Ch. 5., pp.201-207
First, I must mention one more thought that stuck in my mind from the last installment. Yamamoto mentioned how worker housing provision was (and still is) all about isolation (a.k.a. privacy) from the world and setting the conditions for procreation to replenish the labor force. I’d never thought of procreation as a form of renewable energy but, given minimum standards of shelter and nutrition, it is. The other thing was how the focus was on dwelling design setting the conditions for procreation but not caring that much as to what kind of life parents and children would live after.
I’ll apologize in advance for some particularly hairy translations of a few sentences towards the end of this installment. I simply couldn’t make out what Yamamoto was not saying.
• • •
3. Perception shared across the world
Architecture solely for personal gain
In the space of society that has economic advantage as its goal, all architecture is built for the purpose of economic gain. Private buildings and public buildings and all other types of buildings in society are made for the purpose of economic gain. Public architecture is made within the mechanisms of bureaucracy and standardized. Priority is given to the continuation of the mechanisms of bureaucracy. Public buildings are privatized by this bureaucratic mechanism. On the other hand, there is maximum respect for persons investing in private architecture. The architecture of persons other than these and who have no relationship to the gain, is itself unrelated and makes no contribution to the surrounding environment. Arendt writes that “Cities comprised of such architecture of individual and random additions are nothing more than an accumulation of things that make no contribution to it.” (Arendt, The Human Condition, p 328)
The space in opposition to the space of society is the space of the world. It is a space that continues to exist for the persons living in it. If society is a space for personal gain, then the world is a space that is shared by the people living in it. “The world is shared by all of us (in the sense of it being common to us all), and it is because this world is shared by us all that we can judge the reality of the world.” (Arendt, The Human Condition, p.334) This reality means that we can directly feel the existence of others in this world we share.
Commonsense is the perception of shared space
Arendt emphasizes that is this reality of the world that supports political life. Politics is not about “the conditions of multiple persons in the sense that each are individual persons living in the world on Earth, but instead corresponds to the reality of those multiple persons.” “(Arendt, The Human Condition, p.20) Many other persons are also in the space of the world at the same time. If commonsense is the awareness of “being in the space of the world at the same time” then I exist as an individual because I can be seen and can be heard by those many other persons. The space of the world is “the space in which I appear in others’ eyes and in which they appear in mine.” (ibid., p. 320) “I am seen and heard by them.” (ibid., p.87) Political life is life when one is seen and heard by others in the space of the world in which one lives with others. “Being robbed of this space is tantamount to being robbed of reality.” … And so, for people, the reality of the world is guaranteed by the existence of other persons in that the existence of those other persons appears to a multitude of others.” (ibid. pp.320-322) In the case of laborer housing, this reality remains closed within the space of the dwelling, and is equivalent to those people being denied a political life. This, of course, was the intention of those in charge.
“Politics is, by its very nature, the problem of public life.” (Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism Vol. 3, p.127) Arendt says that this is a life that is fundamentally in opposition to personal life for the continuation of those cyclic processes of living. In Ancient Greece, political life was life in the public realm. “In addition to giving s private life to each individual, the polis also gave a second type of life that was a political life. This was something said by Aristotle.” (Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism, p.159) This was freedom in the public realm. In the public space, freedom was “the freedom to determine by oneself what one should hear.” Unless one can experience public freedom, then one cannot be said to have freedom, and unless one can participate in public authority [as in power and the exercise of such], then it is not possible to have either happiness or freedom. (Arendt, On Revolution, p.407) “The freedom of civilians lies in private life” is something that is the opposite of what San Giuste claimed.” “Freedom is political freedom.” It is the freedom to participate in politics of one’s own volition. The freedom we have in our private lives (due to privacy) is fundamentally different because it is enclosed within that privacy. San Giuste was a Jacobean and so was of the mindset that civilian freedom is something internal to one’s private life. For this political party, leading the revolution was the most important activity, and political activity other than that of the party was thought to be an obstacle to the revolution. This thinking lasted more than 200 years after the French Revolution, and still exists today. Political activity was party activity and intended to be participation in a system of representation. “The freedom to choose the things that one will be involved with” was political freedom and this consciousness that one is participating in politics is something that is very weak for us today. We have a notion that political activity is not related to daily activities. We have only the freedom that these daily activities will be protected. Moreover, we believe that this is the nature of freedom, and that this is reality. This way of thinking is intimately bound with the way we design housing and the way that we supply it.
Even if there is freedom in one’s private life, there can still be no freedom to participate in political life
Architectural designers have a deep relationship with this reality. No matter what the type of architecture, before it comes to exist, it must exist and be communicated as an idea and no building will exist if that idea is not recognized as being shared by others. In other words, the building will not exist unless it is regarded as being consistent with some reality. The more unknown and unique the idea, the more difficult it is for the building to be realized. For example, the more unique some effective idea for some local society is, the more difficult it will be to explain it and generate some shared position with respect to that unfamiliar idea. This is why many buildings are built the same way as other buildings have been built in the past. As an example in the case of Japan, it is normal (normalized) for bureaucratic mechanisms to rely upon precedent. One section of this mechanism of bureaucracy will not deny anything that has been done by them in the past because to do so would be a denial of the sectionalism of the bureaucratic mechanism. Architecture becomes standardized, and standarization is always given priority, even if such standardized architecture is in complete contradiction of regional characteristics. The reason given is that such standardized architecture has a long history (of performance) and is seen as reality inasmuch as reality is a shared perception. However, in Japan, the bureaucratic mechanism has a monopoly on this reality and so the first people a designer must explain their idea to is the bureaucracy. As I’ve already written, these people are anti-subjective. They have no character. Explaining to them is not to explain about the idea but about how it faithfully in accordance with the directives of the bureaucratic mechanism. These commands come dressed in the attire of social requirements.
