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  • The Metabolist Imagination: Visions of the City in Postwar Japanese Architecture and Science Fiction by William O. Gardner
  • Tomoko Tamari (bio)
The Metabolist Imagination: Visions of the City in Postwar Japanese Architecture and Science Fiction. By William O. Gardner. University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis, 2020. viii, 223 pages. $108.00, cloth; $27.00, paper.

As the title suggests, this book examines the intersection of the modern Japanese architecture movement of Metabolism and science fiction in the postwar period. For William Gardner, architecture and science fiction are "forms of artistic simulation" (p. 1). He explains that an architectural design is planned to propose a change in the existing natural/constructed environment. Works of science fiction are also seen as imaginative simulation which often illustrates shifts, changes, and transformations in future society and considers their consequences for human lives. Gardner examines the series of mutual interchanges between avant-garde architectural concepts and science fiction narratives. In doing so, he considers the relationship between advanced science and technology, the evolving physical and social environment, and "the very capacity of the human species to survive our own interventions" (p. 2).

Analysis of the intersection and interchanges between architecture and other cultural forms such as art has been well developed. In his book The Art-Architecture Complex, Hal Foster explores modern architecture in the 1950s and 1960s, particularly focusing on its relation to Pop Art in the wake of consumer capitalism. Foster introduces "the most Pop project," the Smithsons' House of the Future (1955–56) which was inspired by the scifi movie imagery of the time.1 James Donald also explores the architectural imagery in science fiction films and comics, arguing that Fritz Lang's Metropolis (1926) can be read as a critique of the cult of the machine endorsed by Le Corbusier.2 These previous works shed little light on the Japanese modern architectural movement known as Metabolism. Gardner carefully introduces key Metabolist architects and discusses their conceptual backgrounds along with a good deal of relevant literature as well as examples of their (un)built architecture. One of the most important contributions of the book is that the author reveals how Metabolism and science fiction in postwar Japan have origins in dystopian aspects of society which were a clear reflection of both historical and contemporary Japanese environments. [End Page 532]

For Gardner, futurity and narrativity are the key theoretical connections in Japanese modern architecture and science fiction. The Metabolist group of architects not only produced a substantial form of architecture but also developed significant narratives for their concepts, designs, and philosophy. They were interested in future urban design and cities in advanced technological society. The imagined and simulated cities are evident in their drawings, paintings, and writings about (un)built architecture, all of which carry narrativity. This is also a common feature in science fiction, so the two narratives are a reflection of postwar Japanese society.

Gardner examines "the connection between architecture and science fiction with regard to three motifs prominent in Metabolist architectural projects and writings: megastructures (over land and sea), capsules, and apocalyptic cities" (p. 7). He explains the conceptual background of the apocalyptic city. The ideas of Metabolism can be seen as a reflection of Japanese urban landscapes which are historically destroyed and rebuilt, due to natural and human disasters. Similarly, for science fiction writers, the discourse of mirai (the future) cannot be created without revisiting the past. The mass destruction wrought by war and natural disasters was a crucial factor for both architecture and science fiction narratives. These destructions were "real" traumatic life experiences, and hence "the traumas of the past were rescripted onto the future through the motif of 'ruins' in both architecture and science fiction" (p. 2).

The future city, therefore, emerges from ruins. The ruins and apocalyptic image of the city give rise to a future city which is, at the same time, "a reassertion of history" (p. 2). Tokyo, the capital city, has been destroyed and rebuilt many times in Japanese science fiction, films, animation, manga and video games, such as Gojira/Godzilla and Neon Genesis Evangelion. This suggests the existence of "a circular conception of apocalypse" (p. 19) in history and in the...

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