Shonandai: Exposing the World takes Itsuko Hasegawa's Shonandai cultural centre as its sole subject — a building that attempted to move beyond modernism with an intensity only possible in 1980s Japan, documented here through Stefano Graziani's photography and technical drawings.
About This Book
Itsuko Hasegawa's Shonandai cultural centre was her first major public project, and it remains one of the most formally extreme buildings produced by the post-metabolist generation. Hasegawa set out to 'overcome' modernism, and the result is a structure where the techno-utopianism of the 1960s avant-garde arrives at something stranger and more complete. This focused monograph — part of the Everything without Content series — resists contextual padding in favour of direct confrontation with the architecture itself. Stefano Graziani's photographs and the accompanying technical drawings allow the building to be read on its own terms. For students and practitioners engaged with critical architectural history and the legacy of Japanese post-war architecture, this is a rare close study of an underexamined work.
Key Features
- 144 pages of architectural photography by Stefano Graziani and technical drawings
- Authors: Kersten Geers and Jelena Pancevac; part of the Everything without Content series by Kersten Geers, Jelena Pancevac, and Joris Kritis
- Focused entirely on the Shonandai cultural centre, Itsuko Hasegawa's first major public project
- Published by Walther & Franz König
What You'll Discover
- How Hasegawa conceived of Shonandai as a deliberate overcoming of modernism, and what formal strategies that produced
- The building's relationship to the 1960s techno-avant-garde and how it brings that lineage to an extreme conclusion
- The particular cultural and institutional conditions of 1980s Japan that made a project of this formal ambition possible
- The Everything without Content series' method of isolating a single building for sustained photographic and analytical attention
About the Author
[Details available upon request]
Specifications
- Format: Softcover
- Pages: 144
- Dimensions: 240 x 160 mm
- Language: English
- ISBN: 9783753307848
- Publisher: Walther & Franz König
- Publication Date: [Details available upon request]
Perfect For: Architects and researchers with an interest in Japanese post-war architecture, the post-metabolist generation, and critical architectural monograph publishing.