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28
Herbert Bayer’s Megastructures,
a Japanese Approach
Dominika Glogowski
University of Applied Arts Vienna, Doctoral Program,
Oskar Kokoschka-Platz 2, A-1010 Vienna
Abstract
Herbert Bayer (1900-1985), former student and
teacher at the Bauhaus, develops in the late 1960s
up to the early 1970s a number of large-scale urban
designs hitherto unrealized consisting of prefabricated
concrete units stuck together. These “constructions”
as Bayer calls them, relate in content, material and
form to architecture as such. In particular regarding
the structure, size and philosophical aspect of nature/
environment parallels can be drawn to the Japanese
Metabolism movement. Bayer, who attends in 1960
the World Design Conference in Tokyo, the birthplace
of the Metabolists, is certainly highly aware of the
trendsetting debate in Japanese architecture. In the
1950s he had focused on the discourse on traditional
architecture following his layout design job for the
book on the Katsura Detached Palace in Kyoto, the
most prominent example of traditional architecture in
Japan. His examinations and references to Japanese
concepts of space are discussed in this paper.
Key words
Metabolism, Japan, Bauhaus, Katsura, urban sculpture,
prefabrication, capsules
Introduction
In the late 1960s up to the early 1970s the Austrian
émigré Herbert Bayer (1900-1985) designs a plentitude
of high-scale sculpture maquettes. Whereas in 1968 at
the exhibition “Earth Works” the Dwan Gallery presents
a photograph of Bayer’s Grass Mound at the Aspen Institute
in Colorado (1955) as the precursor of Land Art –
where earth is medium and message alike – studies and
rare realizations of this time such as the almost 54’ high
Articulated Wall (1968) refer to architecture as such and
its function in relation to the environment, where parallels
to the Japanese Metabolism movement can be drawn 1.
constructor. The material of choice was concrete, which
is emblematic for modernity. Its plastic value is known
ever since Le Corbusier’s statement “Architecture is a
plastic thing” (Le Corbusier 1923/1985:4). Accordingly
also Bayer claims “concrete is formed in architecture”
(Cohen 1984:346). He extends the guidelines by using a
highly modern, cost-easing production method. Thirtythree
prefabricated geometrical concrete elements over a
structural core are erected on site. “The idea of uniformity”
as he states, “calls for prefabrication of the elements”
(ibid.). How much the Articulated Wall relates to building
art is also underlined by the content and title. Wall elements
are extracted from their prior architectural context.
An approach, that can be traced back to his Roswell
Walk-Through Garden Project of 1962 3, an unrealized
courtyard of the museum in New Mexico. The wall – as
its architectural equivalent the gate 4 – are architectural
elements Bayer explores in paintings and in three-dimensional
studies after his five-week stay in Japan in 1960.
Bayer’s Japanese Architectural References
The wall in terms of a flexible screen has been rediscovered
amongst other compositional elements in the
mid-1950s in the course of the architectural debates on
traditional Japanese architecture. Thus Bayer’s formal
Bauhaus patron Walter Gropius states during his twomonth
stay in Japan in 1954 “openness” and “prefabrication”
as those qualities, which have been aspired to for
a long time in the architecture of the West (cf. Gropius
1954:6). Also Bayer’s own examination of Japanese architecture
can be traced back to 1955, when the Japanese
architect Kenzo Tange invites him to design the layout
of the book “Katsura. Tradition and Creation in Japanese
Architecture” (cf. Tange/Gropius/Ishimoto 1960/1963).
The contemporary aspects of the 17th-century Katsura
Imperial Villa had been formulated as early as in the
1930s by the German émigré Bruno Taut 5. Treading in
Taut’s footsteps the residence becomes for Gropius synonymous
with a fusion between tradition and modernity
(cf. Gropius 1954:6) 6.
Fig.1 Herbert Bayer Undulated
Wall 1967/67
© Emil Nelson Gallery
Bayer’s Architectural References
The submission requirements for the Articulated Wall 2
[Fig.1], Bayer’s contribution to the Route of Friendship
project at the Olympics in Mexico, bear various links
to Bayer’s further approach on high-scale maquettes.
The designs had to be submitted in the form of a model,
which was then implemented by a local building