However, buildings are already particular spaces at a certain place and what determines whether or not that building has a reality are the people that use it – the people that live in a local society – and the architects that propose it. It is not the bureaucracy that gets to decide. Arendt emphasizes that the activity called political life is the process by which this reality is stolen. The perception of reality is the perception that other people are perceiving the same thing oneself is, and this is what sustains commonsense. This commonsense is the perception that one is inhabiting the same space as others and it is this that supports participation in political activity. [I know this sounds like it is akin to activism but it only means participation in decision making processes that affect all]. Our dwellings that had their origins in worker housing designed to manage workers, have had much thought given to freedom of personal life, but completely ignore the freedom to participate in political life. Many architects in many modern architectural movements have had no awareness of this. Either that or this freedom has been consciously expunged from our dwellings. For persons living in houses in accordance with the principle of one house for one family, this freedom cannot be attained. The uniform distribution of housing at the Mulhouse worker housing project is something that was consciously and conscientiously designed so that the opportunities for neighbours to meet were minimized. To meet meant that one could see others, and also to be seen by them. Designing in such a manner is equivalent to robbing people of the reality where they can be seen and heard. Hilberseimer’s Berlin High-Rise City project was no different. The thinking of post-war housing providers was no different. These were spaces that robbed people of the commonsense perception that they are living in the same space [as in ‘dimension’]. Housing was designed and arranged in such a way as to prevent people from participating in political activity as much as possible.
Political activity is when a majority of people decide by themselves what is best for the majority as a whole. Arendt gives the name “power” to this activity of self determination. (Arendt, The Human Condition, pp.322) “Exercising this power occurs only when it is used to create a new reality that articulates the shared perception that is reality, and without suppressing and destroying behavior [action].” (ibid.) [whew!] “Seeing knowledge as “command and rule” and activity as “obeying and implementing.” (ibid. p.355) is a completely different mode than Platonic separation.” This “Platonic separation” is the basis for all rule. Seeing knowledge ad “command and rule” and engaging in an activity such as making a building allows it to be seen as the same as obedience. As has been mentioned before, this is “the simple justification of the will to wield power without responsibility” that is characteristic of bureaucratic rule.” (ibid. p. 345) It is only when the process of “knowledge and implementation” is clearly disclosed and without the mutually separation of “knowledge and action”, that it is possible for reality to be created.
I don’t know about you, but I found these few sentences tortuous. I could say unnecessarily so, but this makes me think that more is being said that I can comprehend. Yamamoto is not one to obfuscate. Whenever Yamamoto uses the word Bureaucratic, I understand that he is about to say something particularly scathing about how Tokyo Municipality operates. We’re coming up to the end of a section and Yamamoto always saves his strongest comments for those. I apologize for not being able to extract a meaning that makes greater sense. But I am confident I translated the following two sentences accuracy.
“Power is realized when people gather and make mutually binding promises and agreements. Only power that has its basis in reciprocity and mutuality can be called legitimate.” (Arendt, On Revolution, p294) In the end, power is the power “for people sharing the same space to decide for themselves what they should do”.
• • •
2025/01/12 Ch. 5, pp. 201-207
2025/01/05 Ch. 5, pp. 195-200
2024/12/22 Ch. 5, pp. 187-195
2024/12/08 Ch. 4, pp. 179-186
2024/11/03 Ch. 4, pp. 175-179
2024/11/03 Ch. 4, pp. 169-175
2024/10/20 Ch. 4, pp.163-168
2024/10/06 Ch. 4, pp.159-163
2024/09/29 Ch. 4, pp.156-159
2024/09/08 Ch. 4, pp.152-155
2024/09/08 Ch. 4, pp.146
2024/08/25 Ch. 3, pp.135-1
2024/08/18 Ch. 3, pp.128-135
2024/08/11 Ch. 3, pp.120-128
2024/07/21 Ch. 3, pp.115-120
2024/07/21 Ch. 3, pp.108-114
2024/07/14 Ch. 3, pp.101-107
2024/06/30 Ch. 2, pp.92-100
2024/06/23 Ch. 2, pp.87-92
2024/06/16 Ch. 2, pp.78-87
2024/06/02 Ch. 2, pp.69-78
2024/05/05 Ch. 2, pp.66-70
2024/05/05 Ch. 2, pp.58-66
2024/05/05 Ch. 1, pp.46-55
2024/04/28 Ch. 1, pp.35-46
2024/04/21 Ch. 1, pp.23-35
2024/04/07 Ch. 1, pp.18-23
2024/03/31 Ch. 1, pp.14-18
• • •
Revisited this week:
Share this:
