Reading Toyo Ito’s writing, Tarzan in the media forest, you feel dispatched into his architectural journey, a fortieth years journey where the architect deal with his works and the architectural movements he is related whit , in order to determinate an “architectural code” result of  four top events, four buildings which determinate his “code”.

To read this “journey” is really important to put it into a specific context , Tokyo.

The Modern movement is generously criticized, its principles are even replaced by themes that he considers as tree properties:

1- Environment relationships

2- Increasing design process

3- Complex order

4- Redefinition of inside/outside boundaries

5- Architecture opened to the environment

The modernist architecture extremely changed Tokyo’s spaces, up to create abnormal relationships between high-rise and low-rise buildings, in order to appear as a building fight ring. Personally the movement itself has not to criticized but the architects misunderstand the power of its principles. The modernism created one of the strongest revolutionary process into the architecture world, overused by its second generation followers, the same happened for the Cuba revolution, it should have been the starting point to create a new era, not the era itself !

Modernism message wasn’t only to conceive architectural principles but to introduce the revolutionary spirit into the architects mind, the audacity of breaking rules.

Tarzans in the Media forest – Toyo Ito

Peter Cook, Sponge Building 1974

In the text, Toyo Ito questions the 20^th century principles of modern architecture and the role of an architect to create artificial environments for human beings. The relationship of buildings with the context in a capitalist economy is complex and the role of the architect is changing and getting redefined. Also this role has an impact of the relationship and events between humans, their habitable space and the city.

He talks about the idea of buildings behaving as trees which blurs boundaries between artificial and natural environments.  About the process of architecture being a continuous one which tries to attain equilibrium with its surroundings by relativistic relationships and processes that are constantly interacting and of creating a balance between survival and a shared sense of space.

I have always been intrigued by the differences that exist in architecture. The difference/contrast between two buildings adjacent to each other in a cityscape or between expectations and reality. Ito talks about the this gap in the example of the SENDAI MEDIATHEQUE under construction and the preconceptions of the design being a transparent abstract architecture which was transformed by the process into something more violent than the original idea. In the same example he also talks about the rigidity of archetypes and designated uses and differences they form when the events other than a designated use transpire in a space.

These differences and contradictions that exist in architecture give birth to utopias and fictional projects. The questions become important of what new architecture should take place of the old and how contextual  and economic differences should be dealt with design in the complex reality of our city.

“The difficulty of building architecture lies in the way one perceives its distance from reality” . Every society is aspiring and trying to realize dreams of different ideas of utopia. Ito talks about creating fictional urban spaces as an attempt to invest architecture with its spirit without obsessing with its form or body.

These ideas in a sense go back and connect to the tree concept as any intervention in society must address the dynamic change and continuous processes and relationships between elements. These discrepancies give us a window into the reality of our time and help us critically analyse what exists and question preconceived notions and solutions. 

The reading, Toyo Ito’s Learning from a Tree, was an intriguing mini-manifesto from the Japanese architect. While his concepts in the opening text felt a bit vague and idealist, the clear references to his ideas in the following case studies embodied his ideologies for architecture of the 21st century. Connections can also be drawn to concepts of architectural systems by relations, as discussed in class.

In his text, Ito, like many other forward-thinking architects, uses modernism as the scapegoat for many problems in contemporary society. He argues that we must move more and more away from the functionalist, pure, lucid geometries and homogenous spaces that dominate our lives and, by learning from the tree, restore a vivid and rich humanity. The tree is a very strong metaphorical relation that he constantly refers to. He says that architects today must not just build sustainably, but humans must sense the nature that they are a part of through the buildings they live in. The integration of nature and architecture that is prominent in Asian cities should be taken to the form of a highrise. “Architecture like a tree that spreads its branches widely.” He refers to a tree extending vertically and horizontally to its physical effect to photosynthesize, and says that architecture must adopt a similar fractal shape. Architecture should still be based on simple rules and geometry, but should be composed with a complex order, much like that of a tree. With this fractal geometry, inside/outside boundaries are blurred, resulting in creating ambiguous, adaptable spaces in architecture. In addition to obvious environmental relations, such as the need to constantly be open to the environment, it was the difference between atmospheric and disturbed relations that struck me as a key paradox. Toyo Ito is a strong believer that architecture must “not be unequivocally decided, but begin with a loose image that is gradually clarified by repeating various simulations.” He again returns to the tree, mentioning that through studies with biologists he discovered that a certain tree’s growth is not just based on its DNA, but also with interrelations with its surrounding environment. This repeated feedback between the tree and the environment, which defines its evolving shape/role is a strong atmospheric relationship. Having said this though, it is also important to note that each tree in nature, as he says, egotistically insists on its presence so as to maintain dominance over others (a disturbed relation). He compares this inner fight to nations, corporations, and people in capitalism. The main difference is that while the tree has this ego to put itself above others, unlike capitalism, it succeeds through interrelations with its immediate environment and the ability for change within its thick roots. The balance of atmospheric (interrelating) and disturbed (destructive) relations can therefore be drawn to architecture. How does our architecture of the 21st century accommodate for the two in tandem? If we must remove ourselves from the modernist machine, how will our new capitalist trees survive? These are questions Toyo Ito has for the next generation of architects, but he has already started to answer them, no better than in the example of his Sendai Mediatheque, a project which he claims changed his views on architecture.

