Responding to Chaos Tradition, Technology, Society and Order in Japanese Design

A celebration of a unique culture and its experience of design, this sensitive text is a timely examination of Japanese design at the start of a new century. The country's economic boom in the 1980s produced a surge of interest in land and building, and consequently in design in all its forms. From restaurant interiors to products, from private housing to recreational spaces, design received an unprecedented degree of attention. However the bursting in the early 1990s of this so-called 'bubble' economy has prompted a re-examination of design and its role in urban society.

Foreword. Acknowledgements. Introduction. Tradition. Symbolic Sense Towards Space. Aesthetics that Improve with Age. Snapshots of a Residential Tradition. Defending the Culture Low Ground. Technology. A Modernist Listening to the Earth. Architecture that Responds to the Forces of Nature. Turning on Japan's Sky Lights. Answering the Question of Modernism. Society. Adjusting the Boundaries of Architecture. Soul Provider. Paper Architecture. Quoting the Sacred in Modern Kyoto. Order Letting Nature Speak. Rotation in Harmony with Nature. Within Fluctuation One Finds Order. Continuous Space in Urban Landscape. Stripping Away any Inherent Meaning. In Conclusion. About the Author. Photographic Credits. Index.

Buck, David N