Not-Not as Another Spatial Logic of Constitutive Negation

Revisiting Hiroshi Hara as an Early Cosmotechnical Turn in Japan

Authors

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.59490/footprint.18.2.7396

Abstract

The article introduces Japanese architect Hiroshi Hara (1936–) and his creative criticism against unilateral globalisation　in the 1970–80s as a unique legacy of pioneering cosmotechnical criticism in Japan. The growing vocabulary of cosmotechnics has offered opportunities to revisit the legacies of alternative perspectives to architecture, urbanisation and technology and thereby redefine the role of architecture as a major world-making agency in the Anthropocene. Joining such efforts, the present review examines Hara’s 1987 book Space <From Function to Modality> (1987), which collects six interconnected essays written in 1975–1987, focusing especially on ‘On Homogenous Space’ in 1975 and ‘From Function To Modality’ and ‘Not-Not and a Spatial Tradition of Japan’ both in 1987 to trace the trajectory of his three main concepts ‘function,’ ‘homogenous space’ and ‘modality.” Following how he appropriates of Heideggerian ‘tool’ as its pivot and articulates a constitutive negation called Not-Not, this review contextualises its relevance in contemporary cosmotechnical criticism initiated by Yuk Hui, through their respective reinvestigations into geometrical space and Eastern traditions of constitutive negation. The article concludes by highlighting Hara’s non-essentialist approach to avoid the East-West axis and decentralise globalisation from beyond his own horizon in Japan.

Author Biography

Masamichi Tamura, Tokyo Institute of Technology

Masamichi Tamura is doctoral student of Tsukamoto Yoshiharu laboratory at the architecture department of Tokyo Institute of Technology (Institute of Science Tokyo from October 2024). His research focuses on material-semiotic entanglements between architectural concepts and techno-social environments, including ‘space’ after the mid-nineteenth century, ‘tradition’ in mid-twentieth century Japan, and ‘urban ecology’ in contemporary Tokyo. He also participates in the Canadian Centre for Architecture’s CCA-Mellon Multidisciplinary Research Program ‘In the Hurricane, On the Land,’ conducting a field survey that follows multiple forms of water in the built environment of Tokyo. In a long-term search for alternative urban spatial practices in broader contexts than architecture proper, Tamura has also worked as an independent curator of contemporary art since 2010 and as a local community organiser while co-chairing the Ageing Wellbeing and Parks Committee of World Urban Parks since 2022.

References

Hara, Hiroshi. Kenchiku ni Nani ga Dekiruka [What Can Architecture Do?]. Tokyo: Gakugei Shorin, 1967.

Hara, Hiroshi. Kuukan [Space ]. Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten, 1987.

Hara, Hiroshi. YET. Tokyo: TOTO Publishing, 2009.

Hara, Hiroshi. & Senji Kuroda. Hito, Kuukan Wo Kousou Suku: Toshi Juukyo Ron Kougi [Conceptualising Human and Space: Lecture on City/Dwelling]. Tokyo: Asahi Publishing, 1985.

Harvey, David. The Condition of Postmodernity: An Enquiry into the Origins of Cultural Change. Oxford: Blackwell, 1990

Hui, Yuk. 2017. The Question Concerning Technology in China: An Essay in Cosmotechnics. Falmouth: Urbanomic.

Hegel, G. W. F. 1960. Science of Logic: Book II [Daironrigaku: Chukan]. Translated by Tatehito Takechi. Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten.

Kogan, Gabriel, and Masamichi Tamura. ‘Architecture Against Tradition: Transformation of Modes of Production of Japanese Construction, From Premodernity to the Debates on Tradition’. Ronko, Vol.1. 2022. https://www.adan.or.jp/critics-list/critic_title/論考01

Koolhaas, Rem. ‘Junkspace’. October, Vol. 100, Obsolescence (Spring, 2002), pp. 175–190.

Lefebvre, Henri. The Production of Space. Oxford: Blackwell, 1991.

Venturi, Robert. Iconography and Electronics upon a Generic Architecture. Oxford: The MIT Press, 1998.

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Published

2025-02-10

Issue

Vol. 18 No. 2 (2024): Issue # 35 | Engaging Cosmotechnical Difference in Architecture and Urbanism: Cosmologies, Technologies, Worlds

Section

Review article

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Copyright (c) 2025 Masamichi Tamura

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