Books: Architecture Australia, July 1996

Edward Suzuki: Buildings and Projects

Introductory essay by Philip Drew. Published by Editions Axel Menges; distributed by Bookwise, hardback, $155.
Review by Masaaki Nakada

Australian critic Philip Drew interprets “seven dualities” in the Japanese work of Edward Suzuki.

Edward Suzuki is one of the most incomprehensible architects in Japan. His work reveals considerable ambiguity and hesitation. While offering variety, most of his designs are not purely original; instead they are a mixture of many contemporary inspirations. In front of his buildings, one might feel confusion. What is the essence of his architecture?

This monograph, covering 52 (so many!) projects, reveals the nature of his expression. As Australian critic Philip Drew explains in the opening essay, it comes from his ethnic and educational background: Suzuki is half German and half Japanese and was educated in Japan and the United States. As a result, he carries internal cultural conflicts which inevitably give him a sense of rootlessness, restlessness and defensiveness.

Drew recognises these influences in his identification of seven dualities in Suzuki’s oeuvre: the notions of anarchy versus order (which Suzuki describes as “Anarchitecture”), a hard shell protecting a soft interior (“Full-Metal Jacket”), the contrast of the visible and invisible, the ability to shelter a building from outside forces through filtering screens (“Screen-and- Green”), the contrast of his masculine works with some curvaceous (feminine) buildings, the juxtaposition of high and low technologies, and interiors as the antithesis of outside form.

Suzuki’s reliance on dualism is a double-edged sword for him. Because of it, as Drew mentions, he can understand Japanese culture as well as Western and thus keep a fragile balance between both cultures which cannot be achieved by other Japanese. However, it also means that he cannot rely on either Japanese or Western culture. To enable himself to design, he needs to establish some position within opposite cultures. In this sense, the “seven dualities” are not necessarily his own nor stable concepts. It appears that he has been unceasingly wondering, looking for his roots to find a place from which to create original concepts.

The nature of his architecture relates to balance and temporality. And these appear in his designs as ambiguity and hesitation. Duality is both the indispensable source of his concepts and an inescapable fetter for him.

Masaaki Nakada is an M.Arch student at the University of NSW and an editor on leave from The Japan Architect.

Adelaide’s Architecture and Art: A Walking Guide

An interesting characteristic of this guide, sponsored by the SA Chapter of the RAIA, is the selection of buildings offered up for scrutiny in the six walks. While there will always be favourites that don’t get a guernsey and there will always be quibbles regarding matters of fact, this list nonetheless is offered up as an authority. For this reason, I find it interesting that there are very few buildings by currently practising architectural firms. This serves to reinforce a prejudice in Adelaide towards the preservation of ‘heritage’ at the deliberate expense of a living culture of architectural design.

Obviously this malaise isn’t entirely the fault of the authors and they can’t be expected to include notable buildings of the current era when so few exist in the Adelaide CBD. However, I don’t think it would have been too great a stretch of their resources to include the North Adelaide region where, among other works, there is a notable house by Robin Boyd. The architectural heritage of Adelaide is of course valuable, but to be of ongoing relevance, guides such as this need to place one foot, if not both, firmly in the present.

Contemporary Craft Review 1: A Review of Issues, Themes and Events in Contemporary Australian Craft 1994-95

One cannot speak of the ‘craft’ of architecture without reference to the interminable line of artisans and architects who passed along their skills and inventiveness from master to apprentice. The building traditions of masonry and timber are at their best when artisans and architects work as one. The anecdote about the 19th century architect John Horbury Hunt laying and pointing up several courses of flemish bond for his masons to follow is a pleasing one. Competency in one’s architectural craft is admirable.

Twentieth century craft, as exemplified by the essays, asides and reviews in Contemporary Craft Review 1 is in full flight from these traditions. The curtain has fallen on competent makers and their materials. All that remains is the object and that adolescent performer on the critical stage, craft theory. In this volume, this relatively new genre has cast off its earlier language of architecture and painting criticism and has absorbed the loosely structured, expository style of the social anthropology of L&eacutevi-Strauss and his followers.

Contemporary Craft Review includes a range of speculative essays (published by Craft Victoria) from well-established writers such as Peter Timms, Peter Dormer, Alex Selenitsch, Dorothy Erickson and Grace Cochrane. These extended pieces- interspersed with snatches from recent craft reviews-are distributed through five chapters on themes such as ‘place and tradition’, ‘crafting ideas’ and ‘art/craft/design’.

Most of these texts confirm that the visceral fear of the manual arts remains one of the contemporary craft writer’s Dirty Little Secrets. While the perceived integrity of handmade objects provides this book’s largest audience, one searches in vain for references to process and production. To know one’s craft is not enough. With few exceptions, the 19th century ethos that elevated artisanry to Art is noticeably absent. With its small black and white illustrations, it is a volume about words rather than deeds.