Passing through the Post-war reconstruction and the Great earthquake, perspective of Japanese creators has been changed in terms of scale.

Scale A. Grand Urban Visions of Metabolism (Seamless connection from human to city)

After the War, numbers of Metabolists in Japan came up with visions of reconstruction. Their initial concepts and master plans were big enough to cover the entire construction of new cities. Even though the realization has been done in relatively small sizes, the projects and plans had strong future implications. For instance, Kisho Kurokawa’s Nakagin Capsule Tower in Tokyo is representing a new form of architecture as in urban scale. From a construction process to final output and afterwards plan, every step was experimental and practical enough to inspire and to change the following massive urban constructions.

 

Scale B. Small and Fragmentized(Characterization of New smallness)

After Japan had quick recovered economy and had built the substantial parts of the cities, the scale of planners had been changed as well. Stabilized society made architects and creators to think more about everyday lives rather than grand infrastructures of cites. The scale of creations has been gradually decreased. Small and fragmentized units of designs, which are much more tangible for humanity, have been evolved lately. Degradation of urban development and shrinking population of Japan also helps the downsizing of objects. And, this new scale phenomenon, ’Smallness’, has been developed profoundly and has symbolized the new urban scale of metropolitan cities in Japan.

Figure 3 [ METABOLISM – The City Of The Future] exhibition] at Mori Art Museum in Roppongi

Scale C. After Earthquake

After earthquake happened, the concept of Metabolism has been arising again. This grand vision of new cities has been refocused. Since the Great Earthquake swept away the entire infrastructures of cities and following earthquake predictions are threating the existing structures, radical envisioning of new cities has been needed. And Metabolism visions are persuasive enough to inspire the new reconstructions.

However, is it an appropriate scale of idea for new cities?

 

Scale D. Continuous Scale

Lastly, I want to refer  ‘ASADAS SCALE’, which is proposed by Asada Takashi. He worked with Kenzo Tange in the Tange Laboratory at Tokyo University. His concept of this scale is to connect every object, which is from a single atom to entire galaxies, into a single loop. After seeing the aftermath of Hiroshima Atomic Bomb, he was shocked by the fact that two single atoms could evaporate the entire city instantly. He had tried to think about the positive use of this instant continuous scale in innovative urban construction. Even though this concept is still in figurative stage, this scale could be valid in terms of reconstruction of disaster affected cities, since it is covering both small everyday lives and large urban envisioning at the same time.

Rather than discarding relics we should animate them.

Relic has its own power and beauty.

Two factors, psychological linkage to human and its own physical presence, make itself invaluable.

 

For the first step, I am trying to derive the attachment between disaster relics and affected people in Japan by interview process.

Relic is the man-made concept. We could define this object as relic, since we have used it once before.

Therefore, each object is inevitably tied to personal memories.

If we could be involved within positive parts of memories, the usage of relic could be more valuable than using other new objects.

In this regards, I am in the process of conducting the interview.

 

In terms of second factor of relic, the physical presence,

I think that an appropriate way to extract the beauty of it is to using sound and shape.

 

I find out that Bernhard’s sound cube is a good model to be a contrast to relic structure.

This regular hexahedron has speakers within stated intervals.

A flow of energy in this cube would completely proceed within rational prediction.

In contrast, relic model would be sounded in arbitrary way.

 

Red dots are indicating the spots of sounds.

This sound equipments will be implanted in each relic to present a sound wave that is generated by shape of it.

And, I also chose the method of duplication.

A concept of propagation might be the most contradicatable one to the conventional way of treating relic, discarding.

Resemble the natual process of inbreed, I am planning to multiply the same relics to make a monument for disaster affected area.

Debris – Creation

Deconstruction – Destruction

Dead – Alive

Dead, Quiet, Still – Alive, Sound, Move

What we keep – Why we keep – How we keep

Scattered – Algorithm

Revoking Trauma – Infilling Loss

Emotional Attachment to Artificial Debris – Emotional detachment from evaporating relic

Constant accumulation of debris – Sustainable re-usage of debris

 

The main point of my response is to making deconstruction structure by using debris of 3/11 Tsunami. To convert the debris from dead relics to alive sources, I am planning to put sound, movement, algorithm and stories of affected people into debris.

However, this process of debris is standing on a keen line. It could either revoke the trauma or infill the mental loss. I have to make a healing monument rather than hurting trash. Therefore, I am trying to figure out the reason why people build the monument after disasters and the reason why people keep remainders of their dead relatives and so on.

On September 8, 2011, The New York Times published an article, “What We Kept”, which was written about privately kept relics after 9/11. With the pictures of 22 mundane items, the stories of 22 people were published online.

Why do these people have kept these relics? What kind of relics do they have kept? And, how could we expand these relics and attached emotions in a creative and positive way?

Following pictures and stories are parts of articles.

“I was downtown when the planes hit the towers on Sept. 11. I walked back to Brooklyn over the bridge to where my family and I were living on Sackett Street near the waterfront in Cobble Hill. By the time I got home, the towers had fallen and our neighborhood was littered with papers and debris that had blown across the water from the towers. This is a piece of paper I picked up in the street in front of our house — a Peace Corps application burned around the edges.”

 - Nicholas Arauz

“I was a New York City police officer and picked up a thin ribbon of metal from the site. I feel kind of dumb because it didn’t occur to me that there were others doing this kind of thing. I didn’t want a ‘souvenir,’ but I wanted something tactile just so I knew it really happened. I like that it is just a piece of scrap to anyone who sees it, not that I display it. I try not to think about it most of the time and something tells me I’m not going to enjoy reading about what others kept, but thank you for helping me not to forget.”

-Dante Messina

 ”Recovery workers gave these to me while I was volunteering at ground zero. I believe the pin is from a steel beam. There is a fragment of marble, and to me the most disturbing artifact, glass from one of the towers. I do not display these at home. They have been in a drawer for over nine years.”

-  Stephanie Zessos

 

Link to the article: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/08/us/sept-11-reckoning/relics.html?_r=1

This timeline mapping project was initiated by SPREAD in April 2011.

It has been 17 years since Great Hanshin earthquake damaged Japan severely. And even before the rehabilitation had been fully finished, the Great East Japan Earthquake hit again.

During these repetitive disasters, people in various creative industries have been responded with their own projects simultaneously and continuously.

This timeline mapping project aims to make a visible archive of those responses to provide an information to artists who are considering or practicing the creative projects for disaster affected society.

This archive is gathering the information and accumulating the projects at the moment with the help of volunteers.

I found this project valuable, since this could help creators in various fields to pick the pinpoints in multiple creative responses and to do the most valid efforts.

 

Link to the project > http://tm19950117.jp/