Learning from Japan

[imomus]

"Learning from Japan" is a theme I keep coming back to, a sermon I keep preaching. Opposed to the crude view I call "Japan Original Sin" (people who harp on about research whaling, war criminal shrines and textbook lacunae, and with whom one eventually, inevitably, ends up playing a futile game of Atrocity Snap), the "Learning from Japan" meme simply suggests that Japan's difference from Western practice is valuable, precisely, to the West. We can't learn anything from people who think as we do. For the same reason, men can learn more from women than they can from other men.



The architecture world will get a chance to learn from Japan -- and from a woman -- in 2010; SANAA's Kazuo Sejima has been chosen as the curator of The Venice Architecture Biennial. I'm pretty sure she's the first Japanese to get this job; she's certainly the first woman to do so. A clue to her focus comes in a brief statement she's released saying that "a significant point of departure could be the concept of boundaries and the adaptation of space... it could be argued that contemporary architecture is an afterthought and perhaps an easing of borders themselves." That's a fresh thought already; architecture as an easing of borders in a time when they're generally stiffening.



I blogged last week about a new book from Lars Müller, The SANAA Studios 2006-2008. Learning from Japan: Single-Story Urbanism. My title today comes from there. The blurb explains: "During three spring seasons between 2006 and 2008, Kazuyo Sejima and Ryue Nishizawa taught at the School of Architecture at Princeton. The SANAA Studios explored Japan's contemporary society as a context for architecture and considered its particular perspective on space, the personal and the public realm. Design exercises were situated within the specific demographics and social variables of three distinct sites in Japan...

"As an overall thematic it asks: What can we learn from SANAA?" Browsing the book at Pro-qm, I got the strong impression that what we can learn from SANAA is something to do with a relaxing, elegant lightness and understatement, something to do with minimalism and gentleness, and something to do with a feeling of calm that permeates Japan very noticeably whenever you spend time there. Iwan Baan's photographs of SANAA buildings filled with schoolchildren or middle-aged culture tourists made me think of Alasdair Gray's excellent maxim: "Work as if you live in the early days of a better nation."

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

Momus, do you still buy music at all, whether it be a download, CD or LP? Or have you given up on it? What was the last piece of music you bought (ie not given to you or downloaded for free)?

Another question: what is your relationship with non-contemporary classical music? Would you ever sit down and listen with pleasure to a late Beethoven string quartet, for instance?

[imomus.livejournal.com]

The last two CDs I bought were Arabo-Andaluse music in Madrid. I was disappointed when I listened to them (because I wanted the Atrium Musicae de Madrid, basically, and they weren't it) and left them at a friend's house, because they were cluttering up my luggage. I then proceeded to locate and download the actual Atrium Musicae de Madrid records I wanted via filesharing.

CDs seem ugly and over to me. I completely don't need them, have too many already, and find it annoying taking the plastic off -- or even carrying -- the ones people give me for free. They're a nuisance.

I don't like Beethoven at all. Complete deaf spot there, ha ha ha. I like Baroque and pre-Baroque, and I like modern from Schoenberg on.

the unspeakable files of the greeks

[(Anonymous)]

"I then proceeded to locate and download the actual Atrium Musicae de Madrid records I wanted via filesharing."

which turned out virtually impossible according to my own search in that field. the only atrium CD i could find was the one where they play ancient greek music.



erik

[(Anonymous)]

Yes Momus, we will learn from the Japanese! We will not mention the war! We will eat their ramen and fuck their women! We will visit their fine country from time to time! We will look at their pretty magazines, but not read them, since we can't read Japanese! We will refuse to learn their language, apart from guidebook pleasantries! We will force them to communicate with us in the master language, English! We will not read their books, because we can't and we don't want to! We will not live there!

[imomus.livejournal.com]

You know in your heart of hearts that it's what the Japanese want.

heart of hearts

[pay-option07.livejournal.com]

I
Their spirits are quite good at sizing up foreigners and giving them what they want. It is very surprising and comfortable to grasp that they know us so well.

[(Anonymous)]

Such a shame. I really want to live there and learn all there is to learn about their language and read all their books and bring my children and teach in an university, but I know in my heart of hearts they don’t want me to :(

(but I’m going anyway)

[grzeg.livejournal.com]

Only look at the current Japanese architectural scene (http://www.japan-architect.co.jp/english/2maga/ja/ja0070/mainfr.html), regardless if they worked for SANAA, they all want to be like SANAA. Talented and hardworking students from Europe, North and South America, and Australia compete to work for SANAA for free (as is the custom for any internship at a Japanese firm, Japanese-native or not), and still get turned away because of the waiting list.

