DESIGNWORKS Vol.14

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Interview with Hidenobu Jinnai"Urban city context hidden in Tokyo - Tokyo’s “rough draft” and topography remaining from the Edo period.-Skyscrapers are contemporary landscape view"Interviewer: This issue features three buildings: Park Front Tower, the French Embassy and the Bun-eido Building. We asked architectural historian Hidenobu Jinnai to explain how the context of a city like Tokyo is reflected in each site and structure.The "Rough Draft" of TokyoJinnai: All of these buildings are located in places that overlap sections of Tokyo that I've been interested in and have been exploring for a long time. The site occupied by Park Front Tower was the site of a subsidiary temple*1 in the Edo period. In an earlier age, this place was nearer to the sea, and a tumulus still remains there. It's not a surprising place to find a temple; it's a place where the spirits of the land are inevitably present. The green area in front of Park Front Tower was undoubtedly put there to increase the grandeur of the main hall. But time intervened, and it became privately owned land and then a mixed-use site. Yet it's still fundamentally one of the most important sacred places in Tokyo. Edo was a sort of "rough draft" of Tokyo, and there are places where it looks like somebody did a series of oil paintings on top of that rough draft. The buildings are gone, but the shape of the land and the land divisions, the network of roads, and the relationship between the sacred and the secular still remain. In contrast, the open vacant land on the park side of Park Front Tower is associated with the pedestrian path and forms a public square with a beautiful manmade geometric appearance. It respects the "rough draft" of Tokyo while at the same time imparting it with new meaning, and it represents an attempt to achieve the challenging task of creating a new landscape that is appropriate for modern Tokyo. The view from the offices is spectacular; you can see the entire complex below: the temple, the tumulus, and the subsidiary temple that still remains. And you can glimpse the hidden urban axis of Tokyo in the path of worship that you can follow up from the ocean into the mountains. When you look at the view from the top of the Eiffel Tower in Paris, you can see clearly how Paris was built in a planned and orderly fashion, on an urban axis that runs directly along the Seine. In contrast, Tokyo is chaotic and has no order or orientation. But actually that's what makes it interesting.The Relationship Between Architecture and Nature Since the Edo PeriodJinnai: In Italy, there is an association of city planners that re-qualifies historical cities. Recently I attended one of their conferences. People in Europe are debating the most important issues on the front lines of urban planning. Up to now, architecture was the only thing that these urban planners considered to have cultural and historical value. But gradually their thinking expanded and they have become intensely interested in landscapes and scenery. Some people use the words "intangible" or "immaterial" *2 to describe it, but they gradually came to recognize that not only the physical portions of the building but also the less tangible human things such as festivals, intangible cultural properties, people who are "living national treasures" and so on also have tremendous cultural value. Also, up to now Europeans have inevitably separated nature and the culture created by human beings. When I was studying how to analyze the design of cities in Italy, I first studied the logic of building planning, then the logic of the groupings of buildings, and then the logic by which city blocks are formed and eventually become cities, all from a historical perspective. But when I tried to apply what I had learned to Tokyo, I found that it's not always possible. Tokyo has a great deal of greenery within the precincts of temples and shrines, and since the Edo period the city, including the Imperial Palace, has been integrated with nature, and these combine with the undulations in the land and the topography to create a city with a unique landscape. Much of it has been destroyed by development, but in terms of the big picture it still remains, and that's what makes Tokyo fascinating. That's why it's very easy right now to communicate to Europeans the things we're debating in Japan. In to consider the view from the residences.Interviewer: Using a different scale for the office sections and the residential sections and using a building scale that allows the building to blend in with its surroundings even when viewed from the outside seems to match the urban landscape of Kagurazaka.Jinnai: I agree. Kagurazaka was originally a restaurant street, and it had a real world life flavor both during the day and at night. You could see people's faces and how they lived, and there were cobblestones and hills and stairs. It was carefully designed based on how the area should be presented. If a context and culture have already been nurtured in an area, when you build a new building there, you have to become a part of that context and culture as well. You can't just build without thinking about it. Recently many high-rise apartment buildings have been built all of a sudden, and they don't match the scale of the area at all. And the sudden influx of a large number of residents has made the area start to lose its personality, and that's not good. In that sense, the decision to avoid building the same type of high-rise building and instead to be unpredictable and make the upper and lower designs completely different from one another makes the building interesting. It may be a sign of how Kagurazaka will change in the years to come.A Change in Values in EuropeInterviewer: A moment ago, you spoke about the prospects for landscape and scenic views in Europe. What kind of activities are used as an evaluation axis there?Jinnai: The period around 1975, when there was a movement to preserve and restore historical cities, was one of the truly epoch-making periods in history. There was action to restore a wide range of historical districts through public initiatives. In