Three Lessons from Japan on Architectural Resilience. Issue 1 (22nd July 2019)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Genadt, Ariel
• Is Part Of: Architectural histories. Volume 7:Issue 1(2019)
• Publication Date: 2019-07-22
• Subjects: Architecture -- History -- Periodicals; Architecture -- Historiography -- Periodicals; Architecture -- Research -- Periodicals; 720.9
• DOI: 10.5334/ah.393
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 2050-5833

Abstract

Abstract : This article defines architectural resilience as architecture's capacity to support a community in regaining equilibrium after a powerful force has disrupted its organization. It considers architecture's physical, aesthetic, and symbolic aspects as equally important for its agency in a community, and argues that the combination of these aspects differentiates architectural resilience from structural resilience. To demonstrate this, the article looks at Japan, where powerful natural forces and human-inflicted devastation have frequently given the population cause to rethink the idea of resilience in their habitat and settlement patterns. This article focuses on three periods in Japan's history when architectural resilience was a key factor in the (re)development of the population's habitat. In the pre-industrial Edo period, resilience was attained by balancing scales of design: ductility of some buildings compensated for rigidity in others. The second period is that of the 1960s, when the Metabolist architects sought to accommodate change in buildings and cities by distinguishing rigid elements from malleable ones. But a penchant for technological specificity precluded the resilient balance. Finally, the article examines the reconstruction efforts following the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami, when government plans to toughen the territory through infrastructure and to relocate the population overlooked the living preferences of specific communities and their connection to the ocean. In this instance, architects played a key role as mediators between people and their environment. These three cases demonstrate how a combination of rigidity and flexibility can ensure architecture's contribution to the regeneration of communities.