Last week I went to Roppongi to see an exhibition named " METABOLISM THE CITY OF THE FUTURE" →link！
To paraphrase from the exhibition's websites:
"In the 1960s a group of Japanese architects dreamed of future cities and produced exciting new ideas. The visions of Kurokawa Kisho, Kikutake Kiyonori, Maki Fumihiko, and other architects who had come under the influence of Tange Kenzo gave birth to an architectural movement that was called "Metabolism."
The name, taken from the biological concept, came from an image of architecture and cities that shared the ability of living organisms to keep growing, reproducing, and transforming in response to their environments. Their ideas were magnificent and surprising, with concepts such as marine cities that spanned Tokyo Bay, and cities connected by highways in the sky where automobiles pass between clusters of high-rise buildings."
The most surprising thing was the amount of original drawings. I saw many drawings of famous projects. Those drawings were not printed out but drawn directly by hand. All lines were very strong and clear and all small parts were drawn precisely. Those drawings were very beautiful to the point where it made me a strong impact on me. I felt their passion to make new architecture.
However, at the same time I felt some feeling of strangeness. Every project had very new and excentric form but , after looking more closely, each houses plan was very small and homogenus. I felt Architect who promoted METABOLISM thought all the families conform to the same, simple and robotic lifestyle.
METABOLISM was a very big movement, but only a few projects were realized. I think the reason is related to the feeling of strangeness I felt. Looking back, not realized many projects seemed like fortune. Because if they built a bad example METABOLISM couldn't maintain it's influence. Their projects were powerful only on paper or in models, not in the real world.
(Recently Rem Koolhaas wrote a book about METABOLISM. I am interested in what he wrote )
