Ishinomaki: City of Love, Japanese love hotel as a cultural institution

J a p a n e s e l o v e h o t e l s , a c u l t u r a l i n s t i t u t i o n

Ishinomaki: CITY OF LOVE

ラ ブ ホ テ ル

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“As humans, our greatest gift is love, and we are invariably called to respond to it. Despite our suspicions, architecture has been and must continue to be built upon love”

5 Alberto Pérez-Gómez, Built Upon Love, 2008, page 3, Introduction: Architecture and Human Desire

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CONTENTS Program Introduction Territory Proposal Proposal Design Methodology Design Matrix

Nature meeting machine

Body and senses

Thoughts on the Garden Narratives Escape Tsunami Hostess Clubs Thematics Design Strategy Wood cut Art Strategy Appendix Bibliography

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These prints are portraits form the medieval time in Japan ruled by the Samurai. It was a time where the public were suppressed by the political system and prompted thousands of prints by artists of ‘Ukiyo-E’, known as “The floating world’.

Sex scenes where very common to see in these prints, representing a rebellious movement and provocation of the sorrowful times. It is crucial to notice the objects placed around the act, because the message would be signified through them.

8 Shunga: erotic art from the Edo period 1600-1800. The word Shunga means spring paintings or blossom art. Produced by carved woodcut prints.

“A long time ago in medieval Japan, a unique place was born, because desire couldn’t be public and intimacy at home was never easy. Today nothing has changed.”

9 Documentary: Love Hotel, BBC 4, from 2014 by Philip Cox and Hikaru Toda

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PROGRAM

Name of Love Hotels

Number of rooms

1. Bambi Forest

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The concept offers two kind of visits at the love hotel: to rest or to stay. To rest is the most common, and is in a time frame of:

2. Hotel Dolphin

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2 hours

3. Hotel Soul

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4. Hotel Coco

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5. Hotel Santa Monica

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6. Hotel Kiss

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7. Hotel Resta

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8. Hotel Eden

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9. Hotel Secret BOX

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10. Hotel Green

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Rest Cleaning 30min = 9 visits in a day If one assume it takes two people to be in a love hotel, it will mean 326 people can stay at a time.

..............

326 people at a time, multiplied by 9 visits equals: 329*9 = 2934 people can visit love hotels in Ishinomaki in one day.

I total 163 rooms

In June 2014 the population was 147.143.

That will make it 2% of the city in a day.

Demography not measured.

People under 18 not allowed!

12 Map of Ishinomaki, located love hotels (white), located site (black) Standard room in Hotel Dolphin in Ishinomaki. Italian style.

Calculations on possible visits in the excising love hotels in Ishinomaki

Introduction Love hotels are a very common phenomenon in Japan and are very popular for couples to visit.

They have materialised as a result of many generations living together under one roof, as well as the extremely compact family house constructed with thin interior walls. For privacy, couples will have to seek other places for romance or wanting to increase the family. Love hotels are a great concept for those that decide against or simply cannot afford to pay for a real hotel where one must book for the whole night. In contrast, you can rent the room per hour in a love hotel with a 2 hour minimum stay; this is called a ‘rest’. The concept also offers the couple to stay the whole night (‘stay’) and here are food, drinks, bath, etc. are available.

There are 37.000 love hotels in the whole of Japan. In Ishinomaki there are 10. Some of them are very old and begin to appear on maps from Google Earth between 1974-1978; the same time as the first love hotel in Tokyo and only 6 years after the birth of the first love hotel in Osaka in 1968. Love hotels have existed long before the 1960’s, but were disguised under functions such as the tea house, noodle restaurant, bath houses etc. 2% of the population of Japan visit the love hotels daily and as is also shown in the table for Ishinomaki, the capacity for the population will allow 2% to visit love hotels.

The physicality of the bodily space is a darkened room with no windows. The exterior resembles a house but is painted a bright colour advertising another atmosphere than a regular hotel.

Once inside the love space one only exists between four walls and the world outside is left behind.

Shifting In scale from the city to the bedroom, the room is decorated with a theme that is a constructed dream-world for individual desire. The couple entering this space disappears from the outside world, and once the door is locked all fantasies can be let loose. The space is the perfect hiding place for secrets and the mask of public professional life can be removed.

This observation on love hotels and Ishinomaki raises questions relating to culture and the site: How could the love hotel’s location be challenged to meet a human scale in the cityscape?

What are the spatial and bodily implications regarding the revealing and concealing of the love hotel?

