Description
Book SynopsisAmid Japanâs political turbulence in 1960, seven architects and designers founded Metabolism to propagate radical ideas of urbanism. KenzÅ Tangeâs Plan for Tokyo 1960 further celebrated urban expansion as organic processes and pushed city design to an unprecedented scale. Metabolistsâ visionary schemes of the city gave birth to revolutionary design paradigms, which reinvented the discourse of modern Japanese architecture and propelled it through the years of Economic Miracle to a global prominence. Their utopian concepts, which often envisaged the sea and the sky as human habitats of the future, reflected fundamental issues of cultural transformation and addressed environmental crises of the postindustrial society.
This new edition expands Zhongjie Linâs pathbreaking account on Tange and Metabolism centered at the intersection of urbanism and utopianism. The thorough historical survey, from Metabolismâs inauguration at the 1960 World Design Conference to the apex of the moveme
Table of Contents
Foreword by Arata Isozaki 1. Introduction: City as Organism 2. Metabolism 1960 3. Metabolist Utopias 4. Myths of Tokyo Bay 5. Structure and Symbol 6. Expo ’70 7. The Capsule Tower 8. Epilogue: Seeing the Future through the Past
