Ch.5, pp.244–249 (the end)

This is the last installment. At the end of the book was a list of all of Yamamoto’s references, including any translations. Apart from the ideas contained in this book, I’ve also learned a lot from the “working” translations. Because I translated and published it onscreen in installments, I wasn’t able to return and replace certain words or terms when I was either told or realized that other ones were more suitable. I’ve used the word “regional” many times but, towards the end, I realized that Yamamoto was using the Japanese word 地域 in the sense of local – that I used from then on. I hope inconsistencies such as these haven’t been too apparent. Because we’re five pages away from the end of the book, I expect Yamamoto will state his conclusions clearly and emphatically, in short sentences (that I’ve resisted combining). Now is no time for images. I don’t expect any trouble.

The “Local Community Sphere” is a spatial proposal. It is a spatial proposal for spaces unique to a locality. These are spaces for maintaining the rights/power of each locality. This spatial proposal removed from existing standards is not to be seen as no more than a kind of utopia. This is because we think that the spaces we have now are neither too much nor too little. Space exists and is here in accordance with what society wants. Even if we think it is there because it has been designed for some special purpose, it is not. I think this, on the contrary, effectively shows how much we are confined within our spaces and how much we are restrained by them. We who live in the space that is society can only look at society from the perspective of looking from inside to out. It is a space in which our experiences have been standardized. This standardization is for the sake of continuing the rationality (Foucault, The Will to Knowledge, p.122) of bureaucratic authority. This standardized space that is everywhere, is not space from which we can consciously escape. Standardized space is space we’re not conscious of. Making this space into unsconscious space reflects our lack of consciousness of bureaucratic authority. As I have already mentioned.

“From observing [community?] well-being [福祉, fukushi], there are many instances where places have been skillfully created by their populations using what they have at hand and this makes me feel that architecture has little relationship to this.” (Ueno, C. [千鶴子, Chitsuruko?], New Architecture, p.201, Dec. 2013, p.211) The statement says that architecture is nothing more than making a place skillfully in accordance with the needs of current society. I believe that this is what many people think. I think this is what many people feel. I believe this is because all of our public spaces and not just facilities for social welfare are designed and bureaucratically managed as a single facility. Because they have been packaged. Sectionalization [lit. the division into sections] of space by a bureaucratic system means categorizing it into welfare facilities, medical facilities, educational facilities residential facilities, sports facilities and so on. The respective facilities are designed as a single package based on the bureaucratic sectionalism. Space packaged in this way is called a facility. It is truly the materialization of a bureaucratic system. It is by this packaging and materialization that the authority of a bureaucratic system is granted authority as “rationalization”, and held in common. That authority has no mutual horizontal connections. In a bureaucracy, Arendt writes that “it is forbidden for official positions and official roles to have any horizontal connections.” (Arendt, H., The Origins of Totalitarianism Vol. 3, p.172) This is sectionalizatiom. The various facilities in each section are packaged to their respective standards and administered. Irresepective of whether it is “the populating using what they have at hand” or some new facility, everything is standardized and made into a facility that can receive an equal amount of service across Japan. The role of designers is to do nothing more than to “skillfully make a place”. The role of the designer is to bring about materialization in the form of a package. The role of the designer goes no further than to bring about materialization in accordance with the instructions of the bureaucratic mechanism.

However, for the future, we should hope public architecture is not standardized, and is architecture peculiar to its locality. The opinion that “it has no relationship to architecture” only indicates how much of the characteristics and rights of local communities have been lost. In order to design a space characteristic of a locality and that goes beyond standard space, it must be a space not of bureaucratic rights but of the rights of the community. The spatial proposals must be materializations of ideas of the community. They need to be materializations of the rights of individual localities. Only through materializing those ideas is it possible for those ideas to be commonly owned.

The will to space gives life its shine

This grand statement [生に輝きを与えるのは空間への意志 in the original] needs some explanation. In Japanese, that first character　生 [live, life]　can be pronounced in about 10 or 12 different ways. Most relate to verbs to do with birthing, growing or living but, on its own as it is here, it’s not the adjective that means “raw” or “draft” but a noun meaning life as in “one’s life” or “living”. Also, since 空間への意志 [kūkan e no ishi] makes no sense as “the will to space” I’m reasoning Yamamoto means “the will to create space” but not as an architect might, but rather as anybody wanting to bring space into existence might. Finally, 輝き [kagayaki] is shine but it is also sparkle as in eyes or stars, or brilliance as in diamonds. Sentences like this usually become clearer further in.

