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