The New Japanese House: Ritual and Anti-Ritual Patterns of Dwelling by Chris Fawcett (review)

Books 243 The New Japanese House: Ritual and Anti-Ritual Patterns of Dwelling. Chris Fawcett. Granada Publ., Frogmore, U.K., 1980. 192 pp., illus. €15.00. Reviewed by N. N. Patricious* One of the unintentional impacts of post-modern architecture has been an increase in the number of articles and books, and even a journal (Temenos), concerned with the sacred dimension of architecture. The book under review has asone ofitsmajor themesJapanese response to a highly ritualized perception of the house. Site configuration, location and accessibilityare all handled in ritual terms, with space determined by a host of ceremonial requirements, places for offerings and displays for religious festivals. This view is in contradistinction to Western stereotypeimages of the Japanese house which considers there to be equal emphasis on function and form, absence of ornament, subordination of form to the essentials of material, oneness of furnishings and structure, screened space, and standardized components and finishes. Chris Fawcett, who studied architecture in England and spent four years in Japan working and studying, sets out as a Westerner to correct these stock imageswhich do not exist in reality. He sets the context by describinghis impressions of the new Japanese environment and by discussing critically Metabolism and PostMetabolism movements in architecture. Before focusing on the relationship of ritual to house, Fawcett examines the general nature of house, including sacred house. Chapters 3 and 4 can perhaps be read together, as the former deals with houseand ritual traditionally whereas the latter is concerned with the new Japanese house as ritual-affirming houses. The architecture of the house plays a metaphysical role in a number of ways-house elements are related to an hierarchy of house deities, architectural models are used for ceremonial objectives,and the physical arrangement of the rooms and floor space carry social and ritual meanings which through a ceremony areactualized. Fawcett does not clearly establish but only implies that modern Japanese architects, in affirming ritual, are doing so in a broader way rather than in a traditional way. There are of course many Japanese architects who are against affirming the ritual environment. As the author shows, houses can be distinguished as ritual affirming or ritual disaffirming. There are also those houses in which both are encountered. Through profuse illustrations and a well written text Fawcett has provided us with details of how ‘the new Japanese house isa physicalresponse to the unseen ...it affords a way of negotiating our way through time’ (p. 174). Three appendices provide a wealth of information onan historical exegesis,an historical chronologue, and an analysis of Yuichiro Kojiro’s ‘Japan’s Contemporary Houses’. The Story of Modern Art. Norbert Lynton. Phaidon, Oxford, England, 1980.382pp.. illus.Paper, €7.95. Reviewedby John AdkinsRichardson** At first sight it seems odd that anything as immensely successful as modern art should be the subject of an inexhaustibly uberous crop of books ‘explaining’ it. For one might suppose that success itself implies consensus and that consensus depends upon shared understanding. But brief second thought shows that those of us who compose such books are, in effect, missionaries who prefer for ourselves what the general public finds obnoxious-a fact witnessed by the inevitable controversy which arises over any commission of a public monument or prominent building done in an aggressively contemporary manner. Modernism is definitely a cultivated taste. Yet, possession of that taste is, in and of itself, a certain ensign of one’s connection with prominent elements of higher culture in Western Europe and the Americas. And, given the social purposes of much advanced education in those regions, it is not surprising to find in one’s campus mail each year advertisements for a number of textbooks concerned with the history and character of modern art. Lynton’s TheStory ofModern Arr isyet another of theseefforts. And a very good one it is. While I am certain that some of Lynton’s selections will be faulted by a number of readers, the general range of artists he includes is excellent.So,too, are the specificworks of art he has chosen to represent their creators. True, the economy has had its dire effects *Dept. of Architecture and Urban Planning, University of Miami, **Dept. of Art...