PREVI: The Metabolist’s first and only built Project

Eui-Sung Yi

doi:10.52200/50.A.I679BS7M

Authors

Eui-Sung Yi Morphosis

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DOI:

https://doi.org/10.52200/50.A.I679BS7M

Keywords:

Modern Movement, Modern architecture, Modern housing

Abstract

Cities in the sky, superhighways over the seas, floating layers of techno-villages. These utopic proposals for Japan were generated by a passionate and extraordinary group of young Japanese architects fueled by the futuristic vision to rebuild their nation. Parallel to their idealism, was the path of Peter Land, an Englishman by way of Yale and South America, tasked to plan housing for the poor. Incredibly, their idealism would cross and the Metabolists’ first and only project would be for a United Nations social housing development in a place very far from Japan: Peru. Eui-Sung Yi sat down with the group’s last living member, Fumihiko Maki, and the organizer of the project, Peter Land, to discuss this project and its place in modern urban design (read the interviews in pg. 65 and 68, respectively).

How to Cite

Yi, E.-S. (2014). PREVI: The Metabolist’s first and only built Project. Docomomo Journal, (50), 58–71. https://doi.org/10.52200/50.A.I679BS7M

Published

2014-08-01

Issue

No. 50 (2014): High Density

Section

Essays

License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Plaudit

Author Biography

Eui-Sung Yi, Morphosis

(b. 1968, Seoul, South Korea). BSc in Architecture, Cornell University; MSc in Architecture (1996), Harvard University. Principal of Morphosis Architects and Director of the NOW Institute, a center for urban research and speculations at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). He has been involved with academia and scholarship for over fifteen years in Asia and in the USA, where he worked extensively. He was adjunct associate professor and Director of the Master of Architecture programs (2007-2010) at the USC School of Architecture, in Los Angeles, and Vice President of Design in Chang-jo Architects, in Korea, where most recently, completed his competition-winning Korean Embassy in Tokyo, Japan, and the Korean Consulate, in Guangzhou, China. He is a member of docomomo International Executive Committee, acting as the representative of the chapter hosting the 13th International docomomo Conference, docomomo Korea.

References

“Fumihiko Maki interviewed by Eui-Sung Yi”, Docomomo Journal 50, Lisboa, 2014, p. 65.

“Peter Land interviewed by Eui-Sung Yi”, Docomomo Journal 50, Lisboa, 2014, p. 68.

GARCIA-HUIDOBRO, Fernando; TORRITI, Fernando Torres; TUGAS, Nicolas, ¡El Tiempo Construye! , Barcelona, Editorial Gustavo Gili, 2008.

JACOBS, Jane, The Death and Life of Great American Cities, New York, Random House, 1961.

LIN, Zhongjie, Kenzo Tange and the Metabolist Movement, New York, Routledge, 2010.

MAKI, Fumihiko, Buildings and Projects, New York, Princeton Architectural Press, 1997.

MAKI, Fumihiko, “Investigations in Collective Form”, The School of Architecture, No. 2 - A Special Publication, St. Louis, Washington University, June 1964.

MCGUIRK, Junstin, “PREVI: The Metabolist Utopia”, Domus, 21-April 2011.

MODICA, Aaron, “Robert R. Taylor Homes, Chicago, Illinois (1959-2005)”,

Seattle, University of Washington, 2014. See more at: http://www.blackpast.org/aah/robert-taylor-homes-chicago-illinois-1959-2005#sthash.6e02sgmO.dpuf (acessed 2014).