Landscape – Great Idea! X-LArch III - Department für Raum ...

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Fig.2 Herbert Bayer Maya 1971/91s
© Emil Nelson Gallery
In this context Bayer’s wall elements of the Roswell Garden
have to be discussed. Panels reveal and obstruct the
spectator’s view. Boundaries and openness give rise to
constantly changing space-perceptions, an artifice used
also in Japanese architecture. As if painted fusuma slidescreens
were detached from their architectural context
the Roswell’s wall pieces form a fusion between disciplines.
Bayer, who just like Gropius, points out during his
stay that “Japan has had the Bauhaus in its long history
of art” (Bayer 1960), combines Japanese impressions
with Bauhaus convictions. In comparison to the words
of the architect Hiroshi Hara on traditional Japanese
architecture, where a “graphic structural expression to
the functional elements” is given (Hara 1966:90), the
wall elements relate literally to a graphical concept. They
become the graphic itself. This graphic structural expression
transforms in the Articulated Wall into a plastic
expression, which is structural. The sculpture is structure,
expanding in the following years to voluminous megastructural
(con)structions, comparable to designs of the
Metabolists.
Units, Capsules and Metabolism
In search of a new direction after the war the new
Japanese architectural group rejects visual references
to the past (cf. Wendelken 2000:289). Aspiring toward
a dynamically constructed society and individuality (cf.
Hara 1966:91), away from homogenous spaces, which
are “connected with the fostering of homogenous humanity”
as Hara states (ibid.:94), they shift their attention to
the Metabolism – shinchintaisha – which proclaims the
organism, acting on the environment and bringing out its
own growth (cf. Kawazoe 1998/1991:148). Propagation in
terms of construction, reproduction but also destruction is
understood as part of a life process.
The book on the Katsura Residence is therefore to
be regarded as the climax of the debate on traditional
architecture but also as its end. It is published in the
same year as the World Design Conference (WoDeCo)
in Tokyo is being held, where the Metabolists present
their manifesto. According to Tange, modern science and
pure physics as mathematics might present proposals
for a “dynamic balance between technological systems
and human existence” (WoDeCo 1960:180). Nature is
regarded as the origin of reference for the aspired symbiosis
between technology and mankind and integrated
into the technological construction’s design process 7.
Cells in the form of capsules or repetitive units within a
large frame became afterwards somewhat a signature of
Metabolism (cf. Wendelken 2000:293). The architect and
theoretician Buckminster Fuller might be seen as a main
source for this inspiration (cf. ibid.:294) 8. Fuller declares
structure not a fixed entity, but a regenerative, spatial,
and partial model of the universe, which can only be understandable
as the sum of finite-limited units (cf. Kepes
1965/1967:68), similar to Bayer’s voluminous maquettes.
Studies such as Maya (1971) [Fig.2], Cubic Tower (1970)
[Fig.3] or Pueblo (1971) 9, are comparable to designs
like e.g. Arata Isozakis Clusters in the Air (1960-62)
[Fig.4], where a quantity of prefabricated geometric volumes
are stuck together 10.
The projects share not only obvious formal alikeness,
but also terms such as mass production and interchangeable
capsule units 11. Consequently, they illustrate the
notion of space, its mobile and temporary component, its
constant transformation so to speak. They also underline
Bayer’s shift from a structuralization of nature to a
structuralization of space. Congruently in Japan space
becomes the center of interest in the late 1950s in urban
studies 12.
Bayer’s Structur(re)alization of Nature and Space
As early as in the 1940s Bayer’s fascination with the
mountains’ inner structures (cf. Chanzit 1987/2005:41)
becomes apparent in his Convolution paintings. To put it
simply, nature is structure, but is also concurrently struc-
Fig.3 Herbert Bayer
Cubic Tower 1970
© Emil Nelson Gallery
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