April 2, 2017 |
I arrived at the Barbican late on a Friday night (please ignore what this might suggest of my current love life) to enter their latest exhibition, The Japanese House, a dreamlike exploration of post-Second World War Japanese domestic architecture, featuring several dozen of the world’s most renowned architects. And when I say ‘enter’ I mean quite literally because inside, the Barbican’s vast concrete spaces had been transformed into a stage for an ambitious (and very serene) re-creation of a Japanese house – Ryue Nishizawa’s Moriyama House to be exact, built in Tokyo in 2005 and considered one of the most important houses of the 21st century.
I will admit it was a bit of a squeeze (I’m 6’5 and this was really quite small) but once inside, every conceivable detail of domestic life had been thought of, from packets of noodles to DVD collections and even the show’s lighting (a twilight hue during my nighttime visit) imitated that of the outside world. A house consisting of ten asymmetrical cubes may sound a bit impractical, but collectively, it resembles the transient and highly utilitarian principle that has defined Japanese architecture since the end of the Second World War. The accompanying film (it’s a highlight) is a brilliant anthropological investigation into the life of the building’s owner, Yasuo Moriyama, the 79-year old “modern hermit”, who has never left Tokyo, and whose day-to-day activity and movement are dictated by the space he inhabits.
With the help of an array of detailed models and drawings by architects including Keisuke Oka and Kiko Mozuna, the show details an architectural journey shaped by economy, urban landscape and family structure. Underpinning all of this is the idea of impermanence, of continuous development and renewal that means Japanese houses generally sit lighter on the ground and only have an average life span of 25 years. This transience means Japanese domestic architecture becomes an object of art, a slate that is repeatedly wiped clean and re-imagined, as evidenced by Kazumasa Yamashita’s playful ‘Face House’ (quite honestly, a house shaped as a face) or Kiko Mozuna’s brilliant ‘Anti Dwelling-Box’. The show offers a fascinating insight into Japan’s unique architectural landscape, but more so, it questions our fixed notions of what a house should, and could, represent. Go see it.
The Japanese House: Architecture and Life After 1945 is on at The Barbican until June 25th 2017
Photograph by Miles Willis/Getty Images
