Author: drdrr

Rereading M.M. Bakhtin this week. This post was written in one sitting (broad brush) and is an intentionally incomplete (unfinished work in progress) essay. I will write something with a little closer reading soon, as I am waiting for more books that are on the way. What I have found interesting about Bakhtin’s writing, since I first read his work, is the same point of interest I have with respect to Immanuel Kant. That is, their philosophies often appeal to architectonics.

Bakhtin and Kant undoubtedly held quite different conceptions of architectonics. Should we associate Bakhtin’s sense of architectonics with the avantgarde of his time and place? I know these three modes I am about to mention are so vastly and fascinatingly different, but was anything other than a classical, rococo, or gothic conception of architectonics possible in Kant’s time and place?

The 1910s and 1920s avantgarde developed a challenging and radical sense of architectonics. Artist visualizations from the time, might fit on a spectrum somewhere between Malevich’s “Architectons” and Popova’s “Painterly Architectonics”. Let us suppose there is some purity of geometry or trigonometry as it may be. Some mathematical functions involved to compound the forms and their barren angularity. Maybe the work is form only and no tone or the opposite, and it is a fragmentation of all colors. What might these options mean to a young philosopher such as Bakhtin, who wrote extensively about the “architectonics of seeing”? A more traditional and stable sense of Architectonics might gravitate in meaning towards order, structure, and their synonyms even while these notions were alternately evoked and banished by the architectural avantgarde.

Architectonics is a rarely used word. It might mean different things to anyone asked, as architecture is so manifold. Where, when, how did architectonics enter the modern philosophical discourse? Who might have explored the topic in detail? It is certainly appealed to in the “Critiques” by Kant. In the 1780s,would architectonics have conjured in Kant’s mind some recent rococo or baroque or the turning away from those to Classicism or something else? Some archaeological idea of J.J. Winkelmann? Some kind of about to be built Brandenberg Gate? Classicism and its derivatives often lend themselves as supporting elements, imposing and reinforcing order, solidity, systemization, endurance.

[This quick essay draws on design and art to visualize what Bakhtin and Kant might be conjuring. Expect another post soon with more focus on the philosophical and philological implications, in text more solely]

The site I visited and decided to write about was Kiyomizudera (Japanese: 清水寺 or translated into English: clear water temple). It is an interesting area for many reasons, one of which is that it is as old as Kyoto¹ (over a millennium old former capital of Japan), as well as a Buddhist temple complex that is appreciated by various sects,² and a unique and moving experience surrounded in absolute darkness in one area of the temple.³

The ascent up to Kiyomizudera began in a normal part of the city and went fairly directly for miles upwards most the way. We climbed through the shop-lined city then up a steeper hill and onto the temple grounds through a park. Along the way were other shrines and temples, crowds of worshippers
and tourists, orange-red pagoda balancing elegantly, painted wood joinery, age-darkened wood. This area was more meandering, due to mindfulness towards the mobility difficulties of some of our party we took ramps winding around the edges rather than the stairs in the middle. We passed charming baby-sized stones adorned with handknit bibs in one area and hand knit head caps in another. (NB: These are called Jizo statues, very charming, learned the term later) Next were ponds and temples surrounded in ponds. Several hand cleansing basins (手水鉢) were along this route, and we washed with their elaborate shining ladles. Finally we arrived at an overlook above everything else. The main temple was being restored, not sure what the planned changes or restorations entail. Along the first side of the temple was our main destination. At this point we were instructed to place our shoes in plastic handbags and read instructions before heading inside.

The instructions mainly concerned how to proceed and how to make a wish at the Buddhist stone deep beneath the temple. I bid (a temporary) farewell to the visible world and went down the stairs. Light faded to all-encompasing darkness. I just closed my eyes or kept them open, it was the same. Adjusting
to the pitch black I could see a dark blue or purple marbled pattern on my retinas, the marbling sensation was like the suminagashi (墨 流 し) process where ink is floated on water then paper soaks in it. When my eyes no longer served me, my auditory and tactile senses became the guides. I could hear the rustle of the bag with my shoes, as well as others’ shoe bags in the room. I could feel the beads along the handrail. They were similar to the beads on a Buddist bead bracelet but were much larger, about the size of a fist. I kept one arm extended so that I would not run into the person in front of me with my face.

