Pyramid pow-wow

[imomus]

Last night's gala event for the Great Pyramid -- a huge "loft dying" necropolis planned for the lush countryside near Dessau -- was pretty interesting. The film presentations and talks actually made me think the pyramid (which could, if it's a success, become the world's largest building, housing the mortal remains of up to five million people) would be a good place for me to be buried, when my time comes.



Ever since I first heard of this pyramid project, I've had my doubts about whether it could possibly be true. Would the world's biggest pyramid -- and possibly its biggest human structure -- rise in the German countryside? Would you really be able to rent a necro-unit in it for all eternity for a total payment of €1000? Was Rem Koolhaas really selecting the architects who'd build the visitor centre around the structure? Were my favourite Japanese architects, Atelier Bow Wow, one of the four contending teams, and was I really going to sing my song "What Will Death Be Like?" at the ceremony which presented their plans?



My doubts were based on the fact that the people surrounding the project are a highly playful group of conceptual jokers, neo-visionaries, intellectual provocateurs and ironic pranksters with ties to REDESIGNDEUTSCHLAND. Basically, writer Ingo Niermann (who writes "popliteratur" in collaboration with Christian Kracht) founded this satirical design thinktank with Rafael Horzon with the idea of thinking about Germany (and the world) in a kind of "Year Zero" way, inspired by the visionary systematizing of the French Revolution, the Bauhaus with its Modernist existenzminimum, even North Korea. Basically, visionary systematic thinking has been taboo in postwar Germany because of the reductive essentialising which links everything of this kind to Nazi dystopias.



And yet Germany is now at the heart of a Europe which needs radical imaginative visions. Basically, connecting everything of this sort to Hitler is a kind of Godwin's Law of the mind, a sort of lazy reflexive caution which would end every speculative conversation and prevent anything interesting ever happening again (Hitler's final revenge: 1000 years of boredom and timidity?) To break out of this postwar paralysis, Ingo Niermann wrote a book called "Umbauland" (Reconstruction Land, Suhrkamp) which laid out ten provocative visions for Germany. He said Germany should have its own nuclear bomb. He advocated (as REDESIGNDEUTSCHLAND also do) the radical simplification of the grammar of the German language (REDEDEUTSCH) so that it can spread easily through the world and stop the totalitarian dominance of English (because, let's face it, we Anglos are the closest thing to totalitarians today). He also welcomes German population decline on energy-saving grounds. And now, as a member of the Friends of the Pyramid, he's advocating another radical vision -- a redesign of the way we deal with death.

Rem Koolhaas really was there last night, attracted by his admiration of Niermann's book. Koolhaas likes bold ideas about the future. His presentation at the HAU1 theatre guided us through conceptual presentations for the pyramid visitor centre by Atelier Bow-Wow (Tokyo), Nikolaus Hirsch, Markus Miessen & Wolfgang Lorch (Frankfurt / M & London), MADA s.p.a.m. (Shanghai & Los Angeles), and Ai Weiwei / FAKE Design (Beijing). Or, as Koolhaas (taller in real life than you'd imagine, and wearing a tough guy leather coat) put it, poetry, pragmatism, mysticism and communism.



The images on this page are all from Atelier Bow Wow's presentation, themed around the natural forms of leaves and tree branches. At the end of the session Koolhaas announced -- slightly disappointingly -- that the jury (which included Miuccia Prada) had decided to use ideas from all four practices. They were all "the winner", or would be if and when the project (which he said might be real or might be ironic provocation -- "delirious Germany", if you like) was green-lighted. The other presentations -- by structural engineers, marketing people, the head of the Bauhaus -- made it clear that the scheme could be a commercial reality, and that it's gone far enough for local residents to have mounted a protest group, seen holding up banners saying "We don't want 5 million dead in our back yard!"

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At the end of it all I sang my song What Will Death Be Like?, not so much a manifesto about a future we all face as a statement about the unspeakability of death. But if we can't say what death might be like, at least we can say where we might spend it. And picture people coming to visit us there, milling around a soothing visitor centre based on the shapes of leaves.

Comments

[cap-scaleman.livejournal.com]

Hey, isn't the american occupation still going on in Japan? Some bases on islands here and there I've heard.

[cap-scaleman.livejournal.com]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_occupation_of_japan#End_of_the_occupation

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Mutual_Cooperation_and_Security_between_the_United_States_and_Japan

[kumakouji.livejournal.com]

Japan needs America for so many reasons -- it's a beneficial relationship for the Japanese. The only people who have a problem with the American military bases are the far right Japanese nationalists.

[cap-scaleman.livejournal.com]

They might "need" America, yes, but not a couple of drunk soldiers every now and then wreaking havoc whereever they might be.

[kumakouji.livejournal.com]

Come on, you can't hold the actions of corrupt individuals against a whole nation.

[cap-scaleman.livejournal.com]

I'm just saying. Why does there have to be a bunch of American soldiers in japan?

[kumakouji.livejournal.com]

I'm not entirely sure.

If America was to remove itself from South Korea, we might possibly see North Korea try to take the South. I also don't need to tell you what North Korea thinks of Japan, and Japan doesn't have a military as such.

[cap-scaleman.livejournal.com]

Let us say that North Korea have some sort of military power to count on - (though I suspect that the biggest power of North Korea is hidden in Kim's belly) - and they plan to attack Japan. Then what are those pack of buldos Americans do about it?

[kumakouji.livejournal.com]

They wouldnt let North Korea do that to Japan, just like they didn't let the North Koreans take the south.

