HOKUSAI, KATSUSHIKA (1800-05). Mount Fuji in spring. Color woodcut. © Rijksmuseum. Amsterdam.
Moreover, Mount Fuji has been, since ancient times, nothing short of an obsession for the Japanese people, since it embodies the long history of this people and is a symbol of the eternal beauty of its landscape. No one should be surprised how frequently Mt. Fuji appears in the work of the artist Katsushika Hokusai (1760-1849); from his first picture books in the 1780's to the latest creations of his old age, nearly seventy years later.
HOKUSAI, KATSUSHIKA (h. 1830-32). Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji. No. 2. South wind, clear sky. Color woodcut. © The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
HOKUSAI, KATSUSHIKA (1834). Mount Fuji in the snow. One Hundred Views of Mount Fuji. Woodcut in black and white. © The British Museum.
Hokusai portrayed fleeting moments of the Japanese life in both the Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji (1823-29) and its sequel in black and white One Hundred Views of Mount Fuji (1834). The painter does not try to reconcile the contrasts and contradictions represented on his work, but the renewed presence of the mountain suggests that all points of view, together, make up Japan. The only constant is Mt. Fuji, the symbol of all what is everlasting and eternal in that country.
Self-portrait of Hokusai in 1839. © Musée du Louvre.
Toyo Ito in 2013. © Yoshiaki Tsutsui.
The Japanese architecture has also a clear awareness of the temporary of life and the importance of the present moment. Large Western cathedrals, built with the will of lasting thousands of years, would have their equivalent in the venerated Shinto shrines such as the Ise Shrine (h. S. IV). Nonetheless, it is carefully rebuilt every twenty years for more than a millennium, following the original pattern. The latter reflects how a building made of perishable materials such as wood and straw acquires a new life and becomes a permanent symbol of rejuvenation, coming to us virtually unchanged. Historians assume that these Shinto sanctuaries underwent a "primitive" stage before these constructions were ritualised and insist that the style comes from primitive huts used as dwellings (1).
TANGE, KENZO y KAWAZOE, NOBORU (1965). Daijo-kyu. Japanese central shrine precincts of the coronation. © The M.I.T. Press. Massachusetts.
In a similar way, this Japanese tradition of living in a cabin continues through the same recurrence used by the Japanese architect Toyo Ito (* 1941) alludes to the myth of primitive shelter. His Aluminum house (1970-1971) in Fujisawa (Japan) was a very simple construction with a reminiscent to traditional rural homes. When it was concluded, Ito disagreed with the perversion of many good urban projects of the 60's and the proliferation of skyscrapers in Tokyo. In response, he took the publishing of the house in order to create a photomontage in which it was reduced to a capsule alike prototype, capable of multiplying so that it could colonise the entire city, as if it were barracks.
ITO, TOYO (1970-71). Aluminum House. Fujisawa (Japan). Axonometry. © Toyo Ito & Associates, Architects.
Toyo Ito then tried to materialise this vision in the design of his own Silver Hut (1982-84) in the middle of the Tokian "galaxy". The approach included an undifferentiated ground floor, concrete posts every 3.6 meters and a steel frame roof that formed seven recessed domes resting on the external supports. The house opened in its South wing to a patio on which a tent that could be withdrawn at will was installed, causing a form of living similar to the one outdoors, where a great variety of activities could be performed depending on the day and the season.
This organization was the result of thinking what it would be the alternative to the structure of the primitive hut in today Tokyo. For Ito, that of the old rustic houses is nice, but in our time, we would have to find a new hut-alike structure that could be appropriate and own to the current situation (2).
In the Silver Hut (1982-84), the roof was decomposed in a triangular net that highlighted the elements, freeing them from any mechanical connotation. Windows, doors and walls disappeared and only the lines of the structure seemed to design a fluid and homogeneous system. In the Yatsushiro Museum (1988-1991) and the U Gallery (1989-1991) the same compositional and structural solution was reworked in order to overcome the limits of a regular perimeter and reopen again the volumes of the surrounding environment (3).
ITO, TOYO (1988-91). Gallery U. Yugawara (Japan). Egyptian perspective. © Toyo Ito & Associates Architects.
ITO, TOYO (1988-91). Municipal Museum. Yatsushiro (Japan). Model. © Toyo Ito & Associates, Architects.
The Silver Hut has been rebuilt so that it can be used as a framework for the activities of the workshops and events at the Museum of Architecture Toyo Ito (2009) in Omishima (Japan), a small island overlooking the Seto Inland Sea. The replica alights on a valley at the foot of a hill, next to the new structure of the museum, consisting of another cabin, in this case made of steel.
ITO, TOYO (2009). Toyo Ito Architecture Museum. Imabari (Japan). Site plan. © Toyo Ito & Associates, Architects.
As pointed by the Romanian philosopher Mircea Eliade (1907-1986), with the renewal of the myth of the architectural origins in the New Forest referring to what the contemporary megalopolis has become, Toyo Ito seems to re-satisfy 'the need for archaic societies to be regenerated periodically through the cancellation of the time' (4).
ITO, TOYO (2009). Toyo Ito Architecture Museum. Imabari (Japan). Ground floor and attic. © Toyo Ito & Associates, Architects. 1. Warehouse. 2. Lobby of the staircase. 3. wet room. 4. Toilet. 5. semi-outdoor space work. 6. File. 7. Room with furniture.
ITO, TOYO (2009). Toyo Ito Architecture Museum. Imabari (Japan). View from the facade of access.© Daici Ano.
NOTES.-
(1). RYKWERT, JOSEPH (1972). On Adam’s House in Paradise. The idea of the primitive hut in architectural history. NEW York: Museum of Modern Art (versión castellana de Justo G. Beramendi (1974). La casa de Adán en el Paraíso. Barcelona: Gustavo Gili), p. 224.
(2). ITO, TOYO (2000). Writings. Murcia: Colegio Oficial de Aparejadores y Arquitectos Técnicos de Murcia, p. 40.
(3). MAFFEI, ANDREA (2001). Toyo Ito: le opere, i progetti, gli scritti. Milán: Electa (versión inglesa de Christopher Evans (2002). Toyo Ito: Works. Projects. Writings. Milán: Electa), p. 13.
(4). ELIADE, MIRCEA (1949). Le mythe de l'éternel retour: archétypes et répétition. París: Gallimard (versión castellana de Ricardo Anaya (2001). El mito del eterno retorno: arquetipos y repetición. Buenos Aires: Emecé), p. 53.