I kept thinking of my wish.

After one final turn there was light. A pointed spotlight type of illumination (I could not see or recognize the source) shone on the stone described in the instructions and bearing a Sanskrit resembling the number 4 to me,⁴ I could see the Buddhist letter and other hands making wishes on the stone but the luminance had such a short falloff that I could not see up their arms to their faces. I placed my hands as well and made my wish. Then I went towards louder noises that were from an upper level up stairs, where I rejoined my group and continued exploring Kiyomizudera.

(Segment of Kiyomizudera Engi Emaki from Tokyo National Museum, 1517-20)

OCTOBER 2018.

NOTES

1 Mosher, Gouverneur. Kyoto: A Contemplative Guide. Tuttle, 1964

2 Ibid.

3 While writing this I learned that there is a waterfall experience at Kiyumizu-Dera (likely the namesake) known as Otowa Waterfall, that we completely missed and were not told of by our guides.

4 Was not able to find this character online while writing

The main point here, and in the last posts I submitted on the topic of prefab 3D printing at scale, is that while most printed full size structures are done from the ground up, this might not actually be optimal. What I am suggesting here is that when we have fully developed 3D printing, at scale, techniques similar to off site prefab or on site tilt up concrete construction might be an improvement upon the ground up approach. We will see. The construction industry might go this way it might go another. If full scale is anything like desktop printing, then a prefab approach is going to be better in many respects (about those later).

Here are a few suggested steps for the prefab approach.

Step 1. Print by component. Can be prefab or on site –this is a matter of equipment availability.

Step 2. Tilt up walls with a hoist or crane, or transport them to the site and then hoist or crane them into position.

Step 3. Assemble and join the structure. Finish. Enjoy.

Here is another model of precast 3D printed forms for buildings. This is an ongoing project, I have made incremental steps and improvements over the last few years.

I anticipate the full size of these to be printed either in an on site printer or in an offsite printer. The model looks a little more like light frame spacing intervals, it might be spread out to take advantage of concrete span potential. Or it might stay at the compact spacing for extra strength.

Assembly requires three stages, diagrammed below: 1) print, 2) lift, 3) place.

PRINT

LIFT

PLACE

Here are links to previous efforts I have made along the same lines. Whereas this post is more about the tilt-up walls, these previous ones were mainly about roof, ceiling, or floor slabs.

FOREST BEAMS PAVILION MODEL

PHOENIX PAVILION MODEL

REALLY QUICK IMAGES FROM YEARS AGO

This sequence of drawings were made very quickly at the very end of January and very beginning of February 2019. These should file under “portfolio”. The example above and some below blocks carved out for air and solar exposure. The main tenets that drove these are 1) articulate massing to bring in natural air and solar, 2) variations in the spaces should be apparent in the elevations, 3) brace frames for stability. 4) think lofty and upward. I will add a bit about each tenet, each point below.

Told myself to think tenet not tenement–try to see thoughtful tenets of architecture, any design should strive to be more than a financial tenement of real estate.

1) Light and space are not new ideas, but we should often be reminded of their importance. Could light and space have been the first human ideas? I would nominate them as candidates for that position. We have guidance, zoning codes and plans to build cities with healthy access to life giving light and air. Light and air and space are have been seen as the primary substances of architecture nearly forever.

2) When I draw, I often draw in as many dimensions as possible. I would encourage everyone to do this when appropriate, or, if you are in the position to teach others, teach them to draw in many dimensions. Do not design from plan view or top down view or z dimension alone, but design in elevation, in the round or in many dimensions as possible. There is a time for drawing in plan only, yes I know. We also need to raise the standard from basic and monotonous to something more vivid.

3) Some of these towers use a diagonal grid, a braced frame structure for extra stability. This might expect you to see the world less through a rectangular window and more of a triangulated or crystalline one. For example,

4) onward and upward!

I am curious,   

I am serious. 

Who wrote the building code? Tell us more about the authors.

What are their names? Where did they live?  How did they live? What else did they do with their lives? What did they build if they knew so much about designing buildings? What else did they write? anything interesting? 

I know there have been building codes in the world off and on for ages, in the US here since a little before 1900, maybe longer.

