Ch.5, pp.228–233

I expect this post will probably be the third or fourth last installment. The Pritzker jury (rightly) noted Yamamoto’s “concern for community” but, in doing so, they allow us to understand, pigeonholed and diminish him as the guy who designs group housing. Now, as we are only a few pages from the end of this book, it’s clear that designing group housing is only the means by which he proposes resetting the relationship people have with each other, their community and ultimately, The State. These 1,800 or so words contain a couple of excruciating translations of Jeffersonian sentences quoted in Japanese. Now I’ve almost finished, I notice for the first time that, at the back of the book [our “front”], Yamamoto has provided a full list of references, their editions, and any translations.

6. The Right to a Deliberative Council Instead of an Elected Autocracy

An assembly of multiple party autocracies is completely powerless

Jefferson had misgivings about the tyrannical government of elected despotism to which he was connected. Arendt quoted him as saying “ If our citizens lose their interest in public problems, then they, myself, the assembly, the state assembly, judges and the state judges are all wolves.” (Arendt, On Revolution, p.384) “Is it not a dangerous thing to allow citizens public rights while not offering them any other public space but that in which to vote, or any other opportunity other than election day to have their voices heard?” (ibid., p.404) This means that, at the extreme, the multiple factions of the assembly turn into an autocracy at the point where rights outside of the assembly are lost. The assembly comprised of multiple party autocracies is already powerless, and this means that laws are also without power. There has been a hollowing out. Governance by hollowed-out laws is bureaucratic governance. Legally speaking, a bureaucratic system of government is rule by degree and the opposite of government by law. … It is anonymous and has no need for fairness or to indicate reasons case by case (Arendt, The Causes of Totalitarianism 2, p.199) and the hollowed-out laws (the decrees of the cabinet), the decrees of the ministers (ministerial ordinances) are operated by judgments that are fundamentally bureaucratic. “The persons living under rule by decree have no idea of who or what is ruling them because government itself is difficult to comprehend and, as if it were a state secret, the bureaucracy is silent on the situation and intent to make it easier to understand. (ibid., p.200) The “persons living under rule by decree” are those persons living under a one-household per dwelling system. “Civilian freedom lies in their private lives.” (San Giuste). This means that people have only the freedom of their private lives. They are persons excluded from political freedom (public rights). This situation corresponds to where we are today.

Arendt wonders “What kind of circumstances must have made Jefferson imagine a situation where people participated in government on a daily basis and not just on Election Day?” (Arendt, On Revolution, p.406) Jefferson wrote (ibid.) “In our country there has never been a person who was not a member of an assembly whether it was large or small but, if there were, they would have to tear the demons from their body before they could take the rights of our people as if they were a Cesear or a Bonaparte.” (ibid.) Arendt would also link the names of Hitler and Stalin but, what is important is that dispersed systems of power have been thought of as an alternative to elective despotism. One of those dispersed systems is the assembly, or council. Assemblies exist within wards which are local societies and exists in the same physical space as that society. “Living together is the single most essential factor for there to be rights [as in power].” (Arendt, The Human Condition, p. 323) Rights are something that arise when people live together. Rights have the meaning of deciding something for oneself and then having the power to exercise that intention. The ward was a space where the people living there had that power. Rights were something that was inside the ward. “Nothing can exceed the range or the area in which limited rights are correctly exercised internal to the ward.” (Arendtm On Revolution, pp.301-302) This is the Rule (nomos) of the Ward. This space had an exterior appearance and it was also a space that had durability over time. It was a space in which, if a person were to live there for a long time then a memory would remain of the fact that they had lived. In other words, it was a world. In fact, recent historians have written that assemblies [now synonymous with townships] existed as autonomous governing bodies in medieval towns, and have noted various similarities. The urban space that formed on. such world influenced the people who were to organize the township. Lewis Mumford was one such historian. “The mediaeval ideal of autonomy did not fully develop in Europe as it did in New England.” (Mumford, The City in History, p.292) “Here (in the new continent of America), the immigrants can renew (the mediaeval ideal).” (ibid.) The ward was power in opposition to the power of elective despotism and has completely different intentions to bureaucratic power. “It was not a supplement to existing systems but a completely new form of government.” (Arendt, On Revolution, p.407) It was power in opposition to the elective despotism and to the many assemblies that appeared n the midst of revolution. It was broken into many small pieces by elective despotism.

