Works and Words
A discussion between Toyo Ito, Makoto Ueda, Koji Ichikawa, Maki Onishi, and Yuki Hyakuda
On 5 June 2023, at the Ito Office in Tokyo, Toyo Ito, Makoto Ueda, Koji Ichikawa (moderator), Maki Onishi, and Yuki Hyakuda (o+h) gathered to reflect on the materials they examined in the Ito archive. This conversation follows different readings by its participants of a selection of material from the archive.
From left to right: Makoto Ueda, Koji Ichikawa, Toyo Ito, Maki Onishi, Yuki Hyakuda, and Toshiaki Ishida (former staff member of Ito’s office who shared stories from the period). Photograph by Shu Nakagawa
- KI
- Can you begin by telling us what led you to decide to donate your archives to CCA?
- TI
- I visited the CCA many years ago for one of the “Any” meetings and was struck by what an amazing institution it is. The National Archives of Modern Architecture in Japan lack the space to store models, so when materials are donated, they get separated. That bothers me. I discussed this with everyone in my office and we concluded that donating the archives to the CCA was the best solution from the standpoint of future access to the public, availability for loans, and so on. Our current donation is of materials from the 1970s and 1980s, but I’d like to eventually donate everything up to our most recent works.
- KI
- On this occasion we all examined materials, mostly paper, related to different works in the archive, so I’d like to hear comments from each of us about that.
- MO(o+h)
- We [o+h] looked at drawings for House in Koganei (1979), which we had the good fortune of being asked to renovate.
- YH(o+h)
- The layout looks extremely functional, but when you go there you enter into a sequential experience that begins from the moment you open the front door, and you can’t tell, simply by looking at the completed drawings, how Ito-san came up with it. We learned that when the flow of this experience was an essential aspect of the architecture, he would develop plans and elevations to study it.
- MO(o+h)
- The steel frame and some of the elements within it, such as stairway banisters and furniture, were highlighted in colour on the drawings. It gave me the feeling that the house already contained elements that create a flow of temporary spaces, in a way that relates to his Silver Hut (1984) and “Pao: A Dwelling for Tokyo Nomad Women” (1986).
- YH(o+h)
- I think it’s significant that these steel-frame structures were designed at the very outset of Ito-san’s career. A steel frame, where all elements from the structure to the undercoat are independent of one another, gives one a sense of the possibility of approaching architecture as a pragmatic assemblage of discrete objects. This approach represents a philosophical attempt to address the question of how to open up one’s designs to engage with society, as well as a practical attempt to create an architectural flow through the relationships among discrete elements required for various functions. I think that’s why Ito-san adopted a style in which the flow itself does not take a specific form and developed it in works ranging from the Silver Hut to the Yatsushiro Municipal Museum (1991).
- KI
- Ito-san, I think many see in your work, at least superficially, a dramatic transition from the introverted style of an auteur to a more extroverted, socially engaged one. But just as the earlier mention of “sequential experience” reminds me of White U (1976), and the idea of “temporariness” brings the Silver Hut to mind, it does seem that there is some sort of unifying thread running through all of your work. Would you say that House in Koganei was part of that continuum, or was it a variation of sorts, an exploration of a new direction?
- TI
- I think that was a period when I was really struggling. I designed House in Chuorinkan (1979) around the same time, so while I was designing something rather ornamental on the one hand, here I was using what was practically no more than a simple steel frame. I think I was wavering between the two approaches back then. With House in Koganei, I wanted to build the most economical structure possible, with the least number of elements. In some ways it’s much harder to build with a steel frame than with concrete because the details of the frame manifest themselves, as Hyakuda-san mentioned. I wanted to see what I could do with that.
Toyo Ito & Associates, Architects, House in Koganei, layered elevations, 1979
- KI
- As an editor [of an architectural journal], Ueda-san, you have been checking out Ito-san’s works all along and covering them in the media. What are your thoughts now that you have seen his materials on past works firsthand?
- MU
- It was a period when no one seemed to see the big picture. When I viewed the materials on Aluminum House (URBOT-001, 1971), one of his earliest works, my impression was that Ito-san was giving considerable thought—quite carefully, but also boldly—to his methodology. The work is a vernacular-style farmhouse, but also an example of supergraphics. It was astonishing to see how widely he was reading about, and sensitively responding to, overseas trends in architecture during this period. And where did his explorations lead him? To the notion that “architecture is useless.” The more he honed his point of view, the clearer it became to him that the critical theme for architecture was “uselessness,” an issue he would address as symptomatic of the new era. He designed Aluminum House the year after Osaka Expo 70.
- KI
- The Osaka Expo is known to have been an extremely significant event for postwar Japanese society and architecture. What was your stance vis-à-vis the Expo, Ito-san?
