The Taiwan tour of “Metabolism, The City of the Future” originally staged at Mori Art Museum in 2011, opened Sunday, July 14 in Taipei as “METABOLISM, THE CITY OF THE FUTURE: Forerunners of Contemporary Japanese Architecture.”

“Metabolism,” which sprang up in the 1960s, remains the most widely known modern architecture movement to have emerged from Japan. The movement takes its name from the biological term for the process of “regeneration,” and is based on the principle that buildings and cities should be designed so that they can change organically in the same way that organisms grow by repeatedly undergoing metabolization. Based on the Tokyo exhibition that was the first to comprehensively examine Metabolism, the exhibition in Taipei features some 300 carefully selected items, including models/maquettes, reference material, photographs and video. In addition, outdoor installations by Hirata Akihisa and Yoshimura Yasutaka, two promising young architects who are still carrying on the essence of Metabolism, are exhibited at the Outdoor Plaza. A lecture series featuring such internationally successful architects as Maki Fumihiko, Dan Norihiko, Rem Koolhaas, Isozaki Arata and Aoki Jun are also to be held to coincide with the exhibition.

Commemorating its 10th anniversary this fall, Mori Art Museum has endeavored to bring to audiences the very latest art from Asia and other regions of the world as part of its mission to take the lead in introducing such work to the public. 10 years after the museum’ s opening, the world map on which art finds itself has changed dramatically, and with values multi-polarizing, interest in the Asian region is greater than ever. While building networks and increasing cooperation with various institutions in the Asian region, Mori Art Museum will endeavor to promote even more international tours in the future in an effort to contextualize the geographical, historical and cultural background to the various expressive activities that have emerged from Japan and the rest of Asia and present them to the audiences around the world.

*image (left)
Shibuya Project: City in the Air
Production: Shibaura Institute of Technology,Graduate School,
Digital Hollywood University, 2011, Videos (CG)
© Isozaki Arata

Courtesy of UT Mori Art Museum, Foundation for Arts & Architecture (JFAA)