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Als Metabolisten bezeichnet sich eine Gruppe von Architekten, Designer und Stadtplanern, die ihren ersten gemeinsamen Auftritt 1960 auf der World Design Conference in Tokio hatten. Dieser eindrückliche Bildband stellt die Architektur der Metabolisten vor, die ihre Bauten nicht als Monumente, sondern als lebendige Organismen verstehen. Inspiriert von Le Corbusiers Konzept des künstlichen Landes, geht es ihnen darum, dem Individuum und der Gesellschaft maximalen Einfluss auf ihren Lebensraum zu gewähren. Es entstanden Gebäude, die aus modularen, flexiblen und dynamischen Einheiten erschaffen wurden. Sie lassen sich beliebig erweitern, umgestalten und an die jeweiligen Ansprüche anpassen. Allen Bauten ist hierdurch der besondere Reiz gemein, nicht nur für sich zu faszinieren, sondern überhaupt Architektur noch einmal völlig neu entdecken und denken zu lassen.
CASEY MACK (*1973) studierte an der Columbia University Architektur und arbeitete für Office for Metropolitan Architecture in New York und Hong Kong. Er lehrte am New York Institute of Technology und der Parson School of Constructed Environments. Er ist Direktor des Architektur- und Designbüros Popular Architecture in New York.
About the author
CASEY MACK (*1973) studied architecture at Columbia University and
worked for the Office for Metropolitan Architecture in New York and
Hong Kong. He taught at the New York Institute of Technology and
the Parsons School of Constructed Environments. He is director of the
architecture and design office Popular Architecture in New York.
Summary
How can housing better meet people’s diverse and changing needs? Moving away from the focus on capsule architecture that dominates so many studies of Japan’s Metabolist architects, Digesting Metabolism investigates the impact on Japanese housing of Le Corbusier’s idea of “artificial land,” perhaps architecture’s most famous concept that the fewest have heard of. Long buried by the term “megastructure” that it inspired, artificial land joins the individual and collective, envisioning housing as stacked platforms of plots for building freestanding homes of all variety. This book explores in detail eleven Japanese projects that translate this dream of durability combined with flexibility into built reality, illuminating its appeal for a nation whose existing land—from both earthquakes and cost—is highly unstable. First introduced to Japan in 1954 by Le Corbusier’s protégé, Takamasa Yosizaka, artificial land is essential to the Metabolists who debuted in Tokyo in 1960, with it sparking their desire to add “a time factor into city planning.” Yet artificial land has had a hold on Japan’s metabolic imagination well beyond the ‘60s, promising domestic satisfaction and environmental resilience from the postwar period to today’s government policies. Digesting Metabolism uncovers this unique Japanese history and its possible future, finding examples of infrastructure, adaptation, and dweller control that challenge commodified models of housing around the world.
CASEY MACK (*1973) is an architect and the director of Brooklyn-based Popular Architecture, an office devoted to simplicity and innovation in design across multiple scales. His work has been published in Harvard Design Magazine, OASE, The Avery Review, and Domus China.
Foreword
Metabolist housing -Participatory design -Building life cycles -Post-occupancy survey