- TI
- In the sixties, I was enamored by Metabolism and went to work for [Kiyonori] Kikutake-san. The Osaka Expo was a tremendous disappointment to me, though I suppose the politics of the times was a factor. In any event, Aluminum House was a mixed manifestation of my desire to invent a new architecture and my frustration with the (architectural trend represented by Metabolism’s) capsules. I had a strange premonition that I’d find the capsules (attached to the Expo Tower, for which Ito was the project architect) falling to the ground one after another, and I felt obliged to clean up the wreckage. It was around this time that I wrote my essay “The Logic of Uselessness” (published in the November 1971 issue of Toshi-Jutaku), and I have felt a strong aversion to functionality ever since. White U also reflects this stance. To this day I believe that it is meaningless to design architecture based on its functions.
- KI
- I was intrigued by Ueda-san’s suggestion that Aluminum House incorporated a number of contemporary trends in architecture from overseas. Also, you translated Colin Rowe’s The Mathematics of the Ideal Villa and Other Essays into Japanese, something that might surprise people outside of Japan. How did you go about integrating the overseas trends of the time?
- TI
- In those days I eagerly looked forward to every issue of the journal Ueda-san edited, Toshi-Jutaku (Urban Housing). When I saw works by Charles Moore and the West Coast grass-roots architects (in the October 1968 issue of Toshi-Jutaku), I was completely smitten and didn’t know what to do. So, when I made Aluminum House, I was in a state of internal turmoil.
- YH
- What was your thinking at the time about spatial units? When I look at something like your later URBOT-003 Project (Tokyo Vernacularism, 1971), there are capsules designed to highlight the human individual as a unit. They appear to me like a spatial representation of the solitary nature of the human being from birth to death.
- TI
- I conceived of Aluminum House as a set of four tubes, one for each member of a four-person family. But due to lack of funds I ended up using only two tubes, and the kids were dispatched to the second floor.
- MU
- You made complete drawings for the project, didn’t you?
- YH
- There’s a photo of the model in Toshi-Jutaku (November 1971, p. 50).
Toyo Ito & Associates, Architects, URBOT-001 in Toshi-Jutaku (Urban Housing), November 1971, p. 50-51. Photograph by Shu Nakagawa
Toyo Ito & Associates, Architects, URBOT-002 (Useless Capsule Project), 1971
Toyo Ito & Associates, Architects, URBOT-003 (Tokyo Vernacularism), 1971
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- MU
- When I looked at [the sequence of URBOT projects that appeared in] “The Logic of Uselessness,” I thought they grew progressively closer to the completed image, where, conversely, the very notion of the work as a house was disrupted. I find that amazing. I don’t think there’s ever been anything as complex as this project, where states of completion and its opposite coexist.
After that you proposed URBOT-002 (Useless Capsule Project, 1971), then submitted a proposal to the 1972 house design competition, juried by Kazuo Shinohara, that Shinkenchiku magazine holds every year. At first glance, the latter proposal looks like a somewhat refined version of URBOT-002, but in fact it’s utterly different. It’s as if you suddenly emerged with a newfound consciousness of yourself as an architect. You accorded freedom and autonomy to the scale and material of each constituent element, contemplating the meaning of their continuity or separation, their foregrounding or backgrounding, their high or low positioning. You took this to the very limits of possibility in your drawings, notwithstanding any intentions to make a statement to society with your architecture.
Toyo Ito & Associates, Architects. A proposal for the 1972 Shinkenchiku housing design competition judged by Kazuo Shinohara (a development of URBOT-002) in Shinkenchiku, July 1972, pp.166–167. Photograph by Shu Nakagawa
- KI
- It’s interesting that you took such a different approach to the capsule, a concept that had conveyed the image of a bright future in its treatment by the Metabolists.
- TI
- That’s probably because of the abrupt changes in society that occurred around 1970. Things suddenly turned darker, and that’s right about the time I began doing architecture, so my feelings about many things were extremely complicated. That was when [Arata] Isozaki-san and Shinohara-san emerged as our de facto leaders, and as prominent figures in the architectural community.
When I attended a lecture by Shinohara-san in the early 1970s, the place was packed. The appearance of each slide was met with a collective gasp. It was a time when people reacted like that, as if they were watching a Godard film. - KI
- You are of course a practicing architect who designs actual structures, but you are also the acclaimed author of many written works.
- TI
- I don’t really enjoy writing all that much. But I when I looked at Isozaki-san in those days, I was impressed by the way his works and his words complemented each other, and that awareness stayed with me. After I’ve completed a project, writing enables me to reflect on what I could have done better and think about what to do next. In that sense writing has been an indispensable tool for me.
- YH
- Your architecture seems to include both projects that give form to your philosophy, and projects that use more conventional formats. In your writings I sense that you were continually mulling over conflicting values, and that stance would go on to influence your subsequent work.
- KI
- Perhaps it was simply fortuitous that Japanese architects in the 1970s and 1980s could express themselves through their writings as well as their works and were supported in this dual effort by the architectural media of the day. Sadly, circumstances have changed and that is no longer the case. The time may have come for us to reassess the relationship between works and words in the culture of architecture.
Toyo Ito & Associates, Architects, White U, coloured plan, 1976
Toyo Ito & Associates, Architects, White U, plan, 1976
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