FOBA: It’s Not What It Looks Like

Abstract

In examining Japanese architectural production of the last couple of decades, at least three distinct ways of responding to the urban context can be identified: To retreat—withdrawing behind blank walls in silence and solitude, open only to the sky To reflect—mimicking the fragmentation and noise of the surrounding city To merge—dissolving into the kaleidoscopic blur of traffic, neon, and rain However sensitive or critical—whether Tadao Ando’s introversion, Shin Takamatsu’s aggression, or Toyo Ito’s “vanishing act”—each approach is ultimately an avoidance, never an engagement. Context is treated as a generic external condition, not a specific arrangement of objects and spaces. Whatever the accompanying rhetoric, architecture maintains its autonomy, isolated from and indifferent to its neighbors—and given the “chaos” of the Japanese city, perhaps that was an appropriate stance to take.