Another Expo Platform in Nagoya: March 23, 2005 at Archi Cafe Xebec

Panelist

Shinya Watanabe (Curator of Spiky Art)
Taro Igarashi (Historian of Architecture, Adjunct Professor of Tohoku University)

In this bad weather, a women came earlier and waiting for the beginning of the platform

Shinya Watanake talks about the discussion in the platform in Okinawa

Talks about the diffenrence of the concept of the neation state between Okinawa and Nagoya

Explains the situation of former Yugoslavia with a map

Asking audiences and other paeticipants

Architect Koji Yamada talks about his own experience in Korea

Taro Igarashi arrived...

With a bottle of beer, we talked about the relationship of Expo and Architecture

Koji Yamada criticized Aichi Expo a lot!

Taro Igarashi talks about the architectures of Aichi Expo

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Great discussion!

The platform in Nagoya, Aichi was held on March 23, just two days before the opening of Aichi Expo, and also a day after the death of Kenzo Tange. It was very meaningful and productive to have this "Another Expo Platform" on this day with many architects in Nagoya. The venue called Archi Cafe Xebec is run by students who study architecture; therefore, there are many architects who joined this platform.

At the beginning of the platform, I talked about the exhibition and the problem of the nation-state, but the discussion theme gradually shifted to the topic of architecture, art, and the state, when we think about the history of Expo. The architects which we discussed were Kenzo Tange, Arata Isozaki and also Iannis Xenakis, Le Corbusier, Philip Johnson, Albert Speer etc. came out too.

Although Arata Isozaki who was a Kenzo Tange's assistant-position during the Osaka Expo performed one of the main position in Osaka Expo, Isozaki had compared the deal of Taro Okamoto and Kenzo Tange in the Osaka Expo’s Festival Square such as this. The Tower of Sun, which is made by Taro Okamoto is such as the design of Jyomon-Period (BC 10,000 ? BC 400) with a penis-like structure, broke through the Tange’s roof, which look like the Yayoi-period (BC 400 - AD300) structure. Then, Mr. Isozaki thought, “Taro Okamoto won the game!” Moreover, it is not Tange's huge roof, but Taro's "Tower of Sun" still exists at the Osaka Expo site in reality. As expected, Taro defeated Tange in the Festival Square. In addition, Arata Isozaki later told that he felt so bad to join Osaka Expo, and felt like that he corporate the people who create war.

Tange got the first prize for the “Greater East Asia Commemoration Buliding Planning Competition” in 1942, during the Second World War. When he planned the huge building for Greater East Asia Coprosperity Sphere at the range of Mt. Fuji, Japan also planned "Greater East Asia Coprosperity Sphere Expo" in 1940. Although his architectural idea was not realized as well as the "Greater East Asia Coprosperity Sphere Expo," but it is clear that he was attracted to fascism, and this is a characteristics of architect. However, I wonder isn’t it also the limitation of architect as an artists? Architect can be drawn by power, but art often defect power. The inferiority complex of architects toward artists may come from this characteristic.

In the case of Philip Johnson, this tendency of architect and power is also the same. The fact that he was the member of a fascist party is symbolic. Probably the greatest organization of power was a state, and one of the persons who works at popular construction company and joined this platform said that "Architecture itself is a state." This word was very impressive. For the person who works in this industry, there is no wonder if architecture itself is a state. The foundation of the way of thinking in Japan especially after Prime Minister Kakuei Tanaka made Japan as a country which always repairs clean and well-done road repairing forever.

Moreover, an architect Koji Yamada told very interesting insider story of Aichi Expo. For example, the building under pretense of the wooden structure in Nagakute is in fact, created by steel rods, and this steel rod was hidden by woods to announced as a “ecological” wooden structure. Moreover, the corridor Global Loop which connects gate to the pavilions is announced as an ecological design which does not erase the surface of the earth with a sector support. However, for professional architect, it is impossible to recycle these parts, since the upper part was welded, and the problem of the length of a support is solvable by other methods without damaging the surface of earth. Furthermore, the 150m greenbelt which declares to absorb CO2 is unpractical. In addition, since the system of cooling the inside of the room using water is also unpractical, since the water was pulled up with the pump, and it is nothing ecological. That is to say, the ecological building in Aichi “Love-Earth Expo” is a fake.

However, for architect, if the building seems ecological for people and if they think "oh, this is ecological" and he or she may plant a tree in a house to absorb CO2, that is OK. Yes, it can be. However, it is such a ridiculous story.

Moreover, although Taro Igarashi, a panelist, said the model of the main character in the film “Hiroshima Mon Amour” might be Kenzo Tange. Since I had never thought like that, his point was very interesting. Actually in the film “Hiroshima Mon Amour,” there was a scene near the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Musem, and possibly it was an intention of the director Alain Resnais who wanted to imply Tange.

Tange built Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park in 1950 in the postwar period. The reason why he wanted to work in Hiroshima is that he spent his high school days in Hiroshima, and at the same time, Hiroshima was also the place where his parents passed away. At the same time Isamu Noguchi designed the monument of Atomic Bomb victims in Hiroshima at the center of Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park. However, Kunio Maekawa, a nationalist, the teacher of Tange and a student of Le Corbusier, said that because of Noguchi’s American nationality, it is not suitable for Noguchi to design this memorial. However, Tange thought it is too gracious to take over the role of Noguchi, that’s why Tange somehow copied the design of Noguchi for the monument design. Even now, the "The Great Peace Bridge" by Noguchi is located at the distant place from the monument. (The newly opened Noguchi Museum in Queens, New York exhibit the photo of this monument plan, but there is no explanation such as that it was a design for Hiroshima. It is a complete omission on the side of an art museum.) For Noguchi who ackonowledged as Japanese person and was put into the US concentration camp during the war, the attitude of Maekawa could be too harsh.

Mr. Tange built Tokyo Metropolitan Government Office, Fuji Television, etc. and he passed away by the age of 91 years old, but it is not an accidental thing that Philip Johnson passed away almost simultaneously with his death. One era was finished with their death. Moreover, it could be said that the end of the era in the field of philosophy is represented by the death of Derrida, Said and Sontag.

It is said that the reason why Margurite Duras and Alain Resnais connected Nevers and Hiroshima in "Hiroshima Mon Amour" is that in French philosophical society in 1950s, to criticize about Holocaust was not acceptable. I am also trying to connect the cities ? Kyoto and Sarajevo, Hiroshima and Belgrade ? to criticize the function of the nation-state, because it might not work well to criticize ethnic war or imperial war by criticizing dead ahead. (How many people in Japan understand what the ethnic war is?)

By the way, there were many platform participants who do not know "Elephant Cage" (US military unit which illegally occupies citizen’s land in Okinawa) in Nagoya. Is the dark part which this country has is not their problems in mainland Japan? Is the relation between the nation-state, power and art a complicity relation, or estrangement?

In the gap of "architecture", "art", and a "state", I move forward like a Drunken Boat.