What constitutes love in the relics of the tsunami for filling the void of lost spaces to becoming a place for desire?

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14 Site in context . Itopia, red-light of Ishinomaki Image of: Hostess club outside with a banner of girls Image of: A man with his hourly bought hostess

Territory Itopia is the name of the area in the city center (Chou) and is the place in Ishinomaki for going out for nightly fun. The dominating functions here are bars and restaurants, with a special service connected. A modern version of the geisha is the hostess, and is a popular concept for pseudo dating. The site offers a broad spectra of clubs where hostesses are making the night something special.

Visitors of these clubs are mainly businessmen, workers from the fishing industry or elderly single men. One night at the site, I met a traveling man working for the fishing industry all over the world, and has visited Ishinomaki for the last 20 years. I asked him what Itopia was like before the tsunami, and he replied: “10 years ago, there were so many bars here. A lot of activity, always. You could meet many people. It isn’t the same anymore. Maybe 30% left.”

The tsunami has washed away many buildings and the people of Ishinomaki are working hard on trying to get back to a pre-tsunami state within the city.

Despite the rumors of plans to demolish non-functional houses and convert a larger area into a supermarket, there will always be a strong force from the sites atmosphere and should therefore be challenged with a function of a similar character.

The area it what some would call a red-light district, because of the hostess clubs. This might be a misunderstanding, because the hostess is not functioning as a prostitute. She is an entertainer who pours drinks or sings karaoke for or with the visitor. She will sit with the visitor for how ever long he or she is paying and simply talks. Nothing sexual is allowed to bloom between them and the manager will watch all her acts closely, making sure she don’t cross any boundaries.

15 Interview with Narita, businessman promoting new technology for the fishing industry, revisiting Ishinomaki.

Architectual boundires created by services p l a s t e re d on the builings.

Tycical for the urban fabric

View at site.

Over grown and not replaced by any function

V i e w from site, looking into a void

Void

Another void in the area, look to hostess club ‘Maria Club’

Void, sight view to redlight district

Narrow view of site, path crossing the area

House left derelict.

closed, unknown chamber of commerce

commercial store commercial store political workshop space

closed, unknown closed, unknown closed, unknown men’s center DAN closed, unknown commercial store

three beauty salons restaurant bank shoe shop DAM, white house restaurant closed, unknown

monroe, hostess club

bar bar and and hostess hostess club club noodle restaurant bar bar bar and hostess club private house private private house house private house

blue house, hostess club

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PROPOSAL

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Proposal The proposed programme of a public park and love hotel seeks to reintroduce the facilities of the chosen site. This is a proposal operates in several scales, thus engaging with a wide range of contextual issue. The proposed scales fluctuate between the poetic garden in traditional Japanese culture to the love hotel as a celebration of the love sick Japanese and their need for private intimacy: city - park - love hotel - body. Merging the public and private space within the coexisting functions at the site will require a clever engagement with the surrounding city, reprogramming this derelict void.

Operating simultaneously in the scale of city and that of the body constructs a project which deals with the everyday life of the city and its relation to the private love space via the discrete path and entry. Existing buildings will provide the framework for the park and the entrances to the love hotel. The park can stand alone and function only as a park for the users who seeks a contemplative and stimulating experience, whereas the love hotel is depending on the park and the surroundings for an anonymous entry and exit. The scale of the city and landscape will work very closely together with that of the building in order for this demanding proposal to be successful in the context of Ishinomaki.

The transition from the city into the love space becomes an interesting intersection. The project will explore a transitional space which brings the user from the crowded city, through the park and into the love hotel. Once inside, the user finds a choice of different themes where the architecture of bodily space is preforming for an intimate experience. The proposed building will be a medium sized love hotel, each room containing its own character and tactility. Some spaces might be closely related to garden, harnessing the possibilities of light, smell and temperature.

The senses become an import exploration within the constructing of the space in order to create an erotic atmosphere, generating possibilities and fantasies for the user.

This projects great focus will be on body in space and body and space in an architecture that challenges the site in a provoking way by opening up for a larger variety of users. The project will in this case address the issues of boundaries between the socially accepted programmes and those that are considered inappropriate by the establishment, by contextualising the most essential part of Japanese societal culture in the heart of Ishinomaki.

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METHODOLOGY

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Poetics

Design Matrix

Love space

City

Machine

A primary methodology for developing the project will be through the lenses of an operating design matrix. The matrix will contain an x-axis which deals with the transitions between physical scales and ranges from the love space to the city, whilst the y-axis ranges from the machine to the poetic. This method attempts to locate the differing scales and transitions of the project, forging new relationships between them.

