Sumo Wrestling and Henri de Hahn

Friday, May 15th, 2009

It is now almost 1 AM on Friday night here in Tokyo. I last wrote about Wednesday, so let’s catch up again.

Thursday we met as a class in the morning and Don lectured about Tokyo and its post-war development. We talked about the major players, like Kenzo Tange, who seems to be incredibly influential, especially in Japan. We can’t go anywhere without seeing at least a couple of his buildings. What is so fascinating to me about his office is that every project is completely different. You can compare his work and constantly be baffled that all the projects that you’re looking at were designed by the same person. We have a new assignment (we’re all incredibly behind, by the way, including Don) based on a reading by Tange and his proposal for post-war Tokyo. I have yet to read it, but from Don’s lecture it seems a little fantastic to me. It is one of those futuristic designs that is really interesting to think about, but doesn’t really take in to account the way people actually live their lives and use their spaces. As designers, we tend to think that our buildings will change the lifestyles of the people who use them rather than design for the lifestyles of our users. I’m not sure yet which one is a better method, but I’m pretty sure that it’s somewhere in the middle.

Tange’s proposal involved building small city-sized buildings out on Tokyo Bay based on a linear axis, contrary to Tokyo’s chaotic layout. These mega buildings would house the residential aspects of the city, including food and entertainment. The work would be contained on the main land in tube-like structures built off of dispersed vertical cores, providing circulation and structure. As I said, a bit on the side of fantasy for me, but still interesting.

After class we were supposed to go to the site and make some decisions about our project, but the night before, our plans had changed. Thursday was Carisa’s birthday, and it just so happened that a bunch of people were planning on going to a sumo tournament that day. So, rather than do our work, we decided to go watch the sumo wrestling. Before that, we did stop by an educational site on our way. We spent an hour or two inside the Edo-Tokyo Museum by Kiyonori Kikutake, trying to better understand the development of pre-modern Edo into modern Tokyo. The museum was interesting, huge and very modernistic and futuristic in itself; the exhibits were very historical and tried to explain daily life in different time periods in Tokyo.

The sumo stadium was right by the museum. We went in and the stadium was relatively small. Our seats, being cheap, were towards the top of the stadium, as far away from the wrestlers as we could get. It was an amazing experience. I’m very glad I got to go, despite the fact that we sacrificed some of our work to do so. I wish I knew more about the religious and historical aspects of sumo so that I could share them with you, but I don’t. I have plenty of pictures and video, but the quality is relatively low because I was so far away.

After the final matches, at about 6, we headed home, but stopped near our campus to go to dinner at a Korean restaurant for Carisa’s birthday. Jeff and I ended up staying up until 2 finishing our work for the next day so we had some improvement to show Don. It was worth it, but I was tired the next day.

Finally it was Friday. I woke up and went to my meeting with Don. We showed him the Sketchup model we had done and he was happy with our progress. After that, we had to go back to the site, and figured we might as well check out some of the buildings in Shibuya while we were out. We went out at around noon and wandered around and checked out our site conditions until about 3. Then we got food and I bought another router so that everyone can have internet in their rooms since we are split up in the dorms now. Hopefully everyone will pitch in like they are supposed to because the router was $60.

After that, we had an optional meeting with the Head of the Architecture Department at Cal Poly, Henri de Hahn. He is on vacation for a few days here in Japan and is staying at the Tokyo Hyatt where Lost in Translation was filmed. I was very tired, but really wanted to see the building so I went. We got a tour of the 41st floor lobby and a couple of the suites. Then we walked through Shinjuku, which was a little frustrating because we had all already been there, and got dinner. I was a little disappointed with the night because I was under the impression that it was going to be less regimented and conducted mostly at the Hyatt, but overall it turned out to be fun. After dinner, we headed back to the dorms, getting home at around 10. I had some laundry to do and some House episodes to catch up on, so I did that rather than the work I had been planning on doing before I was kept out until 10.

Now it is late and I am meeting up with Yasu and Emi Kondo at noon tomorrow, so I will have to say good night. I will be back either tomorrow or Sunday to write before we go on our next week long trip starting Monday. I still don’t know exactly where we are going, but I’ll keep you updated.