main principle behind this process - individual effort transcending individuality - could actually be very inspiring also when applied to other disciplines.
Creating something without thinking about the actual needs of the final users (or of the final consumers, if you think about fashion) does not offer a fresh approach to design and does not allow us to enter a modern era since it does not provide us with a view of what the future of a discipline (be it art, architecture or fashion) or of society may be.
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This is how japan strives for perfection in artistry. Truly stunning!!!
Posted by: Rebecca Fookers | November 22, 2012 at 09:06 AM