Barrier-Full Buildings
- 23 Jan 06, 12:00 AM
Shusaku Arakawa is, according to the , "an internationally acclaimed award-winning painter-turned-architectural-designer". Gosh. While most of the modern condos being built in Japan are universally accessible, Arukawa believes that such buildings are not only lifeless, but actually harmful. They feature too many straight lines and flat planes which don't exist in nature, apparently.
So, to redress the balance, Arakawa is all for, er, "architecture that defies death". By designing buildings which incorporate inconveniences and obstacles, he believes he can bring people's sensory perceptions back to life. (Which sounds as though his buildings will miraculously enable blind people to see and deaf people to hear, although that's probably not really what he's getting at.)
His latest work (snappily entitled, "Reversible Destiny Lofts Mitaka in memory of Helen Keller") is a nine unit condominium on the outskirts of Tokyo, which symbolises his mission to create "an apparatus through which we bring our life closer to eternity". Hmm. Deliberately-installed barriers include light switches at ankle height (that'd be Lady Bracknell living in the dark, then); ball-shaped studies with insufficient flat space to install a desk; bumpy floors which slope at a 20 degree angle; and a series of hooks in the ceiling, accessible by means of a narrow ladder, which are intended to serve the purpose of a wardrobe.
Those of us who really do need our floors to be both flat and level needn't worry too much, though. While most condos in Japan are sold before construction has even started, only one of Arakawa's dream spaces has been bought so far. By a group of the project's sponsors . . .
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If this man's designs were not so obviously ridiculous they would be truly maddening. I cannot help but wonder what his experiences have been with disabled persons or what he says while lying on his therapists couch. Oh wait. A couch would be too comfortable for this man. A cold stone floor then!
Confucious say lop-sided buildings good for energy flow.
Do they not have DDA type laws in Japan, then? We'd have him under regulation M or whatever it's called here in the UK, wouldn't we?
I wonder if Arakawa San is making a point here? Is he actually a disability activist who is showing the world who inaccessible life is for millions of disabled people? Or is this too much to ask? Maybe the disabled movement in Japan should be using this design to highlight precisely why there is a need for accessible buildings. Then again he might just be one of these ridculous arty-types who call rooms 'space'. And moan that us crips are ruining his creativity with our whinging about not being able to go shopping like 'normal' people. I wonder which it is? Answers on a postcard to the usual address.