It is not a matter of whether the rest of architecture world has something to learn from Sejima – that’s been happening for a while (too bad it hasn’t been implementing that knowledge); it is time that she is given her due respect.

Gifu Housing Complex, Plum Grove House, 21st Century-Kanazawa, New Museum, Serpentine Gallery Pavilion… the curatorship of The Venice Architecture Biennial? Seriously: Give her the fucking Pritzker already.

[grzeg.livejournal.com]

The other thing...

learn more from women
learn from Japan
learn from SANAA

“Become like me, and I will respect your difference.”— Alain Badiou

[imomus.livejournal.com]

"The tolerance which tolerates only what's tolerable is both intolerant and intolerable." Momus

[imomus.livejournal.com]

Monarchs had, so to speak, materialized oppression: the democratic republics of the present day have rendered it as entirely an affair of the mind, as the will which it is intended to coerce. Under the absolute sway of one man, the body was attacked in order to subdue the soul; but the soul escaped the blows which were directed against it, and rose proudly superior. Such is not the course adopted by tyranny in democratic republics; there the body is left free, and the soul is enslaved. The master no longer says, "You shall think as I do, or you shall die": but he says, "You are free to think differently from me, and to retain your life, your property, and all that you possess; but you are henceforth a stranger among your people. You may retain your civil rights, but they will be useless to you, for you will never be chosen by your fellow-citizens, if you solicit their votes; and they will affect to scorn you, if you ask for their esteem. You will remain among men, but you will be deprived of the rights of mankind. Your fellow-creatures will shun you like an impure being; and even those who believe in your innocence will abandon you, lest they should be shunned in their turn. Go in peace! I have given you your life, but it is an existence worse than death."

Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America (http://books.google.de/books?id=ZID9VvvWiaIC&pg=PA117&lpg=PA117&dq=toqueville+free+henceforth+stranger&source=bl&ots=mSqlKKlTsF&sig=1Y8tBXf4_RoQSelnTdgdiwq8I5E&hl=en&ei=3Fv5Sqe7JdTJ_galt6G-DA&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CAoQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=henceforth&f=false)

[grzeg.livejournal.com]

Yeah, that’s a mantra that’s no stranger here... was actually going to quote it, but no need!

Like that lovely quote of yours, the idea that we should be told what to learn from difference and from who to learn it from, or even be told ‘learn from difference’ is itself contrary to the spirit of diférence, which is paradoxical/ironic…

‘Learning for Las Vegas’, ‘Learning from Lagos’, ‘Learning from Akihabara’ were provocations, not manifestos or imperatives. The "Learning from Japan" meme is still valid, I guess ‘Japanization’ (Kojève) is gaining ground, though I guess Japanization of the world as a type of homogenization is not a bad thing in your book (?).

from shanghai

[(Anonymous)]

her latest work desu
http://www.mot-art-museum.jp/eng/2009/bh01/index.html

kunokuniya reference

[(Anonymous)]

I have to thank you for the reference the other day. Visiting Kunokuniya made my trip to new york that much more meaningful. As you know, it's quite enchanting. living in Richmond, there are only japanese in sushi places. quite a transport. compared to greenwhich village or anywhere else generally in manhattan, kunokuniya was a much needed oasis of calm. ('oasis of calm': did i read that here?)
Ben
-even the lighting, which was refracted, speaks to the difference in aesthetics I think you're talking about in today's post. It may be small, but to me it's a world of difference.

[(Anonymous)]

You talk about challenging yourself and learning from those who think differently from us. You've mentioned Japan in that context a good hundred times at least. You surround yourself with people who already think like you (despite living in a predominantly arabic neighborhood your relationship with that neighborhood seems to be mostly that of a tourist, what with a large Japanese influence in the house and your "work-place", such as it is, being dominated by people on your exact wavelength).

Try going into the pit of a hardcore punk show this weekend. Try going to an auto-dealer and trying out a fast car. Try getting a part-time job as a manual laborer. Get involved in grass-root politics. Make a conscious effort to like an artist you've always hated (it can't be sort-of-liked-him - it has to be someone like Damien Hirst)

And most important of all: Stop handing out maxims when you're unwilling to commit to any serious change yourself.

[(Anonymous)]

Yeah, Momus! Go hang out with some neocons for a change!

On another note, why do you think Japanese women have sexual capital in the West, but Japanese men have none (not in a heterosexual context, at any rate)? What do you think that says about the West?

Also, what do you think Japan has to learn from the West?

[imomus.livejournal.com]

And most important of all

Well, you raise some good points, but they're all likely to become tail-chasingly paradoxical when examined a little more closely. I'm reminded of the Howard Devoto maxim: "My mind ain't so open that anything could crawl right in". Which he followed, incidentally, with another one: "The last place to loose yourself is in the world where we all... swim, swim, swim, swim..."

