Beyond the Expo

John Hill (JH): The impetus for this conversation was the recent publication of the third edition of your Architectural Guide – Japan with DOM Publishers. Before working with them, you published The Japan Guide with Princeton Architectural Press, in 1995. To begin, I wanted to go back even before that. What started this fascination with architecture in Japan? How did you end up studying there and then devoting much of your life to the country’s architecture?
Botond Bognar (BB): It's a long story. To put it into a nutshell, I was a practicing architect in Budapest, Hungary in the late 60s, and things got a little bit too routine. So, I wanted to forward my interest in the theories and history of architecture and applied for fellowships at several places. As it turned out, in 1973 I ended up with a Japanese fellowship that let me do research in Japan for two years, initially at the Tokyo Institute of Technology. That was my introduction to Japan, and it was eye-opening. Two years was just the beginning to get familiar with this unknown world there. I became fascinated and puzzled. I'm still trying to find my way, I am still learning. Of course, contemporary architecture in Japan, which I pursue, continues to develop, it keeps me busy. [Laughs] I get to Japan two or three times a year, just to keep pace with everything going on there. In the meantime, I have published a number of books. This new one just out may be my 26th, and I am currently writing another one, which has been long in the making. If everything goes right, it will be published next year. It will be about the history of modern architecture and urbanism of Japan, starting from the mid 19th century until, well, today.

JH: That reminds of David Stewart’s The Making of a Modern Japanese Architecture: From the Founders to Shinohara and Isozaki. 

BB: I am sorry, but he just passed away.

JH: Oh, I didn't realize that. Will your book trace a similar history to his book?

BB: Yes, that's correct. He also picks up the development in the mid-19th century, in 1868, and follows it until perhaps 1987 or, maybe earlier, whenever the manuscript was finished. But mine, while covering the same period and much beyond, is quite different. It’s a critical history in the genre of Kenneth Frampton's work. Thus, the organization and discussion of it, or the emphasis on certain periods and issues in the very complex architecture in Japan, will be different. Obviously, it covers forty years more material as well, which is substantial. The book is scheduled to be published in a smaller format than Stewart’s book, on about 350 pages, and with just black and white photographs, putting the emphasis on the text.

JH: Since you mention that book’s emphasis on text, could you talk about your photography? The Princeton guidebook indicates you took all the photographs, and while I don’t know if that’s the case with DOM, I think your photos are very good. I’m guessing photography is an important part of how you experience buildings and places.
BB: Yes. When I started publishing—the first book of mine was published in 1979, a long time ago—I was trying to get photographic material and eventually had to go to JA, the Japan Architect, but the photos were too expensive. So, I got a professional camera set and started taking photographs myself. I became interested in recording my experiences on film—film at that time, eventually shifting to digital. Along the way I was intent to master photography. Systematically after that, all of the publications I have done are illustrated mostly with my photos. I take a particular issue with going and seeing the buildings I am writing about as much as possible. By now, understandably, I have amassed a library of hundreds of thousands images about the architecture of the world, more than half of which is about Japanese architecture. In short, photography is also part of my research; first it helps me see better then recollect my experiences.

Guidebooks especially keep me on my toes because in Japan a lot of things change in a short time. Buildings are being demolished and built at a fast pace. So, often I need to return to some of the previously seen sites to see and record if buildings and their surroundings are still the same, or just to see if I comprehend them the same way as before. Yet, no matter what I do, the nature of any guidebook, especially about Japanese architecture, is that at the time of its publication, it is practically or by definition outdated.

JH: Having written a couple guidebooks to contemporary architecture myself, I can sympathize.

BB: This issue was brought home to me this March when I was visiting Shinjuku to see some new buildings in the area and then check again Junzo Sakakura’s major work, the 1967 Station and Plaza complex. When I arrived after my previous visit there about less than a year ago, I found nothing in its place, absolutely nothing—the entire urban area had been razed completely. It is now being rebuilt according to the designs of someone else, most likely a large unknown design office. And yet, this demolished complex right now is included in the just published Architecture Guide – Japan. This is only one example, but there are many cases like this that require a guidebook to be republished every two or three years.

JH: Since you mentioned demolition a few times, I am curious about your take on Japan’s willingness to demolish buildings. Climate change is pushing architects in Europe and other parts of the world to prioritize adaptive reuse, but I can’t say you find the same in Japan. Is the rush to demolish in Japan changing toward favoring adaptive reuse? Or are architects there addressing climate change in other ways?
BB: I have a long list of very prominent, landmark Japanese buildings—primarily after the second World War, but even before that—which have been knocked down. We have been just trying to save Kenzo Tange’s noted building the Kagawa Prefectural Gym of 1965 in Takamatsu. This boat-shaped building, like many others, is slated to go and will be pulled down in short time if we do not succeed. It always saddens me. But the issue is very complex, and many people don't understand the forces behind the rapid turnover of the urban fabric in Japan. Sure, buildings age and become obsolete, but not that soon. One underlying reason is the generally very high land prices that went through the sky during the bubble economy. Today, prices are somewhat lower, but at that time, in 1985—to give you an extreme example—one square foot of land in Ginza 4-chome was valued at 24,000 US dollars. For just one square foot! Often the construction cost was much less than the value of the land on which it was built.

