TOTALSCAPE

On the occasion of 400 years of friendship between the Netherlands and Japan an exhibition of Japanese architecture, urbanism and landscape was organized in the Dutch Architecture Institute in Rotterdam. We participated as a curator and designer of the exhibition. The project began with two years of researching the situation of Japanese architecture and cities after the bursting of the economic bubble in 1992. The focus of this exhibition was not only the architecture but rather the relationship between buildings and their environment. In a country like Japan the street scene arises as the result of a collection of individually designed buildings. There is no urban planning as a basis for the design of the city and the street.

The main hall at the NAI was on a spiral shape and divided from the middle of the room to the outside decorated, of the Metropolitan cities, small towns, villages and natural switched. In the middle of the room a 5x5m urban model was placed of central Tokyo to show the topography created by the mix of skyscapers to small family homes. For the exhibition walls of each component are used different imaging techniques. In metropolitan cities, the Tokyo High way computer game, small towns, Manga about a man walking in the city, village, painting of Yohe Taneda, a renowned stage designer of ao Kill Bill. Approximately 70 models of Japanese architects of various generations were in this area exhibited and specific projects for these projects are photographed and printed with an area of 2x3m so that the relationship between the project and its surroundings became clear.

To support the images and models of the exhibition in the catalog essays by a historian, a critic and researchers of cities are included so that the entire image and background come together and set in printed form.