I know the building code is written and revised and there are lots of editions. There is an organization, I know they have a process. I know they have our best interests and safety in mind. I read their work, I enjoy learning it, I trust it.

We have lots of legal documents with interesting authors. We have access to many legislators’ biographies.

What happens to your architecture though I wonder, without an author, if you follow, strictly and exclusively, a text written by an anonymous committee, what will your building be?  What else is there you can add to the code? What else should you contribute? 

In each nearly 50 day lifespan on Earth, a single honeybee contributes about 1/12 of a teaspoon of honey to the hive’s total production.

Not a lot.

I learned this fact from a Phoenix beekeeper the other day at an architecture event.

I have lived 50 some years on Earth and wonder about my own contribution to the honey of my hive. Maybe it is not a lot either.

“[…]that he might really and would surely develop his own characteristic individuality, and that the architectural art with him would certainly become a living form of speech, a natural form of utterance, giving surcease to him and adding treasures great and small to the growing art of the land; […]” -Louis H. Sullivan, 1896.

I have collected quotes on architecture as a language since day one, not sure why or how it all started, exactly. Some strange, some straight forward. I am also interested in language as architecture, so keep that in mind. I finally realized there was more to this notion than Victor Hugo’s or Nikolai Gogol’s puzzling statements, the Sullivan epigraph above, brings it all together. Not only is it a beautiful line by Sullivan, it is intrinsic to the essay that brought us his “form ever follows function” mantra. You may, or may not, get the connection between architecture and language, but I hope it makes some sense to you before this post and my next post. We know architecture, we know language, but soon it will be time to know a compounded notion of the two: ARCHITECTURE AS A FOREIGN LANGUAGE.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Sullivan, Louis H. “The Tall Office Building, Artistically Considered”. The Inland Architect and News Record. May, 1896.  Pp.32-34.

Beneath much of Sapporo is an underground city (the whole underground network is referred to generally as “Chikagai”; one of the walkways is called “Chi-ka-ho’), it is a busy network of shop lined streets in Sapporo’s most central area, Chuo Ward. It is an underground city of substantial size, with around 150,000 visitors per day. One main part is Aurora Town running from Odori Station to the Sapporo TV Tower, under Odori Park. Aurora Town runs East-West. Another main  part is Pole Town running beneath Ekimae Dori (Sapporo Station Street) to Susukino Station. Pole Town runs North-South.  This underground city was constructed along with the Sapporo Municipal Subway for the 1972 Sapporo Olympics. The total cost, at the time, for urban renewal was 602 billion Japanese Yen. Osaka in 1977 had a comparable but larger underground city than Sapporo, “with a population greater than that of Seattle and Denver combined”. The development of underground spaces was a nation wide effort in 1970s Japan, and is a characteristic feature of urban development in Sapporo, a major city located in mostly cold and snow covered Hokkaido.

The widening of Ekimae Street, in Spring 1964, prompted the initiative for the underground city. There was a concern that seniors and young children would not have time to cross the wide street in a single crosswalk cycle, and a safe elevated or underground passageway idea was discussed. When Sapporo was chosen to host the 1972 Winter Olympics, the concept of the underground passageway gained momentum, and proponents realized it needed to be built along with the subway in order to be feasible. A group of shareholders and advocates lobbied the Ministry of Construction, and the Ministry formed a council on the topic guiding it to fruition. The Ministry of Construction facilitated a public corporation to build and operate the underground malls and they added enough  parking to the program. The project began and was completed in just 1.5 years, with the underground city opening on 11-16-1971 at 11:16am, one year before the Sapporo Olympics.

Aurora Town previously featured waterworks of fountains, river and waterfall that were removed in 1980 due to congestion. The “river” was named “River of Joy” and was 40m long with 160 fountains. 

Pole Town and the “Chi-ka-ho” passageway are nearly 2km long making for the one of the longest (if not the longest) underground tunnel straight distance in all of Japan.

REFERENCES

Wikipedia: “さっぽろ地下街”, https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/さっぽろ地下街, accessed 1/19/2026.

