Lecture date: 1993-05-06
‘The time I started my career as an architect (1960) coincided exactly with the time when the movement of Metabolism began. Metabolism had two main objectives: to revise Modernism and to revise Westernism. Secularistic and materialistic trends in Modernism made it inevitable to regard the present or the contemporary as something absolutely ultimate and stable. However, historical traditions and futuristic conceptual images have never been in accord with the secularism of Modern architecture. We must also remember that Modernism was a Janus, a two-faced god whose other face was Westernism. Modernism was based on the dualistic value system of the Occident, made to appear as something absolutely right. Looking back on the last 30 years, significant changes from the time of Metabolism are evident. Nevertheless these two objectives – to revise Modernism and to revise Westernism – still exist as my own objectives, even more vividly and strongly than at the time of Metabolism. Today, these two objectives can be described as follows: to put “the present” in a relative framework of time and thus conceive Diachronic Architecture; to put “the Occidental” in a relative system of cultural values and thus conceive Synchronic Architecture. These two objectives will ultimately create what I call the “architecture of Symbiosis” representing my “Philosophy of Symbiosis.”‘ Kisho Kurokawa discusses abstraction and symbolism in relation to Japanese culture, exploring in-between space as a tool for interrelation and symbiosis for 21st century architecture.
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