“The fact that contemporary cooperative bodies have all become societies of wage labourers” (Arendt, The Human Condition, p.71) is because all hope people had for cooperative bodies has been destroyed. It is a fact that the respective spaces these cooperative bodies once had have been destroyed. It is a fact that local power has also been destroyed. Twentieth century history that went against these cooperative bodies is also the history of denying them a physical space. Society is configured for the purpose of economic gain. Space is no more than a single way of contributing to society. Architectural design now has only the role of carrying out society’s orders. All space, and not just physical space is now judged according to simple functions such as whether or not it contributes to society, or whether it is of use or not. Space that is no more than a mere function, is made so it creates as little burden as possible for anyone. It is space that that does not arouse any emotional response in its users.

Bureaucratically made facilities exist only as their functions. Spaces that we are aware of only as functions are spaces that have lost their physicality [tangibility]. Nobody has given any thought to whether these spaces are beautiful, or the type of people who participated in their design, or even who designed them, what they were thinking or how will these spaces be received by future generations?

Space that has lost its concreteness doesn’t allow the memories of those who lived in it to be passed to future people who will. “There is no memory of those who lived before and, not only this, those that come later will not be remembered by those who come after them.” (ibid., p.328)

A bureaucratic system is elective autocracy. It is rule by space. It is rule by making us unaware of space. Local power creates the possibility of a power to oppose bureaucratic rule. It is this possibility that, as Jefferson said “We must begin, even if it is only for a single purpose.” It is not that we must change the spaces in which we live, but rather that we must change the localities in which we live. It is necessary to think of what we can do to make our private one dwelling per household spaces more open to our localities. What do we have to do to change our one dwelling per household spaces into spaces with a threshold? What do local citizens have to do to be able to participate in a process where facilities are made according to how bureaucratic mechanism wish them to be, or when public architecture is designed only for economic gain? How do we design as space that can be passed on to future generations?

These are all problems of physical, tangible, concrete space. The power of a locality begins with seizing the reality of proposing physical, tangible, concrete space.

Bureaucratic authority rules over space and makes us unaware of it. If that is so, then that bureaucratic authority can be opposed by local authority discovering spaces peculiar to that locality. And by then designing them. The idea of the characteristics of a locality becomes something shared in common with its residents when that idea is materialized.

[Poetry – great!]

“To never be born into this world
“Would be better than anything.
“The next best thing to having been born
“Is to return quickly to that for which we were born.”

This song is sung in the play “Oedipus at Colonus” by the tragic poet Sophocles (circa. 96B.C. – 46B.C.). (Arendt, On Revolution, p.443) The person singing it is us. We are born as part of the recurring processes of life and die on our own. The memory of having been alive is something no-one can have. It amounts to no more than one more new life being born and then dying in the cycle. “In the past, it has been possible for those who have fulfilled their own work according to labour and difficulty, to continue to exist along with a part of nature through their offspring.” (Arendt, The Human Condition, p.163). Even if one lives as part of the recurring processes of life, it is possible to quickly return to that for which we were born. It is that kind of life.

Arendt called this “the burden of living”. (Arendt, On Revolution, p.444) Why do we bear this burden of living? How do we bear it? “It is because of the polis – the space of words with life, and freedom of behavior.” (ibid., p444) The polis is a space where living people can be remembered forever. “The belief people have in that space is the shine that each individual is able to give to life. “ (ibid.) It is a space where “How shining your life was” will be remembered forever. This is the space of the world.

The space of the world is not a space that was already lost sometime in the past. It is a space that must be designed for future generations and through the will of us who are living now. It is a space for the sake of future residents. It is in our power to pass this space on to them.

I can’t help feeling I should write some closing words at having arrived at the end of the book, even if the conclusion was far more impassioned than I was expecting. In retrospect, I shouldn’t have expected a summary. The thrust of each of the chapters was perfectly clear and from well before 2015 when this book was published, Yamamoto has used his built projects to make exactly the same criticisms of society, bureaucracy, and the provision and design of housing. Riken Yamamoto is now 80. I’m pleased to see he is still on television alerting people to what happens to architecture under a system of bureaucratic authority. https://youtu.be/FvygvTTsrCY?si=LFcEsHIWIox4SIY5 This is a YouTube link to Yamamoto being interviewed about everything he thinks is either shady or misguided with the theme, delivery, management, finances and accountability of the current Osaka Expo. [Thanks N!] It’s in Japanese but you’ll get the gist from captions.

Last year, a new edition of Yamamoto’s “Housing Theory” was published. “Houses are onomatepia [a simulation, an imitation] for families.” Thinking and practice for a new commonality. It is a record of 20 years of thinking about housing, housing typologies and communities within communities. I expect it will be much more urgent than the book I’ve just finished. I’ll definitely read it but right now I’m unsure if I’ll translate it or just summarize. This book was published post-Pritzker so perhaps I’d better wait a while just in case it is being translated.

• • • 

2025/06/15 Ch. 5, pp.244-249 (the end)
2025/06/15 Ch. 5, pp.238-244
2025/05/25 Ch. 5, pp.233-237
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.146-151
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

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