(no subject)

[telophase]

Aaaand one last post, pointing out this article in the New York Times, lamenting that nobody's preserving a postwar architectural tower block in Japan. Apparently the residents, who voted to knock the thing down and build a new building, don't count.

"And when does its cultural importance trump practical considerations?" I say this even after working in an architecture slide collection for five years: when the residents hate the damn building.

But I am, perhaps, merely a plebe and unable to appreciate the cultural and architectural importance of a building falling apart around the ears of the residents. (I am, it has to be admitted, not much of a fan of Japanese postwar architecture. :D)

Comments

[thistleingrey]

heh. Well, for contrast, this (pulling the bit.ly version from my old tweet)....

[telophase]

Yeah, urban renewal is a whole mess of things one way and the other - there's always the balance of cultural preservation with the needs of the modern world, however I think there's a difference between the residents themselves choosing to demolish and rebuild and an outside entity coming in and rebuilding against the wishes of the residents.

[thistleingrey]

Oh, definitely.

[nekonexus.livejournal.com]

It's certainly interesting, and I'd be all for saving one of the cubes and putting it in a museum somewhere, but the idea of restoring it is kind of mind-boggling.

And the expense of disassembling to relocate is probably incredibly prohibitive. o.O

Le Corbusier was wrong

[solarbird]

"The problem with the home as 'a machine for living in' is that nobody wants to live in a machine." This late phase of modernist architecture - and, more, the cargo-cult impersonation of it which stumbled on, drooling, once its masters were dead, through the late 1970s - has always fascinated me. The theories are so enticing, but the application fails so disastrously - and sometimes, so comically - that you simply have to step back, laugh, and remind yourself never to do that again. (And this time, you mean it.)

I'm particularly enthralled by some of the products from the last stages. I saw a building once in Kentucky that for me captures the true essence of cargo-cult futurism - a building constructed out of repeating pentagonal geometric forms, as if a machine, appearing regular and modular and fabricated and designed, with protuberances from the roof reminiscent of a small section of the Death Star with a central turret, looking for all the world as though someone built a Moonbase Alpha module and airlifted it onto the site...

...except the factory ran out of modern materials and tools, so used logs for most of the building, and sheet-metal - painted white - for the roof.

It really carries for me the impression of malaise - as though The Future (tm) as they'd envisioned was failing them (which in the era it was), and a whole swath of architects decided, well, if we can make it look like the future, maybe the future will come.

the shit you find googling around

[solarbird]

Mind you, some people still try. (You've heard of people redoing their homes as Star Trek set environments; this one's Space: 1999.)

[lady-ganesh.livejournal.com]

When I visited several weeks ago, it was pouring rain. Corridors smelled of mildew. Some tenants had taped plastic bags to their door frames to catch leaks, and many of them were bulging with gray water. At one point a tenant took me up to a bridge that connected the two towers, where I could see chunks of concrete breaking off from the corner of one of the capsules. Nothing short of a full-scale restoration would save it.

Yeah, I'm going to be rallying to this cause. It's not even forty years old, and it's falling apart!

[telophase.livejournal.com]

Exactly. If you want to preserve it as an example of this type of architecture, better to take a billion photos and archive the photos and plans and models somewhere.

[lady-ganesh.livejournal.com]

The poorly-preserved trailer I rented in the late 90s was in better shape than this and cost a fraction of the price! It's still standing!

EDIT: Also, according to Wiki, there are asbestos and earthquake-safety concerns. Hoo boy.

[movingfinger.livejournal.com]

From the article, it sounds to me as if someone has walked away from the building and is pulling the classic trick of letting it deteriorate until it has to be demolished. All buildings need continual, ongoing maintenance, or they fall apart surprisingly fast.

As for what should happen? I'd like to see it refurbished, in all its podular glory---and made into a hotel. People do not want to live like that all the time, but the model is right for travelers and others with need for shorter-term stays rather than full-time residency.