page_title: Kisho Kurokawa
section_title: Impermanence
hierarchical_section_title: Kisho Kurokawa / Key architectural concepts / Impermanence
caption_attribution_description: English: National Art Center, Tokyo at Minato-ku Tokyo Japan. Good Design Award 2008. 日本語: 国立新美術館、東京都港区、黒川紀章設計。2008年度グッドデザイン賞受賞（社会領域／公共施設・建築）。
context_page_description: Kisho Kurokawa was a leading Japanese architect and one of the founders of the Metabolist Movement.
context_section_description: Kurokawa noted that, with the exception of Kyoto and Kanazawa, most Japanese cities were destroyed during World War II. When Western cities are destroyed, brick and stone remained as proof of their past existence. Sadly, remarks Kurokawa, Japan's cities were mostly built of wood and natural elements, so they burnt to ashes and disappeared completely. He also noted that both Edo (now Tokyo) and Kyoto were almost entirely destroyed during several battles of the Warring States period in the 15th and 16th centuries. The shifting of power caused parts of Japan to be destroyed. On the same note, historically speaking, Japan's cities have almost yearly been hit with natural disasters such as earthquakes, typhoons, floods and volcanic eruptions. This continuous destruction of buildings and cities has given the Japanese population, in Kurokawa's words, “an uncertainty about existence, a lack of faith in the visible, a suspicion of the eternal.”
  In addition, the four seasons are very clearly marked in Japan, and the changes through the year are dramatic. Time, then, in Japanese culture is a precious entity that forces every candle, every being, every entity to fade at one point in time. The idea that buildings and cities should seem as natural as possible and that they should be in harmony with the rest of nature, since it is only temporarily there, helped create the tradition of making buildings and cities of “temporary” structure.
  This idea of impermanence was reflected in Kurokawa's work during the Metabolism Movement. Buildings were built to be removable, interchangeable and adaptable. The concept of impermanence influence his work toward being in open systems, both in time and space.
caption: The National Art Center, Tokyo
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