Overview

This edited book explores and promotes reflection on how the lessons of Metabolism experience can inform current debate on city making and future practice in architectural design and urban planning. More than sixty years after the Metabolist manifesto was published, the author’s original contributions highlight the persistent links between present and past that can help to re-imagine new urban futures as well as the design of innovative intra-urban relationships and spaces. The essays are written by experienced scholars and renowned academics from Japan, Australia, Europe, South Korea and the United States and expose Metabolism’s special merits in promoting new urban models and evaluate the current legacy of its architectural projects and urban design lessons. They offer a critical, intellectual, and up-to-date account of the Metabolism projects and ideas with regard to the current evolution of architectural and urbanism discourse in a global context. The collection of cross-disciplinary contributions in this volume will be of great interest to architects, architectural and urban historians, as well as academics, scholars and students in built environment disciplines and Japanese cultural studies.

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9781032030739

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Rising from the ashes of the Pacific War, a new generation of Japanese architects sought radical new ways to solve the challenges of social change and material destitution in their devastated cities. In fusing native tradition and radical modernity, they created a movement which was to influence the architecture of the twentieth century. Through a compilation of scholarly essays and personal narratives this valuable English language collection provides a cohesive evaluation of the Metabolist movement in both its domestic and international contexts. It is a comprehensive reference for both the professional and the general reader. Peter Armstrong, (the University of Sydney) studied under Yosizaka Takamasa and worked for Kiyonori Kikutake from 1969 to 1973 What can we learn today from the radical visions and thinking of Japanese Metabolism of the 1960s? In this indispensable book, the best international scholars critically interpret Metabolism as an avant-garde movement, at the same time deeply anchored in the Japanese reality and a transnational phenomenon with great critical success, but also as a symptom of a condition of environmental and urban crisis to which architects must respond as a priority commitment: today as yesterday. Professor Pierre Alain Croset, Politecnico di Milano, Department of Architecture and Urban Studies (DAStU) Among the merits of this publication, there is the effort to present a fresh and broader new look at Metabolism by means of a series of contributions by high-calibre experts in disciplines which do not belong only to architecture. For everyone interested in Japan, this book is full of useful insights to understand modern Japanese history from the point of view of urbanism and architectural forms. Masaki Koiwa, Waseda University, Department of Architecture, Tokyo

Rising from the ashes of the Pacific War, a new generation of Japanese architects sought radical new ways to solve the challenges of social change and material destitution in their devastated cities. In fusing native tradition and radical modernity, they created a movement which was to influence the architecture of the twentieth century. Through a compilation of scholarly essays and personal narratives this valuable English language collection provides a cohesive evaluation of the Metabolist movement in both its domestic and international contexts. It is a comprehensive reference for both the professional and the general reader. Peter Armstrong, (the University of Sydney) studied under Yosizaka Takamasa and worked for Kiyonori Kikutake from 1969 to 1973 What can we learn today from the radical visions and thinking of Japanese Metabolism of the 1960s? In this indispensable book, the best international scholars critically interpret Metabolism as an avant-garde movement, at the same time deeply anchored in the Japanese reality and a transnational phenomenon with great critical success, but also as a symptom of a condition of environmental and urban crisis to which architects must respond as a priority commitment: today as yesterday. Professor Pierre Alain Croset, Politecnico di Milano, Department of Architecture and Urban Studies (DAStU) Among the merits of this publication, there is the effort to present a fresh and broader new look at Metabolism by means of a series of contributions by high-calibre experts in disciplines which do not belong only to architecture. For everyone interested in Japan, this book is full of useful insights to understand modern Japanese history from the point of view of urbanism and architectural forms. Masaki Koiwa, Waseda University, Department of Architecture, Tokyo

Author Information

Raffaele Pernice is an Italian architect and Senior Lecturer in Architecture and Urbanism at the University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia. He holds a Ph.D. in Architecture from Waseda University in Tokyo and a M.Arch. from the University IUAV of Venice in Italy. He has extensive research and teaching experience in Australia, East Asia, and the Middle East, and his interests and activities lie at the nexus of architecture and urbanism, ranging from design practice through to the theory and history of architecture and city planning, with a focus on the evolution of the cities of Japan and the Asia-Pacific region. He has been the recipient of scholarships and grants from universities and national and international institutions, such as the Japanese Ministry of Education (MEXT), the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Japan Foundation, the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT), and the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS).

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