HAMAWAKI, BEPPU. JAPAN.
As someone who had never been to Beppu and with a minimal understanding of the Japanese language, most of my time was spent sensing the city by walking, visually documenting the natural and built environment at different scales and conversing with the community through architect Kenta Kishi as the interpreter. The occasional encounter with aspects of life new and unexpected became a source of curiosity. The city was like a kind of a huge puzzle, with pieces and fragments of reality that I had to try to make sense of.
Walking through the old and fairly empty covered shopping arcade with soft music still playing in the background, the Hamawaki district felt almost dream-like, an uneasy calmness and tranquility, at once comforting and eerie. A slow, quiet crisis that lingered and slowly permeated throughout the area.
The work proceeded simultaneously at two scales. First, at the urban scale of uncovering new opportunities to link and re-use the network of abandoned shops and houses. Second, at the architectural scale in coming up with new ideas to continue the life of a traditional Japanese Nagaya (row-house typology) house form in the Hamawaki district.
The existing occupants of the two-story Nagaya house were elderly ladies. One of them living on the second floor was warded in the hospital at that time due to illness. We were unable to enter the room but were able to peep into the interiors through the gaps in the wall. Looking at how the things were left there, frozen in time, I felt as if she received a phone call and had to leave abruptly. In another room on the same floor, two homeless girls had lived there, but they left suddenly too, leaving all their belongings in the small room. Their room felt like a crime scene to me, as I wandered through the things scattered across the floor- bits of cooking utensils and cutleries, video-tapes, electronic game set, television, cell-phone charger, magazines, books, pillows, mattress, etc. Everyday things that one finds in a home. Despite the smallness and messiness of the room, I saw how they had consciously divided up the interior into discreet corners for storage, cooking, recreation, and sleeping.
As the two scales of experiences- that of the city and the architecture collided during my stay in Hamawaki, the project became even more intriguing for me. Where do I start? What can I propose? Who am I proposing for?
One early morning, while watching the news on the television, I noticed how light from a narrow skylight above the Tokonoma in my Ryokan slowly crept into the interior, revealing gradually the outlines and details of the objects displayed within this highly symbolic space. The light exposed a strange co-existence of modern-day convenience and against the more traditional artifacts in the Tokonoma, alongside the flickering glow from the television. I enjoyed the moment each day at dawn when the light exposed only a subtle suggestion of what lies within the Tokonoma- sufficient to disclose the recognizable forms but still vague enough to avoid the clash of modernity and tradition. Could this be a clue to how we should approach the project? As paradoxical as it sounds, could darkness reveal more than light?
On the subject of tradition and modernity, the windows in the Roykan offered another highly fascinating encounter. On the interior, the windows were made of light Shoji screens. On the outside, they were standard aluminum sliding windows with cheap polycarbonate panels. The desire to maintain a sense of beauty and tradition remained within the interior while cost and practicality were priorities for the facade.
The desire for beauty was sensed across different scales: the interior of the Ryokan, on the pavement in the shopping arcade, little improvisations from the city inhabitants and in my conversations with them. Does this desire for beauty meant anything, anymore? Had it become a longing for the past or are there new, hidden meanings lying within the sub-consciousness of the people in Hamawaki? How could we reveal them?
Existing in parallel, I saw ceramic mimicking old clay tiles, steel became wood, wood turned into concrete, and the physical became virtual or simply overtaken by nature. Materials in themselves have no inherent meanings. We give meanings to materials, mediated by our social and cultural values. In such a state of free-fall of meanings, how do we come to an agreement on the socio-cultural significance of materials?
Hamawaki
Feb 12 2009
As someone who had never been to Beppu and with a minimal understanding of the Japanese language, most of my time was spent sensing the city by walking, visually documenting the natural and built environment at different scales and conversing with the community through architect Kenta Kishi as the interpreter. The occasional encounter with aspects of life new and unexpected became a source of curiosity. The city was like a kind of a huge puzzle, with pieces and fragments of reality that I had to try to make sense of.
Walking through the old and fairly empty covered shopping arcade with soft music still playing in the background, the Hamawaki district felt almost dream-like, an uneasy calmness and tranquility, at once comforting and eerie. A slow, quiet crisis that lingered and slowly permeated throughout the area.
The work proceeded simultaneously at two scales. First, at the urban scale of uncovering new opportunities to link and re-use the network of abandoned shops and houses. Second, at the architectural scale in coming up with new ideas to continue the life of a traditional Japanese Nagaya (row-house typology) house form in the Hamawaki district.
The existing occupants of the two-story Nagaya house were elderly ladies. One of them living on the second floor was warded in the hospital at that time due to illness. We were unable to enter the room but were able to peep into the interiors through the gaps in the wall. Looking at how the things were left there, frozen in time, I felt as if she received a phone call and had to leave abruptly. In another room on the same floor, two homeless girls had lived there, but they left suddenly too, leaving all their belongings in the small room. Their room felt like a crime scene to me, as I wandered through the things scattered across the floor- bits of cooking utensils and cutleries, video-tapes, electronic game set, television, cell-phone charger, magazines, books, pillows, mattress, etc. Everyday things that one finds in a home. Despite the smallness and messiness of the room, I saw how they had consciously divided up the interior into discreet corners for storage, cooking, recreation, and sleeping.
As the two scales of experiences- that of the city and the architecture collided during my stay in Hamawaki, the project became even more intriguing for me. Where do I start? What can I propose? Who am I proposing for?
One early morning, while watching the news on the television, I noticed how light from a narrow skylight above the Tokonoma in my Ryokan slowly crept into the interior, revealing gradually the outlines and details of the objects displayed within this highly symbolic space. The light exposed a strange co-existence of modern-day convenience and against the more traditional artifacts in the Tokonoma, alongside the flickering glow from the television. I enjoyed the moment each day at dawn when the light exposed only a subtle suggestion of what lies within the Tokonoma- sufficient to disclose the recognizable forms but still vague enough to avoid the clash of modernity and tradition. Could this be a clue to how we should approach the project? As paradoxical as it sounds, could darkness reveal more than light?
On the subject of tradition and modernity, the windows in the Roykan offered another highly fascinating encounter. On the interior, the windows were made of light Shoji screens. On the outside, they were standard aluminum sliding windows with cheap polycarbonate panels. The desire to maintain a sense of beauty and tradition remained within the interior while cost and practicality were priorities for the facade.
The desire for beauty was sensed across different scales: the interior of the Ryokan, on the pavement in the shopping arcade, little improvisations from the city inhabitants and in my conversations with them. Does this desire for beauty meant anything, anymore? Had it become a longing for the past or are there new, hidden meanings lying within the sub-consciousness of the people in Hamawaki? How could we reveal them?
Existing in parallel, I saw ceramic mimicking old clay tiles, steel became wood, wood turned into concrete, and the physical became virtual or simply overtaken by nature. Materials in themselves have no inherent meanings. We give meanings to materials, mediated by our social and cultural values. In such a state of free-fall of meanings, how do we come to an agreement on the socio-cultural significance of materials?
Hamawaki
Feb 12 2009