And this is only part of the picture. Property taxes are also extremely high, and competition is severe. You better build something new and profitable to be able to pay the high taxes after your expensive land and property. And thus, like the salesman with no new car has no business, architecture, too, is now becoming a part of our all-encompassing commercial world. Developers are eager to produce new buildings, up to date technically, yes, but also especially in terms of their striking image. In the bubble economy a new building was often built just to raise the property prices around it, from which everybody wanted to profit. I wrote a long piece about this phenomenon in Japan—“What Goes up Must Come Down”, in the third issue of Harvard Design Magazine, in 1997—which time was still part of the bubble economy. But, as we see, even though the bubble eventually burst, the trend, perhaps at a slower pace, continues.

However, in Japan there is one unique phenomenon, the example of Ise Shrine. It is the most revered Shinto shrine in the country, and it has been dismantled and built anew periodically on alternative sites side by side, since prehistoric times. After 1868 this period has been twenty years but prior to it the interval varied. In 2013 it was the 62nd such rebuilding. Today only a very few shrines maintain this periodic rebuilding. All this hints at the latent Japanese awareness or sense of “all things must pass.” The notion that place and time renew themselves or, the need to be renewed through rituals, seems to be ingrained here in the DNA of the culture. Mircea Eliade wrote a beautiful book about this belief in many old cultures—The Myth of the Eternal Return. Ise is one very particular and significant aspect of Japanese cultural heritage.

Yet, with this, by no means do I want to say that there is any direct relationship between the volatility of contemporary architecture and the rituals at Ise Shrine. As I pointed out earlier, there are pressing economic and many other reasons, quite clearly—but the relatively easy acceptance by society that even major landmark buildings can go is a part of this general picture. I have seen statistics that say the lifespan of department stores in Japan is roughly 50 years, and there are many other kinds of buildings, residences for example, that come down much, much faster. However, in the current post-bubble era, with new generations of architects coming of age and with a new mentality, this volatility, even if slowly, seems to be abating.

JH: Your guidebook was released in April, at the same time as the opening of Expo 2025 Osaka. I don’t want to force a relationship between these two things, but the Grand Ring that Sou Fujimoto designed for the Expo seems to hark back to more traditional Japanese architecture. I don’t know the plan, but it seems that something of its scale cannot just be erected and quickly torn down. There must be plans for either adaptive reuse or reusing those timber elements elsewhere. What do you know about it?
BB: First, I would respond to your comment that, yes, a wood construction like this inevitably brings to mind the massive structures of such historic buildings as the Todai-ji Temple’s Great Buddha Hall of 752 in Nara or the Kiyomizu Temple of 1633 in Kyoto. I visited the Expo late March, shortly before its opening, when the Grand Ring and most of the pavilions were already completed. This ring is enormous, the world's largest wooden structure today. I can safely say it's very impressive. It takes quite a bit of time to walk around it, or to walk on the park atop it, from where you can see the entire Expo. On the other hand, I have no information whether they intend to keep it, but I suspect it will not remain there. 

I went to see the site of the previous Osaka Expo in 1973, when Kenzo Tange’s huge spaceframe—a gigantic and stunning megastructure—was still there. They wanted to save it after the Expo’s six months [in 1970], but maintaining the steel structure proved to be exceedingly expensive. They tried to have all sorts of events on the plaza below, but nothing could generate the revenue with which the structure could be maintained and saved. Eventually, in 1978, it had to go. Unless they find some good use for the Grand Ring here, I suspect it will lose its meaning when the Expo is vacated. It's a beautiful, extremely impressive structure, but I think it will be dismantled, and the material will be used elsewhere. I can inquire about this when I revisit the Expo in July.

In this regard, I think, it is interesting to compare the two Expos. The 1970 event was all about technology. Technology promised a bright future for society. At that time, all was steel and industrially produced materials and structures—all spectacles, everything monumental, and like science fiction. This spirit was well represented by the above spaceframe megastructure over the Festival Plaza, the center of the Expo. Its size was 291 by 108 meters and was hovering over the plaza 30 meters high; the total weight of it 4,800 tons. Gigantic, and yes, also impressive, but it eventually turned out to be useless. And, as we know, much of that fast and too often reckless and uncontrolled technological progress was detrimental to the environment. The years between 1960 and 1970 are actually recorded as the worst time in Japan’s history of environmental pollution. Unfortunately, much of it still continues in the world unabated today. On the other hand, in the current Expo 2025, apart from the Grand Ring, all pavilions are much smaller, simpler, and constructed mostly with natural and recyclable materials. I should also mention that the Expo is centered on a sizable, well landscaped and partially wooded Japanese stroll garden with a small pond—a very nice addition. The theme here is to return to nature and save the environment. In other words, the difference between the two Expos is significant. Indeed, the message what the Expo 2025 in Osaka intends to convey is rather promising—as long as the countries exhibiting there, act upon their commitments. I keep my fingers crossed. 

