Spatial Anarchy

Abstract

During the twentieth century and in the architectural field, Western and Japanese
culture intensified a correspondence in which the theme of the house represents
the most effective barometer to identify either affinities and divergences.
Despite the physical distance, Europe and Japan represent two comparable territories
for size, climate and geo-anthropological aspects. The issues dealt with
in this exploration can be traced back to the essential dimensions that the house
represents for Japanese architectural culture. Its urban value, therefore the
propensity of the house towards the outside is the typological one, given by its
internal organization. In Japan, the shape of the city represents the result, also
political, of a process started in the immediate post-war period. At the contrary
to the European experience and experiments on collective living, each family
was given the opportunity to build a house wherever possible. The domestic
space represents, for Japanese culture, the place where the individual essence
is preserved and amplified compared to the social structure. In this dynamic,
the articulation and hierarchization of domestic spaces intensify a spiritual functionalism
in which the house represents a measured void and its organized
structure is the identity of those who live there.