Paris, this type of activity was conducted beginning around 1970 in the area of the Marais quarter of the city. Subsequently it was expanded outward from the old city center, and in France and Italy preservation efforts targeted the area along the boulevards where tenements had been built in the 19th century. The same type of activity was also seen in Bilbao in Spain. The 19th century areas are really impressive. These activities have gradually expanded outward, and recently they have targeted rural scenery. Since the 1980s, there has also been interest in preserving trees and other natural areas as well as rivers and moats and other waterfront areas. I think people have come to be aware that it's boring if you close off those activities to only buildings.Interviewer: In cities like Rome, the central old section has been thoroughly preserved. But when you go a little ways outside the city, you find streets with concrete buildings built in the postwar period.Jinnai: That's right, and the suburbs are the target of criticism for that reason. The little villages and rural scenery in that area are lovely, too. It has historical value, so people are beginning to call it a "historic territory." Originally in the Renaissance period, the rural areas were highly regarded. Structures like Palladian*4 villas were placed on an axis in the middle of nature, and the buildings were provided almost like incidental details in a painting to form a landscape. They did landscaping even in agricultural zones; the vineyards around Florence are truly beautiful. As are the streets lined with cypress trees and the paths leading to the villas. Since the 1980s, there has been a reevaluation of such places, and people have come to want nature in the midst of the city. It's like people started from the center of the city and moved their gaze to the outskirts, and now it has returned. Naturally, it's not like there's no greenery at all in European cities. Paris has the Bois de Boulogne, and Vienna has Wienerwald, the Vienna Woods. These were originally the properties of rich people in feudal times that were later opened up to the public, and early modern and modern architecture in the West, I get the feeling that there are few works that integrate the building with the topography and with nature that are highly rated, with the exception of works like Frank Lloyd Wright's "Falling Water." *3 The area around Hiroo, where the French Embassy is located, is also a unique urban environment that you would not find in Europe. Specifically, it's on a hill in an uptown area, and you approach it from the ridge. They built gardens where there's a gentle down slope, with mansions above and ordinary people's homes below. In the Edo Period, they had an awareness of this kind of land use and building construction and how to present scenery, but we've lost that in the modern era. The site of the French Embassy was originally occupied by the mansion of a direct retainer of the shogun. It was later turned into farmland, and in the Meiji Era it became the property of the Tokugawa family. Ultimately it was acquired by France. So it has been passed down as a large single site. That's why, although it's not immediately apparent, it retains the form of the Edo Period.Interviewer: Apparently buying land that slopes down to the south has been a custom ever since the Edo period.Jinnai: In the wake of the Meireki fire that occurred in 1657, Edo expanded, and Mita and Azabu became the mansions of feudal lords. The custom appears to date from that time. There is quite a bit of greenery remaining that is comparatively modern, having grown in the 300 years since the land became bare as a result of the fire. Before the reconstruction, the area below the south slope had been used for tennis courts, and it was not being effectively used in terms of this site. So they placed the new office building there and reversed the line of sight. What I find interesting is that they rebuilt the original office as an apartment building, as a new business venture to fulfill the modern program that stresses economic potential, while at the same time restoring the legacy that had been passed down since the Edo Period. Since ancient times, the culture in Japan has been to see the garden on the north side. Small spot gardens are the most common. So it's a new thrill to be able to view magnificent trees like this. The lines of sight from the ambassador's residence and the office building are controlled by the trees, but if you walk along the slope, you can see that they're connected. I found that combination very interesting. Moreover, the place where they issue visas and the entrance have been combined, so it doesn't just form a thin boundary but actually functions as a gate. It's like a modern version of the gateway in a feudal lord's mansion. It's also interesting to view it from the perspective of what kind of new countenance an embassy can provide to the city.The Scale of the City and the Scale of BuildingsInterviewer: Unlike the previous two buildings, the Bun-eido Building in Kagurazaka is in a place with no greenery. What kind of context can you see there?Jinnai: The chief characteristic of Kagurazaka is that large area lots are permitted on the main street side, and high-rise buildings have come to be built there. But originally it was a shopping arcade for local residents. In contrast, the area to the rear has been a residential area for a long time. Even now, it's zoned as a Category II exclusive residential district, and there is a height restriction. Originally it was a residence for low-ranking samurai. You can find the same combination at Imo-araizaka which leads to Azabu Juban, and on the train lines on the outskirts of Tokyo. What type of building to construct at a location that borders a different area is a very important issue. But it seems that people focus only on using the site area; very seldom do they come up with plans that make use of the interesting attributes of the location. It seems to me that, in the case of the Bun-eido Building, they really thought about how to incorporate the scenery on both sides of the building, and the design goes out of its way Interview