"...unhappily as in a thousand student projects (from the time of Le Corbusier's Algiers project onwards), the romance of the idea of "each man building his own house" on man-made platforms stands unsupported by a demonstration of how it is to be done." - Peter Smithson, "Reflections on Kenzo Tange's Tokyo Bay Plan", 1964
“Artificial land,” a term first coined by Le Corbusier, is one of those pivotal concepts in architecture known by just about nobody. Long buried by the term “megastructure” that it inspired, artificial land joins the individual and collective, envisioning housing as stacked platforms of plots for building freestanding homes of all variety.
How can housing better meet people’s diverse and changing needs? Moving away from the focus on capsule architecture that dominates so many studies of Japan’s Metabolist architects, Digesting Metabolism investigates artificial land's impact on Japanese housing.
Please join author Casey Mack, and discussants Ken Oshima, Daniel Abramson and Nader Vossoughian at 6:30pm next Thursday at Head Hi Bookstore at 146 Flushing Ave. or on Zoom.