[cap-scaleman.livejournal.com]

But how would they know that North Korea aka communist-coutnry-that-isn't-really-communist-but-called-so-because-someone-said-so-and-noone-can-read-a-real-book-about-communism-without-being-called-for-names-land
would do such a thing? Plotting an invasion that is?

[kumakouji.livejournal.com]

North Korea has fired missiles over japan before. Its merely a precautionary measure because japan doesnt have a military.

[funazushi.livejournal.com]

Nominally yes, but the Japan Self Defense Force numbers 240,000 and is the fifth largest military spender in the the world (44 Billion).

[kumakouji.livejournal.com]

It's not a proper military though.

Please read this article (http://www.voanews.com/english/archive/2006-02/2006-02-15-voa12.cfm?CFID=211723674&CFTOKEN=22785054)

Yoichi Masuzoe, a Japanese politician, is quoted as saying "Our F-15 [jet fighter] cannot reach to Pyongyang. We have no aircraft carrier. China has the bomber, fighter. They can reach us easily. North Korea is the same. We are afraid of them," he said. "We have no military capability"

[funazushi.livejournal.com]

So you are saying that in 60 odd years that Japan has failed to develop the capability to defend itself against it's avowed enemy North Korea depite have spent billions of Yen. Hmm. Perhaps Mr. Masuzoe was downplaying their capabilites for political purposes. A quick wiki search shows that the aging Mitsubishi F1 has a range of 1130 km well within range of the Western Air Defense Force at Kasuga, Kyushu. I'm no defense expert but the thought of the LDP doing nothing to bolster defense except visit Yasukuni shrine seems naive.

[kumakouji.livejournal.com]

It would take more than an aging Mitsubishi F-1 to defend an entire country. You'd need to properly demonstrate that Japan has the military structure in place to defend itself without American intervention to win this argument.

You also have to ask why Yoichi Masuzoe would lie about the Japanese military... what are his motives?

[imomus.livejournal.com]

The only people who have a problem with the American military bases are the far right Japanese nationalists.

Simply not so (http://209.85.129.104/search?q=cache:SQ1vPA51KeYJ:www.japantoday.com/jp/popvox/247+pop+vox+japan+today+military+bases+okinawa&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=1&client=safari). I have never heard a Japanese friend say the military bases on Okinawa are fine and should stay. And my Japanese friends are far from right wing.

Just asked Hisae "What's your opinion of American military bases on Okinawa? Should they stay or go?"

Her answer: "Of course go!"

[cap-scaleman.livejournal.com]

You know, you sound like those in Sweden who claim that the "russian will come and take over if we don't arm ourselves".

[kumakouji.livejournal.com]

Your Japanese friends are completely unrealistic, and just because theyre Japanese doesnt make them experts on Japan. Didn't your girlfriend make a comment about how losing your temper wasnt zen? Thats the sort of generalisations people who know nothing about it make!

Japan has no military at present, it has some bizarre faux-military "defense force". Now look to your left on a map. Who's Japan's neighbour? North Korea. If you want peace you must prepare for war. People dont make nuclear weapons to use them, they're there as a deterant. That is the role of America in Japan at present.

Japan needs to build itself a proper military, which its been pushing for very recently. When that happens, I agree, the Americans should leave.

[imomus.livejournal.com]

just because theyre Japanese doesnt make them experts on Japan

This is hilarious! I knew you thought you knew more about Japan than anybody foreign, but saying you know more about Japan -- and specifically what's good for Japan -- than Japanese themselves... Well, you just made whatever point I was reaching for about Western arrogance for me!

[kumakouji.livejournal.com]

your friends =/= the whole of Japan!

your friends =/= fore-running experts on japanese politics!


Theres a reason the Americans are in Japan. Under the Treaty of Mutual Cooperation and Security between the United States and Japan, the USAF is obliged to defend Japan in close cooperation with the Japan Self-Defense Forces.

[imomus.livejournal.com]

My friends represent Japan a hell of a lot better than you do, mate! I think in this case you should just concede the point: one does not have to be an extreme right wing nationalist to be against the presence of US military bases in Japan, 63 years after the end of WW2. Just accept it gracefully and move on.

[imomus.livejournal.com]

It's amusing that you characterize resistance to US bases as "right wing" when your position is basically word-for-word that of Paul Wolfowitz (http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0XPQ/is_2002_June_3/ai_86623838)!

Meanwhile, if you won't believe actual Japanese people, believe Wikipedia's entry on American Empire (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Empire): "Of those former possessions granted independence, most continue to have U.S. bases inside their territories, sometimes despite local popular opinion, as in the case of Okinawa."

[kumakouji.livejournal.com]

So if the majority of British people said they wanted to stop eastern Europian immigration into Britain, that would be OK with you?

The Japanese public arent immune from making political decisions based on racism and nationalist pride.

[kumakouji.livejournal.com]

I was born an Englishman. however, I can't say I know the much about the Church of England. I can't say I know much about the overall structure of our military. I don't know much about how to make English cuisine. I wasn't born with this knowledge, these are all things I would need to learn. That is my point.

let's say that your Japanese friends or Hisae don't hold nationalist views. I'm gonna have to take your word for it because I dont know them. I was wrong, you dont have to be a far-right nationalist to want the Americans out, it was an exaggeration on my part.

So let me reword my stance into something more correct -- Those who want America's military out of Japan dont realise that Japan doesnt have a proper military, and are overestimating the cons of America being there versus the pros ie. Potential protection against North Korea.