b'MUDD 24 URBAN NETWORKS|URBAN GATEWAYScommissions reflect a desire for Japan to engage with - rathertowers, traditional torii gates and parking structures. than retreat from - global urban discourse, a belief that Isozaki established soon after the completion of his Demonstration Robot,Containing Fukuokas most essential infrastructure, bounded by a three storey metabolist structure designed for Expo 70 in Osaka.water and ringed by multi-level freeways, Hakata and its port - With metabolism in decline and with it, the influence of Kenzoisolated from the main city centres - is perhaps best described as Tange - his former mentor and the most famous Japanese architectan urban periphery. In terms defined by Manuel de Sola Morales,Isozaki looked beyond Japan for authentic models of design andit is a place marked by an absence of determinations in the discourse. Notably, he contributed an article on Frank Lloyd Wrightsclassical sense . . . a vertiginous terrain for images, and cinema Johnson Wax Building to the first edition of Global Architecture - aand photography where neither repetition nor difference (in Gilles magazine founded by the photographer Yukio Futagawa. FeaturingDeleuze sense) have occupied it - conditions that transcend its seminal works of international modernist architecture for Japanesephysical reality:and international readers alike, its launch in 1970 is reputedly theLeaving aside the irrelevance and dirt of the peripheral areas, first time the word global was aligned with architectural discourseits functional problems, and the aesthetic difficulties of dealing (Jarzombek 2018, p.572). In contrast to Tanges Japanese-focussedwith emptiness, there is a strong suggestion, for the eyes proposals, Isozakis article rejected nationalism in favour of Wrightsof those who look at it positively, of a field of free thoughts cosmopolitan fluency and apparent cultural freedom. Amidst anoriented towards the future and the present, not enriched by economic downturn, with the memory of WW2 and Hiroshima stillany past (de Sola-Morales 2008, p.192).prevalent and a geopolitical order largely determined by the United States, Isozakis plea for openness was remarkable, no less soGiven Japans relatively recent reconstruction, the contr ast for its impact on Fukuoka. In response to the tensions betweenbetween the centres ordered space and the entropy of the fringe nationalism and cosmopolitanism, he remarked at the time: is markedly less clear. In their Made in Tokyo study of unique building types, Atelier Bow Wow documented Tokyos astonishing This dichotomy that appears as the only choice is, however,models of hybridity and adaption: shameless compositions and a false one . . . I believe I have to expand the peculiar sensefunctional combinations, unthinkable in the European city. In this of beauty and manner my island nation has produced intosense, the port area of Hakata and its expansive shoreline, its the global dimension; to the extent sometimes, that may evenvarious structures, off ramps, existing facilities, logistics buildings cause a conflict. I do this not only as a stranger to the Westand tentative relationship with adjacent urban networks reflects a but also as a stranger to Japan (Jarzombek, 2018b, p.510). condition that is not only contextual but also representational:Isozakis influence, from his promotion of global dialogue, to hisWhere cultural interest is low, interest in practical issues international profile and prolific architectural legacy - including majoris high . . . engineering structures, rooftops, walls or gaps projects throughout Fukuoka - cannot be understated. Remarkably,between buildings, utilise whatever is at hand. What is his recent Hakata Port project - designed as part of Fukuokas failedimportant is the discovery of how to establish a second role bid for the 2016 Olympics - argues that the accumulative impactsto each environmental element. With this doubling up, it of a truly visionary urban design scheme can transform not only itsbecomes possible to re-use spatial by products. The material 119 urban context but the nations relationship with the broader region.129 is not given, but is discovered through our own proposition of how to use it. It might be termed affordance of the urban While the cities of Hakata and Fukuoka were officially merged inenvironment.(Kajima & others 2006, p.12)1889, this has not extended to the re-naming of its major urban gateways - its ferry wharf, passenger terminal, airport and mainSo within such a fascinating site -a truly global gateway- how did rail station - which still retain the name Hakata up to the present.the joint MUDD/Kyushu University Studio fare? Remarkably well, Although severely bombed in WW2, Hakata retains its intense gridespecially given the workshops tight deadlines, the scale of the of orthogonal streets, now housing randomly scaled residentialcontext, its relative remoteness from the activity centres of Fukuoka towers, low scale dwellings, stunningly themed retail malls, narrowand the openness of the brief. Each of the five teams proposed a shops, shrines, substations, karaoke bars, strip clubs, ramen outlets,third urban centre to complement Hakata and Tenjin - Fukuokas government agencies, vertical advertising structures, symbolicmain retail centreand it was very satisfying to observe that eachMUDD 24 - Urban Gateways | Urban Networks - Fukuoka Fukuoka design 8pt.indd 6 26/11/2019 5:05:22 PM'