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Focus features two in-depth reviews each month of fine art, architecture and design exhibitions and events at art museums, galleries and alternative spaces around Japan. The contributors are non-Japanese art critics living in Japan. |
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Atelier Bow-Wow: Practice of Lively
Space
Thomas
Daniell |
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No matter how the work of Atelier Bow-Wow
(the mild-mannered, brilliant husband-and-wife team of
Yoshiharu Tsukamoto and Momoyo Kaijima) tends to be interpreted
or misinterpreted -- an exploitation of contextual constraints,
an elaboration of personal quirks, an exploration of the
potential of narrow spaces, and so on -- it is above all
based on taking things seriously. Being serious, as Susan
Sontag has said with regard to literature, includes being
funny, but excludes being cynical. The houses of Atelier
Bow-Wow may embody a subtle critique of the city that
spawned them, yet for all their compositional humor, they
always avoid subverting or mocking the desires of their
clients. Quotidian pleasures and individual idiosyncrasies are all treated equally.
Like many of their contemporaries, Atelier Bow-Wow draw
inspiration from French philosophical thought, yet not
from the theoretical ambiguities and compositional analogies
provided by figures such as Jacques Derrida and Gilles
Deleuze. Instead, the texts accompanying Atelier Bow-Wow projects often directly and indirectly reference canonical works of sociology such as Michel de Certeau's The
Practice of Everyday Life, or Henri Lefebvre's Critique
of Everyday Life and The Production of Space.
Indeed, the current exhibition of Atelier Bow-Wow's work
at Gallery MA is called Practice of Lively Space.
This is architecture to be judged as a platform for enabling
activity rather than for its sculptural beauty.
The three major components of the show exemplify Atelier
Bow-Wow's range of interests and ambitions. On the upper
level is a collection of scale models of small house designs,
with walls removed to reveal their inner spatial and functional
configurations. In the outdoor courtyard is the White
Limousine Yatai, a ten-meter-long mobile food stall
built by Kaijima's students at Tsukuba University, which
was premiered at the 2003 Echigo-Tsumari Art Triennale
as an example of what Tsukamoto and Kaijima call a "micro
public space." On the lower level they have designed
and installed a functioning puppet theater, for the use
of a local puppetry club comprising mostly suburban Japanese
housewives. Another example of micro public space, it
includes shelves for displaying the puppets and seating
for an audience, and live shows are scheduled throughout
the exhibition period.
The house models are reflected in the accompanying catalog,
entitled Graphic Anatomy, which contains a series
of double-page spreads of sections and plans as cutaway
perspectives. These show the details of structures and finishes, as well as the inhabitants engaged in various everyday activities: relatively ordinary scenes and construction techniques, but handled with a delicacy and sensitivity that transforms banality into uniqueness. Outward eccentricities in the compositions reveal themselves to be side effects of achieving particular family interactions, or new relationships with daylight and views.
Finally, it is the puppet theater that is emblematic of
the show, and of Atelier Bow-Wow's work as a whole. Unpretentious,
unassuming, unembarrassed, this architecture is not about
the designers' egos, but about creating ad hoc stages
for other people to do their own thing -- however goofy
those things might sometimes seem to be.
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Thomas Daniell
Thomas Daniell
is a practicing architect based in Kyoto. He is
currently on the design faculty of Kyoto Seika University
and an editorial consultant for the Dutch publications
Volume and Mark. His texts on contemporary
art and architecture are widely published, and he
is a frequent guest speaker at schools and symposiums
throughout the world. |
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