JH: I don't know if this question is too broad or difficult, but between your Japan Guide from 1995 and the latest revision by DOM, how would you summarize the evolution of contemporary architecture in Japan? 
BB: Well, that’s 30 years, a huge time in terms of Japanese architectural development. 1995 was still the time of the bubble economy, when there was money for everything. It was a frenzy of building up and knocking down buildings. Much was produced at that time including surely high-quality architecture. Arata Isozaki, Fumihiko Maki, Tadao Ando, Toyo Ito, and many others gained worldwide recognition at that time. However, the majority of buildings was commercial and of inferior architecture. The image of these buildings was almost more important than their function; buildings were made to be spectacles. Shin Takamatsu was part of this disoriented landscape. Many of the buildings he designed and completed in the late 80s and early 90s came down because of a lack of proper function. Some of them, like the Kirin Plaza building of 1987 in Osaka, were very impressive, but most are gone now. After the bubble burst came a time of a long recession, and the workload of architects was suddenly reduced or evaporated. Many of them went bankrupt while the famous ones like Kenzo Tange, Isozaki, Ando, Maki, Kisho Kurokawa, Ito, and so on, found work abroad: in China, Europe, the US. And this exportation of Japanese architecture, in our current global world, still continues.

But within the leaner and meaner times a different mentality started to set in. Architects were prompted to look at what they were doing and what they could or should do. This coincided with the turn of the century and the increasing concern over the environment. So, what this new Expo is dedicated to, and in many ways what Japan is dedicated to—and other countries, as all pavilions share the same concern and theme—is the wellbeing of society in the future by way of going back to and tending to nature. Not just the greening of buildings, but a theoretical or rather, I should say, an overarching approach to the environment—how architecture can best respond to nature and natural phenomena: with renewable materials and renewable energy, as well as renewing or reusing buildings.

Reappropriating existing buildings rather than knocking them down was not a practice in Japan, but now some initiatives in this regard seem to produce impressive results. Many old structures can be restored according to new design standards, with new technologies, while often giving them new function and extended life. This is what we call “adaptive reuse.” Kengo Kuma, Shigeru Ban, Hiroshi Nakamura, Koichi Yasuda, and even Tadao Ando are part of this promising trend. Moreover, architects are designing many of their buildings in wood. Kuma and Ban are the real champions here, but large design companies, such as Nikken Sekkei, have also been on board in this regard. The overall intention is to better integrate their buildings with the land and the urban fabric also by using recyclable materials as much as possible.

Not independent of this new trend is the fact that the birthrate in Japan is rapidly dropping at the same time as society is fast aging. Altogether this is an alarming condition, which impacts architecture as well. It requires better conditions for healthier living, especially in cities. These include sustainable and better facilities and more amenities such as parks and other green areas, which are very limited, especially in crowded cities like Tokyo. With the decreasing Japanese population and the new system of working from home remotely, many office buildings are not occupied to capacity. This opens up the possibility for more green areas and parks, often in new ways. These green areas come in both small patches, like mini parks or as large, landscaped areas, and increasingly in unusual places such as on numerous open terraces within buildings and their roofs. One good example is the recent Miyashita Park designed by the office of Nikken Sekkei near Shibuya Station. The narrow but long, elongated commercial building features on its entire fourth-floor rooftop an urban park with trees, greenery, and some sport facilities. Thus, even Tokyo sees some improvements in this regard. It's still not like London, Paris, or New York, with its Central Park, but better than before.

JH: Are these rooftop parks public, or are they private, exclusive?
BB: These involve all kinds of buildings, but most are private developments—commercial and mixed-use buildings, office buildings, department stores or whatever they are—but a part of them, an area within them now has to be allocated for public use, like parks, plazas, and the like. Here private ownership and control are mixed with public use. In some cases, you don’t even have to enter the building; you have outside access and can just go up and use some large open terraces, decks, or rooftops. Today, many new buildings including high-rise structures feature wooded parks with shallow pools and others on their landscaped roofs. Already in the 1970s within much crowded cities you could see on the roofs of department stores playgrounds or, on some office buildings and others, golf courses! [Laughs] It was netted, of course, but that was an early use of the rooftops, where company guys could go up and hit some golf balls.

