japanese pavilion at the 9th biennale international architecture exhibition 2004

japanese pavilion at the 9th biennale international architecture exhibition 2004 ..................................................................................................................

......................... shop .................. competitions .............. education ................ interviews ................... snapshots ................... history .......... contemporary

9th international architecture exhibition in venice, italy, 2004 /
japanese pavilion

‘OTAKU: personality = space = cities’
by kenzo tange, toshio okada, kaiyodo, yoshiaki kaihatsu,
yuuki ooshima, tamaki saito, comic market committee,
sutazio yotsuba, jeong-u seon

---
(text exerpt from the curator’s own words)
in japan, optimism about an ever-progressing technological
future ran out in the 70’s. it was in the mid-80’s that the
term otaku was coined to signify a new personality that had
emerged as a reaction to the loss of ‘future’.

the term evokes a stereotyped image of an unfashionable
computer nerd, preoccupied with games and ‘anime’ even after
his adolescence. otakus were, by nature, once-ambitious boys
who were particularily affected by the loss of faith in science
and technology.

the loss of ‘future’ was also critical to akihabara, a small area
amongst the central districts of tokyo, which is widely known
by the unrivaled concentration of electronics stores.
as household gadgets began to lose their futuristic appeal, the
market was dispersed to roadside stores in the suburbs.
stores in akihabara were forced to specialize in personal
computers, which, in turn caused an unusual geographic
concentration of computer nerd personality.
it was this peculiar parallelism between a personality and place
that has united the otaku with akihabara.

otakus have strong tendencies to cherish affection towards
anime characters, evidence that the streets of akihabara became
flooded with anime icons after the shift to personal computers.

(...) community of interest has taken an urban form in akihabara.
this could be a prophetic phenomenon in which a city is
simulating cyberspace, as opposed to the conventional notion
of cyberspace simulating a city. the revolutionary aspect of
akihabara’s transformation is that it was the result, not of a
strategic development, but of spontaneous geographic
concentration of otaku personality. (...) taste and personality
are becoming a geographically phenomenon.

the environmental transformations based on otaku personality,
including samples of private rooms, of comic markets which
attract half million otaku participants, (...) are presented by
sequential installations and models.
these are nothing like the the transparent and light constructions
that architects have envisioned to be the style of computer-age
architecture. (...) there have been many entities and movements
which were based on nationality, ethnicity, religion, region, or
ideologie, but never by personallity. although anime icons may
belong to japanese pop culture, otaku personality have appeared
internationally.

---