The Sendai Mediatheque is a very apt case for Ito’s manifestos as he confesses that even years after the completion of the building, he feels that the building is “eternally under construction”, like the metaphor of the tree, that can adapt and interrelate with its environment, or in the case of the Mediatheque, its users. The lack of a fixed program gives the building a never-ending sense of evolution, adaptation, and mystery. As he puts it well himself, “architecture without an archetype is for me ideal architecture.” These themes of eternal construction and incompleteness have inspired me in my personal work and research this term at IaaC. Working in the wind ‘social’ energy studio, we are focused on integrating our low-frequency piezo energy harvester device with Valldaura’s trees. Our aim is to use the energy produced on site to emit sounds to attract a host of birds, insects and small mammals to a specific tree. We hope to create a network of such trees, and through the attraction of native species back to the Valldaura, promote a system of controlled pollination in the area, which from our research, is seriously lacking. At the moment the design of our product is too homogenous, it is like a frozen moment of a myriad of possibilities to enhance wind flow through our device. Our goal therefore is to leave this archetype and instead focus our study on adaptable forms, concepts, and materials. Much like Ito’s Mediatheque that doesn’t have a fixed program, our device will not have a fixed shape or fixed tree it will be interrelating with. Our aim is to create a highly integrated and advanced product (with a certain ego) that succeeds due to its ability to play our various simulations due to its loose image and fractal shape. Embraced by Valldaura’s society and eternally under construction. Ito would be proud, I hope.

PROTESTOR GUARDING HIS TREE /  POLICEMEN GUARD THE DESTRUCTION

WHAT WE CAN LEARN FROM A PARK

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2013_protests_in_Turkey

Summer of 2013 something happened in Istanbul, the monetary system wanted to take the only green space left in Taksim, the GEZİ PARK, wich was the last public breathing point for the people and the reason to do so was to build a SHOPPING MALL

Like Toyo Ito says, the rapid economical growth was there, trying to reach every corner of the city, every valuable space was being occupied by big “bosses” to be sold. The park was tried to be destroyed with the help of police force. People resisted, the resistance spread to the country, that mall was not built. This shows if people themselves have the respect to the nature, we have a lot to learn from a tree, everything startet with a tree at gezi park but of course had political background.

 WHAT WE CAN LEARN FROM A TREE

Toyo Ito mainly focuses on the idea of creating a connection between nature and human living environments “cities”. There is the example of the tree, which can grow vertically but also create harmony with his surroundings and in itself by sharing the sunlight with every leave democratical as neighbours living in harmony. He asks the question why humans today “lost” that connection wich he had with the nature in rural horizontal cities, what did we miss trough the inevitable proccess of going vertical in the city.

Ito runs his office for over 40 years and he talks about the different eras of arcitectural growth of the city, and for him the word city means “Tokyo”. The swimming in the sea of consumption, extreme fast economical changes influence architecture and create almost impossible relationships in the city texture. He and his colleagues ask the same questions in every era, even if  rules of the game changes in every 10 years period. Who is the architect, how much an architect can influence the world in this rules and for whom is architecture practiced and how can we learn from the nature.

He accepst and creates an anology with the rules of the game in the human world, in the the ecosystem “the forest”, when if only one tree tries to abstract himself form the system, gets eliminated, as this fight between spiecies creates their harmony. Harmony comes from the constant fight, which fight brought us to live worse. Instead of creating indusry for sustainability, we should simply learn from nature.

Modern times create so called fictional architecture, Ito states, as we architects fix on an image and miss the importance of building creation proccess and humanitary needs also naturality. His own Sendai Mediatheque building period is for him an example of, how reality changes the mind of an architect by time, the end product may vary from the idea or image, but get better qualities after facing reality. The imaginary idea dies, leaving huge amount of construction work behind. However your image is idealised, the building is real.