If absolutely anything can crawl right into my mind, is it still "my mind", or is it just a swamp and a sponge? I think the next line provides guidance: loose yourself rather than "lose" yourself, but don't do it in the crowd, the place where everyone else is doing it. Choose somewhere somewhat marginal. But didn't I choose this giver-of-advice carefully so that he would give me the advice I was already inclined to take? Certainly! And that's exactly how I would expect my own maxims to be received: by people who basically agree already, but hadn't quite formulated their beliefs as neatly as that. I long ago gave up trying to battle and bully people (on bully-tin boards, for instance) around to beliefs they find toxic.

Nevertheless, and with all that said, the Japanese do think differently from me. My respect for them is based on a mutual complementarity, not on overlap. I really do "like how I don't like how their minds work". And I'm quite proud of formulating it that way. It was useful to me to encapsulate quite a complicated relationship in nine words. It might even be useful to you, who knows? You might end up liking how I don't think the way you do, rather than being irritated by it, or trotting out the umpteen billionth charge of HYPOCRISY.

get real

[(Anonymous)]

don't you mean "learning from an elite japanese architecture firm???"

sanaa hardly represent what the japanese landscapes and cityscapes look like. only those who haven't actually been to japan could still buy this kind of bamboo-tower artthink.

you know damn well most of japan has nothing to do with sanaa's particular aesthetic; unless you get well out of any urban areas, it's as dirty as any other megaopolis.

instead of continuing to tout this kind of elitist, hypermaterialist view of japan, why don't you spend more time advocating for the preservation of japan's natural resources and countryside, and the arts and artists who work with that mindset...

[(Anonymous)]

i mean, look how grossly platonic that photo of kazuyo seijima is; contemplating those ideal metallic forms in the natural setting of the beach. it's offensive and it's as far from what we can "learn from japan" as you can get...

it's just more cold, detached, cartesian, rectilinear thinking; hardly what the world needs more of now, from japan or anyone else. we need more warm, organic, soft, vague, unfinished, you get the idea...

it's funny you have so much vitriol for pop music, but not for pop architects...

[lord-whimsy.livejournal.com]

i mean, look how grossly platonic that photo of kazuyo seijima is; contemplating those ideal metallic forms in the natural setting of the beach. it's offensive and it's as far from what we can "learn from japan" as you can get...

it's just more cold, detached, cartesian, rectilinear thinking; hardly what the world needs more of now, from japan or anyone else. we need more warm, organic, soft, vague, unfinished, you get the idea...

Just wanted to note that I didn't post this. I certainly thought it, though.

[imomus.livejournal.com]

look how grossly platonic that photo of kazuyo seijima is

It's Annie Liebovitz, if that helps you feather your stereotypes.

all societies are the same

[(Anonymous)]

all societies are famous for their bustling cities and also their rural calm
all societies believe they have a unique sense of humour
all societies work hard, but know how to let their hair down when needs be
all societies are a fascinating mix of the traditional and the modern
all societies think that their women are too hands-off, but that other societies women are total go-ers
all societies believe they have headstrong, overbearing matriarchs
all societies think they are tough in negotiation, but a good friend to have on your side
all societies think they are essentially fair and humane
all societies feel slightly misunderstood
all societies know their not perfect, but all societies secretly enjoy their own flaws

[(Anonymous)]

This is awfully awkward to ask, maybe more difficult than awkward, but to the point; Do you know where I might be able to purchase more of your music? I've managed to find an album or two looking around in various music stores, and purchasing through the internet isn't an option for me. I'd feel horrible about downloading music so I'd rather buy it. Thanks in advance.

[imomus.livejournal.com]

Six of my early albums are available for free download from ubu.com:

http://ubu.com/sound/momus.html

The rest are available for purchase from Cherry Red:

http://www.cherryred.co.uk/el/artists/momus.htm

http://www.cherryred.co.uk/analogbaroque/artists/momus.php

http://www.cherryred.co.uk/analogbaroque/artists/momusannelaplantine.php

Interesting post..

[maybeimdead.livejournal.com]

Actually I agree with you on this. I used to be one of those teeth-gnashing fist-clenched anti-Imperialists. However tt's very re-assuring to know that there can still be real difference in the "feel" of a place in a post-industrial world. A specific cultural grammar is NOT a foregone conclusion and we can never know or expect a place to be just like us just because they can achieve as much as we can materially. Just as some people are pre-disposed to possibilities, at least the future worlds are not something dreadfully predictable. Isn't the "west" just dreadfully predictable?