Specialized groups must be isolated from bureaucratic power

The design process of the 45 persons in the architectural committee of Ouramachi was an assembly. It was broken in exactly the same way by the several elected autocrats including the member elected by the third quarter election of the [Japanese] Communist Party. This new assembly was formed for only the purpose of building new municipal housing. It was small but it had a power. It was the power to decide what one wanted to do and on one’s responsibility. As Jefferson had said “One objective is fine if one works as a ward” and “it is clear that the ward is the best tool for other purposes,” (Arendt, On revolution, p.406) the ward is an assembly for only one purpose. If that architecture had been realized, it would have been proof that the ward was also the best tool for other objectives, as Jefferson had predicted. I think this was us seeing the beginning of an attempt for a new type of governance. It was an architecture completely different from what had gone before.

Architecture can be made in concert with and for the sake of the people who live in that locality. It must be architecture that not only the people who live there can be proud of, but that many others can be too. It was the architecture that Hiroshi Hara wanted the competition for municipal housing for the city of Ouramachi to produce. It was architecture made by the local people and in concert with those specialists called architects. As some of the things that make the world, it is the place where the memories of the place and the memories of those that live there are stored. If each local society had, instead of elected autocracy, even a small possibility of making an assembly (with power), then we can expect a process for making architecture such as this would become a very important movement. The spaces made by the people living in that local society and reflecting its natural environment, local characteristics and economic foundation are an important step towards local power. Architecture is a stage for theory and practice, it is a stage for weaving relationships with human phenomena. and a stage for the stories that come from that theory and practice. Architecture is not something made on the assumption of bureaucratic power. It is not the role of a designer to make, upon command, standardized architecture that can be seen everywhere. In order to made the stage for create such architecture, the process for its realization must shift from one of bureaucratic power to one of local power. It is the power of assemblies formed by residents. For the first time, the designers of architecture in such a process will encounter the true other persons to whom their ideas are directed.

In order for there to be local power, it is necessary to have groups of specialists that can provide effective support on the one hand and, in the same way that we provided support to the residents of Ouramachi, that group of specialists must be isolated from bureaucratic power. In passing and as I have already written, in Japan, many specialist groups are positioned at the extremities of bureaucratic power and work to supplement it. They are groups on the side of bureaucratic power and act in opposition to local power. Many of Japan’s specialist groups are extremely powerless. They are powerless to criticize flaws and violations at the national level.

In passing, we as architectural designers are under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism. This means that the qualification of Architect 1st Class is awarded by the Minister of Transport and so it is safe to say that, as a specialist group, there is practically no independence. There is no equivalent system of architect qualification as there is in many European countries where diplomas are awarded by the various departments of architecture at universities and, after becoming a member of an architectural association at either the level of the state or the nation, one is automatically entitled to practice as an architect. These associations of architects are independent of the state. These groups of specialists have codes of ethics with the power to protect both themselves and clients. At times, they can provide a strong counter bureaucratic power/elective autocracy. In Japan, it is not just the case for architects as specialist groups, as many other types of specialist groups are also positioned at the extremities of bureaucratic power and it is there that they are controlled.

Specialist groups must be isolated from bureaucratic power. Specialist groups musty not be on the same side as bureaucratic power. They are on the side of local power.

• • • 

2025/05/17 Ch. 5, pp.228-233
2025/05/03 Ch. 5, pp.224-227
2025/04/20 Ch. 5, pp.221-224
2025/04/13 Ch. 5, pp.216-220
2025/03/30 Ch. 5, pp.210-215
2025/03/08 Ch. 5, pp. 208-210
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.1466-151
2024/08/25 Ch. 3, pp.135-145
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
2024/03/24 The Space of Power vs. The Power of Space: Preface pp. 7-11

• • • 

Revisited this week:

Twelve Books on Architecture
Houses as Art
Living as Art