Wikimedia images in tiled gallery:
Aurora Town, 1992
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Aurora_Town_of_Sapporo_Chikagai_-underneath_Odori_Park(1992-10_by_sodai-gomi).jpg
Pole Town, 2007
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Underground_cities_in_Sapporo#/media/File:POLE_TOWN.jpg
Pole Town, 2016
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Susukino_Chikagai.JPG

Youtube: STV footage from the construction and inaugural years.

Olympics.com:

According to the Olympics website, the underground city has 150,000 shoppers visit per day.

https://www.olympics.com/ioc/news/an-underground-city

According to the Olympics website, Japan spent 602 billion JPY on Sapporo urban renewal for the 1972 Winter Olympics.

https://www.olympics.com/ioc/news/a-new-transport-infrastructure

The New York Times:

Sterba, James P. ”Japanese Dig In to Refurbish Cluttered Sapporo for Winter Olympic Games”. The New York Times. Nov. 7, 1971.

Lee, John M. “Sapporo: Modern Japan, Frontier Spirit”. The New York Times. Feb. 8, 1972.

Malcolm, Andrew H. “Japan Going Underground With Vast Shopping Complexes”. The New York Times. March 9, 1977.

変な家 “Strange Houses” is a recent Japanese novel, manga and movie.

I saw a mention of it online and it instantly caught my attention, with just an image with a house plan and an air of suspense and mystery. I decided quickly to review it, after reading a few more overview and publicity items. I have not read anything in suspense or horror genres for a while, but I read architecture everyday.

Before you get to my review, I am putting the sources first so you can investigate or yourself. Do not be scared. Read and watch in your preferred format and language. Let me know what you think. I know I will revisit these and explore further.

SOURCES

Here is the novel and manga from Kinokuniya, just search “変な家”: https://united-states.kinokuniya.com/

The publisher of the English translation of the novel: https://www.harpercollins.com/products/strange-houses-uketsu

The Translator, Jim Rion’s website: https://jimrion.com/2025/09/30/translating-strange-houses/

The author, Uketsu, has a strong YouTube presence, apparently this is how these stories all began:

Here is a sample with automatically generated English subtitles and overdubs:

変な絵 “Strange Pictures” 変な地図 “Strange Maps” are also available.

There are some detective precedents and parallels, on some level “this “Strange Houses” is a sophisticated updated haunted house story, in full command of the secret passageway trope. There are Romantic and Victorian gothic echoes in the curses of heredity and architectural implications of the events described. The thought processes are meticulously logical, almost to excess, and this casts the author and architect duo as a kind of Holmes and Watson, at times. Overall the translation is completely readable and accessible, conveying scares and fears that are updated to our times.

REVIEW

The story raises questions about history. What is a house’s past life? And as a consequence, what is its death?

The simplicity of the modern house plan is not simple enough. Raises more questions about simplicity and what might seem generic. Real estate listings abound in Japan and realtor windows and publications display the flooded market of plans.
A terrifying plot weaves through the slew of vacant homes portrayed in the surplus floor plans. These ordinary houses, at first glance, after further inspection tell countless stories and mysteries from mundane to the most horrific.

READING OR READING INTO SOMETHING

You may wonder throughout, as I did, are the author and draftsman reading or reading into the plans?

The book starts so simple and clear with monologue and dialogue.

Reading requires a certain suspension of disbelief.

Towards the end, the book goes from architectural to genealogical and perhaps is easier to read for some. The intricacies of family trees may be hard to follow for those inclined to the floor plans, and vice versa.
The motives stem from a generational inheritance of a deadly oath and rivalries over the family fortune.
Kurihawa’s final word is a discourse on authorship, details, speculation and proof.
The Afterword’s monologue on inclusion of proof can be rephrased as “reading” and “reading into” where what is included is “read” and what is speculated is “read into”.

The “mysterious dead space” triggers all the suspicions, something about unused, inaccessible, unknown space that makes the imagination wander.

AFTERWORD

After finishing the first book and writing this mid-review, I actually travelled in Japan for 10 days. Just posted it now, after adding that finishing touch of my amateur calligraphy at the top. I had asked a Japanese friend about the book and she was reading these too, while travelling, she gave me a copy of “Strange Maps” which has not been translated into English yet. I have been skimming it and it has a lot of interesting imagery, trying to decode it but will wait until the whole book is translated.

Enjoy this series.