JH: Given these various conditions you're talking about, do you see younger architects responding accordingly? What are they doing?
BB: Sure enough. You still have the noted, older generation of architects—Ando, Kuma, Riken Yamamoto, SANAA, and so on—leading the way, but it’s now also the younger generation of architects who are producing much of the work, the residential and smaller and larger public complexes all around. Atelier Bow Wow, Hiroshi Nakamura, Tezuka Architects, and Sou Fujimoto are good examples. And yes, they are very well aware of the situation in which society finds itself in Japan; it is their future. But really, every architect recognizes the severity of climate change today and tries to mitigate its effects. They are much interested in how to reduce the energy consumption and pollution of their buildings. When possible, they use solar panels, geothermal, and other technologies to supplement the cooling and heating of buildings. As we know, 40% of environmental pollution, particularly in cities, is by way of buildings. Today, there is interest also in the overall carbon footprint that is involved in construction: what kind of materials are used and where they come from, how they are produced, who builds it and how, and so on.

But these efforts go beyond the mere measurable or the technological: they include the issues of how to better orient buildings, taking advantage of the effects of sunlight or wind, vegetation or greenery. At the same time there is a much appreciable parallel intent to increase the human experiential, psychological, or, using a more philosophical term, existential value of architecture, sometimes just by working with a range of natural phenomena. As a general result, architecture today is calmer, simpler, less ego-driven, and closer to both the environment and society’s needs. Still a slow process but promising.

JH: As a last question, are there any projects in the new guidebook that you might label as masterpieces, as buildings that are much more important than the others?
BB: That question catches me off guard because, fortunately, there are many. But let me see; I am very fond of Yoshio Taniguchi’s architecture, his museums in Tokyo, Toyota, Marugame, Kyoto, the earlier Ken Domon Museum in Sakata, and very much so his Memorial Museum in Kanazawa dedicated to the life and work of Daisetz Teitaro Suzuki, the Zen Buddhist scholar who was born and died in Kanazawa. Taniguchi was also from Kanazawa and designed here what is basically a meditation place; it’s profoundly beautiful, deeply touching. But there are many other projects which are close to me. Kenzo Tange’s 1964 Yoyogi Olympic Stadiums are extraordinary and surely timeless. Toyo Ito’s Sendai Mediatheque of 2000 is pioneering, one of its kind.

Kazuyo Sejima and Rue Nishizawa, who formed the partnership of SANAA, came from Ito’s office. Following Ito’s footsteps, SANAA’s work goes deeper into minimalism but it is rich in many ways. Their 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, again in Kanazawa, is a remarkable work with very limited range of materials, basically glass and steel and no visible joints. Here everything is welded and all is painted glossy white. The resulting spaces are hallucinatory. Since most of SANAA’s architecture is built abroad, this museum would be the most significant among its buildings in Japan, as well as in Architectural Guide – Japan.

SANAA produced Junya Ishigami, who worked with Sejima before establishing his own office. His work is carefully considered minimalist but occasionally enters the realm of absolute or ultra minimalism. His small, one-story workshop at the Kanagawa Institute of Technology has 305 slim steel columns like a forest, is surrounded completely by glass walls and then topped by a thin, flat roof—nothing else is the building. Useful spaces within are the “clearings in this forest.” You can look at it in many ways: it is startling and impressive in its own way, but it surely goes to the extreme.

Tadao Ando is of course the best representative of a culturally charged minimalism in concrete. The TIMES building in Kyoto, the Church with Light, the Rokko Chapel, and the Water Temple on Awaji are among his many masterpieces. Kengo Kuma’s vernacular-inspired buildings are also among my favorites. The early Hiroshige Museum in Bato, then Nezu Art Museum in Tokyo, the Yusuhara Town Hall, the Wooden Bridge Museum, the Marché, the Community Library, all in Yusuhara as well, then the COMICO Art Museum and Art Houses in Yufuin are great examples of using wood, bamboo, and other natural materials to the benefit of simply rich and great architecture. Here I should also mention Koichi Yasuda’s Fukuda Art Museum and Muni Boutique Hotel, both in Kyoto. These small, serene, and elegant buildings were designed, like in the case of Kuma, to create the best intimate relationship between architecture and garden. Oh, I should not leave out here one of the most impressive projects by Nikken Sekkei, the POLA Museum in Hakone—a must see.

However, there are two buildings which are mentioned in the guidebook only in passing. They are located abroad, but I consider them exceptional to include among my favorites. One is Kuma’s Cultural Village of the Portland Japanese Garden in Oregon and the other is the recent MPavilion by Ando in Sydney, Australia. But then the list goes on and on which, in turn keeps me going on and on. [Laughs]

JH: That’s a great list. Thank you very much.

BB: My pleasure.