MADE IN TOKYO.

Translated by Marika Neustopny

The numerous nameless hybrid buildings of Tokyo might seem like the worst excesses of architecture, but they can also be seen as intriguing responses to particular conditions and have lessons that might be applied in the search for a more fluid and humane urbanism. Yoshiharu Tsukamoto, Momoyo Kaijima and Junzo Kuroda explain the background to their research into this phenomenon, illustrated by some of Tokyo's more exotic architectural inhabitants.

Unlike European cities, almost all the buildings in Tokyo have been constructed within the last 30 or 40 years. This has resulted in some very curious spatial compositions and functional combinations, unthinkable in the traditional European city. Roads and train lines run over buildings, expressways wind over rivers, and the huge volumes of golf practice nets billow over tiny residential districts. How is it that Tokyo can allow such apparently shameless architecture to flourish? How has Japan managed to arrive at such a different urban fabric to Europe, despite having the same building technologies?

In Japan, as elsewhere, critical criteria tend to be derived from examples of overseas architecture and historical precedent. If such orthodox values are applied to Tokyo, the city is revealed as being full of architecturally inconsequential and ugly buildings. However it must be possible to redefine and take advantage of them. Such buildings cannot simply be regarded as a consequence of a general architectural, social and economic melee, but are in fact complex and practical responses to urban conditions.

Survey origins

In 1991, a small spaghetti shop was discovered squeezed into the space under a baseball batting centre. Neither a spaghetti shop nor a batting centre are unusual in Tokyo, but the combination of the two seemed odd. Yet despite the faintly ridiculous marriage of functions, the building also aroused a sense of expectation in its uninhibited energy and wilfulness. It seemed to epitomize Tokyo. These mutant structures became the subject of an extensive photographic and documentary study. This marked the beginning of Made in Tokyo, a survey of the city's strange and nameless buildings.

All the buildings surveyed were characterized by a stubborn honesty in response to their surroundings and programmatic requirements. They became known as 'da-me architecture' (no-good architecture), a term intended to reflect an equal mixture of affection and disdain. Most are anonymous and architecturally unremarkable. In fact, many could be used to demonstrate what architecture should not become. But in terms of observing and reflecting the reality of Tokyo through built form, they are often more acute than any buildings designed by architects. And by collecting and cataloguing them, the character of the city gradually becomes apparent.

Defining da-me

Certain guidelines emerged in the definition of da-me architecture. From the start, some styles of architecture were avoided, such as obvious eclecticism and historical pastiche. Examples were selected based on the way in which they related directly to use. By emphasizing and examining the functional relationship between different elements, the built object was isolated without preconceived meanings and categories. Divisions between high and low culture, beauty and ugliness, good and bad were also ignored. Such a 'flat' way of seeing suited the nature of Tokyo, which is an agglomeration of countless different types of physical structures.

The format of the survey came to resemble a guidebook. In terms of organizing the way the city is used, guidebooks can be a tool for urban planning. However, a guidebook does not necessarily need a conclusion, clear beginning or order. Again, this seemed appropriate for Tokyo, locked into a perpetual cycle of construction and destruction.

Urban symbiosis 

The buildings of Made in Tokyo are not beautiful. They are mongrel, low status types, such as car parks, batting centres, hybrid containers or civil engineering works. They are not designed by famous architects. They do not respond to cultural context and history. They are highly economical and efficient solutions, arrived at by the minimum of effort. In Tokyo, such direct responses are expected. They are not burnished with the gloss of culture; they are simply physical 'building'. They utilize. whatever is at hand -- rooftops, walls, gaps between lots. Spaces are often used for two different functions, giving rise to hybrids such as the department store/expressway, where a shop nestles underneath. a motorway. The department store depends on the expressway for its structure, hut conversely, the expressway depends on the department store for its existence in a busy commercial area. Neither can exist on its own - they are symbiotically interdependent. Such buildings seem anti-aesthetic, anti-historic, anti-plan ning and anti-classification. The examples surveyed do not necessarily embody all these criteria, but are simply arrived at through a desperate response to the here and now. In many ways this is what is so refreshing about them.

The buildings of Made in Tokyo can perform several roles within different urban settings. Yet they cannot be specifically classified as architecture or civil engineering, city or landscape. Instead, they can be regarded as 'Environmental Units'. An Environmental Unit is the outcome of three overlapping orders based on category, structure and use. Taking the example of the hybrid department store/expressway, the two elements are united by a structural order. Traffic above and shopping below simply share the same structure, but have different and unconnected functions. The effect of this can be summarized by a diagram of the three orders in operation, either switched off or on to generate a particular physical outcome. This system incorporates all the values that play an important role in the recognition and indeed the very existence of da-me architecture. It is clear that the examples of Tokyo almost always comprise some aspect of orders being switched off. By contrast, what is conventionally thought of as gr eat architecture is the result of all three orders in operation.

But surely too much 'on' cannot be good for our mental and physical landscape. If all three orders are applied, there can only be one means of achieving a satisfactory conclusion. However, if some or all aspects are turned off, then suddenly the possibilities for variation are much greater. So even though the urban space of Tokyo appears superficially chaotic, it does contain an element of freedom for the production of buildings.

The art of the possible

The architecture of architects retains distinctions between categories, rationalizes physical form, imposes preconceived uses onto that form, and tries to be self-contained. Yet everyday life is characterized by moving between various settings and experiencing different environments rather than being defined by a single building. This fluidity and informality has the potential to act as a counter to typical Japanese public life in which functions are cut off from their surroundings and packaged into a single box. Instead, public facilities might be dispersed through the city, overlapping and integrated with the surrounding environment, establishing new sorts of relationships and suggesting new possibilities for urban living. Within this context, mongrel, multifunctional architecture begins to makes sense. The pulse of Tokyo is powered by da-me.