art webzine "Yokohama Sozo-Kaiwai"

Mr. Sugizaki, Arts Commission Yokohama: "It's a 50-year old wooden building with a nice atmosphere, but it looks like it hasn't been used in more than 20 years," the phone call stated. This was the start of the Yokohamabashi Art House Project. In April 2008, Arts Commission Yokohama, jointly operated by the Yokohama Arts Foundation and the City of Yokohama 150th Anniversary of the Port Opening and Creative City Headquarters, became the official contact organization for this initiative to develop a practical system for realizing one of the key concepts of artistic real estate: "cultivating projects that create artist hubs". After being referred there, the Yokohamabashi Art House became the first project from this initiative on which the Arts Commission consulted. The building owner, an art gallery operator in Ginza, expressed her desire to contribute in some small way to the realization of Creative City in her native Yokohama. A turn onto a side street from the Yokohamabashi Shopping Street takes you to the spot where the very charming façade of a barbershop from days gone by appears. As you face the rear, two wooden buildings are lined up side by side but while the first floors of the buildings are completely separated, their second floors are connected by a bridge. Very curious architecture, indeed.

The building owner offered a two-year lease. Two years of rental income minus taxes and miscellaneous expenses equaled the sum available to be spent on construction. Additionally, as the building was neglected for more than 20 years, equipment, facilities, etc. were completely destroyed. Although there was a local contractor, Sugawara Kensetsu (Sugawara Construction), right across the street from the site, there was not nearly enough money to pay even their standard construction fees. Then I got an e-mail from a colleague with whom I had previously worked on artistic real estate projects, Associate Professor Nobuharu Suzuki from Yokohama City University. He said that, as he had previously informed me, there was a graduate student at Kanto Gakuin University who possessed DIY home renovation experience and was interested in the Yokohamabashi Art House Project. When I met with the student, Mr. Okubo, I learned that having watched the research labs at Yokohama National University and Kanagawa University work on the renewal and revitalization of Koganecho and Hinode-machi, he was anxious to do something similar at the Yokohama-based Kanto Gakuin. I immediately put together a student renovation team with him at its center; added a site foreman, Takamichi Tajima, who had helped me renovate the remains of the former Sakuragicho station building and convert it into "Creative Space 9001"; and asked Mr. Sugawara from Sugawara Kensetsu, to oversee the entire project, direct construction and supervise work on building facilities (tasks which, as might be expected, were too difficult for the students to undertake). Additionally, Arts Commission Yokohama arranged for a student in the doctoral program at the Tokyo Institute of Technology, Mr. Nakamura, to join the project for the same period as an intern who, as part of his research, was charged with compiling and keeping records on our developmental and execution process.

We began by first clearing out the interior of the buildings and getting rid of 20 years worth of dirt. It was like that "Before, After" TV program (even more appalling, really, since the buildings had been completely neglected). Unlike TV, however, we didn't go wild tearing things down since we wanted to expose and reveal the buildings and their interior, in their entirety. As we looked at these buildings onsite, the operating concept we finally arrived at, after refining the renovation plan with Mr. Okubo and the rest of the team, was "subtraction." Although it was also the case in those instances when, from a budgetary standpoint, there was no money to make "additions", we were always considering whether the removal of a structural component might not unlock new potential in the space. For example, the removal of floors and ceilings in a communal area served to expand the scale of the area, both above and below, and create a space with a wonderful sense of openness. Similarly, removing only the damaged sections of the wooden ceiling and replacing them with polycarbonate panels resulted in an increased sense and awareness of the expanse of the loft /attic space. In places where "additions" were absolutely necessary, to the extent possible, we made use of "subtracted" materials. For example, flooring which had come up in a communal area was used to repair the walls in that area. The demolition work done on a space can, effectively, become a direct part of the design of that space -- a refreshing and valuable experience for both the students and myself.

However, it's not as if there weren't times when I had the living daylights scared out of me.
One day I got a call from Mr. Okubo…..

"I have a feeling the building is tilting a little, sir."
"Why? What happened? Can you be a little bit more specific?"
"We carried all of the plywood we had to reinforce the floors up to the 2nd floor, piled it all up in one place and now 7 of the workers are taking a break by the pile of plywood."
"……………"
"Sir? What's wrong? Are you still there?"
（pulling myself together）
"OK, it would be best if everyone took their breaks downstairs. Also, you should divide the plywood up and store a little in each room. You don't need to take a lot of people to do it, just use a few people and get it done quietly."

The reality in this country is that, no matter how much you study architecture and construction, you won't be able to pick up the imaginative abilities you need to figure out things that should really be simple common sense by just reading. Fortunately, in the end, the project was completed without a major accident. Mr. Okubo summarized his experiences working on the project for his Master's thesis and, even though there were some bumps and turns along the way, he won top honors. Since it's quite clear that, from here on end, the practical use of materials on hand and existing stocks will be of the utmost importance, I think colleges should seriously begin to upgrade their curriculums to deal with these kinds of realistic construction issues.

Another crucial element in creating hubs for artists is attracting people to Yokohama who can tie together art, architecture and the city. That's why the project implementation body makes sure it publicly seeks and recruits applicants involved in the arts.

The Yokohamabashi Review Board is composed of five members, including the buildings' owner, a representative of the local residents, an art expert and a professional architect. The publicly recruited arts-related applicants come from three different disciplines and each is rated using a 100-point rating system – 70 possible project planning points (divided into the following categories: "Creativity", "Ability to Effectively and Persuasively Convey Information", "Links to the City", "Suitability and Feasibility of Property Use") and 30 possible rental cost points (a minimum acceptable rental cost is established and points are awarded for increments in rent above that minimum). After discussion and deliberation, Sachio Ichimura, an Associate Professor at Tokyo University of the Arts, was selected and signed a two-year lease agreement with the buildings' owner. Focusing primarily on artists he personally supports, Professor Ichimura currently operates Yokohamabashi art picnic TOCO.

"Who will do the revitalizing?" "Who will use the revitalized structures?" And of course, most crucially, "which buildings will be revived?" This April, I will start "Renovation Assistance for Artistic Real Estate", an initiative to develop projects that create hubs. I will , further, also begin to appeal to the building owners. What I find to be absolutely astounding is the tremendous number of neglected buildings in both the Kannai and Kangai areas of Yokohama. 30 – 40 year old buildings that have been neglected for 10 – 20 years are quite common. If there are many cases in which an entire building has been completely neglected from top to bottom, there are also more than a few buildings in which only some of the multiple stories have been neglected. In instances of neglect like these, the problems that arise are not simply those of a single building but, inevitably, of a wider area - - community-wide problems of safety, crime prevention and handling fires. Thus, here in Yokohama, artistic real estate involves not just the side that deals with urban revitalization through the arts and culture, it is also, inevitably, linked to the question of how to restructure an urban center with an increasingly high concentration of little used buildings. We must, therefore, as quickly as possible, comprehensively debate and then improve a wide range of pertinent measures including laws and regulations related to the revitalization of neglected buildings, as well as fund procurement methods. But, before that, we must endeavor to reduce the number of neglected buildings. After all, like the human body, buildings “must be continuously used” and, if they are neglected, they quickly begin to deteriorate. To prevent that, it is necessary to proactively introduce measures such as temporary building utilization that use buildings to the fullest extent possible. Doing this should lead to the continued and future existence of buildings and cities.

Well, that's it for this time. In my next column, I'd like to exam the relationship between "how to use cities" and "how to build cities" by looking at arts events that use the city, itself, as their canvas.