It will closely inform the production of the wood cut layer technique models (see design strategy).

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26 Reinterpretation of ‘Wet Sheets’ by Roberto Matta 1936, expressing architecture as surrealism.

Nature meeting Machine

Nature meeting machine comes from a fasination of two extremes found within Japanese culture. One being the poetic garden, designed around the notion of ‘Zen’ and the other being the highly automated love hotel, a highly developed world of techonology. “...sex was originally something to be done while bathed in sunlight in the middle of a field. The need to seek stimulation behind closed doors shows how weak people have become. Young people don’t need stimulation like that; young people should be doing it in the park. It’s much more pleasant” 27 In the 1970’s, the novelist Aiko Goto said in protest about new modern love hotels

28 Framing the view of a Japanese garden Sex positions merges with Le Corbusiers Modlar Man Philip Rahm, Digestible Gulf Stream, Venice Biennale 2008

Body and senses “Every touching experience of architecture is multi-sensory; qualities of space, matter and scale are measured equally by the eye, ear, nose, skin, tongue, skeleton and muscle. Architecture strengthens the existential experience, ones sense of being in the world, and this is essentially a strengthened experience of self.”

The traditional Japanese Gardens frames a collection of objects and has given inspiration to gardening design all over the world. Here, the gardens finest job, is to provide a Zen for the mind, and within a smaller enclosed place it becomes a universe for saturating the senses.

“Stepping stones set in the grass of a garden are images and imprints of footsteps. As we open a door, the body weight meets the weight of the door; the legs measure the steps as we ascend a stairway, the hand strokes the handrail and the entire body moves diagonally and dramatically through space.”

The tactility of the enclosed space inside the love hotel, will give a full sensory experience for sensual erotica, desire and memory. The body’s meeting with the force of different materials provide a diversity of seduction. The relation between bodies and material becomes a beautiful harmony, inspiring and activating new reflection in each other.

29 Juhani Pallasmaa ‘The Eyes of the Skin’

Thames Barrier Park, London. By Patel Taylor in 2001

Underground city near Tungkwan in China.

This park is a highly considered project; a garden as a modern reinterpretation of the English garden maze. It is designed so one is given no choice but to follow the narrow paths perusing the gardens flow. It later emerged, that although designing a beautiful but mundane park, the instinctual human desire has transformed it into something else. The park’s wavy shapes provide refuge to a vertical pocket which enclosure the couple to enjoy each other through sex.

From the book “Architecture without Architects, by Bernard Rudofsky

Japanese photographer Kohei Yoshiyuki’s series on ‘The Park’.

Lotus Temple by Japanese architect Tadao Ando.

This series introduces the sexual activities in parks in Tokyo’s 1970’s night lift. In the photographs one can see voyeurs, people watching couples having sex. It’s a game and the risk is the fantasy; the fantasy of ‘who is watching who?’.

This project is an underground sanctuary and situated beneath a round lotus pond. It is a fascinating approach to how architecture and nature can work together in the finest detail and with a careful respect for the Japanese landscape.

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“I believe that sensory pleasure should take precedence over intellectual pleasure in art and architecture”

Thoughts on the Garden

The Geometric Gardens by C. TH. Sørensen, Herning (DK)

Inverse tower in the garden Quinta Da Regaleira, Portugal

Also knows as the ‘Musical Gardens’ for its fine rhythm in the geometry. The idea is quite simple, as it starts out with the triangle, follows the square, the pentagon, hexagon, meeting the circle, for creating nine spaces. Paths are created as sight lines through a narrow openings giving an introduction to the next space.

The “tower” is a 27 meters staircase that leads down underground and connects with other tunnels via underground pedestrian paths. It appears as a journey of rebirth for meeting the garden at the end of the tunnel.

Folly in Doddington’s garden, United Kingdom 2007

Le Corbusier, 1929-31 , Walls Against Paris: The Rooftop Garden of the Charles de Beistegui Apartment

The folly in general is a type of pavilion without any particular function, but to be a decorative monument in the garden stating a relation between building and landscape. It provides shelter, and it is said that folly, comes from the ancient word ‘folle’ meaning ‘lewd, unchaste and wanton’ giving a retreat for lovers.

The medium high walls framing the view of Parisian monuments, such as the Eiffel Tower and the Arc de Triomphe, reads as a paradoxical space, where the fake Rocco interior has been invited outdoor. This project, marks an important triumph in political architectural history.

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NARRATIVES

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Escape

“Gardens hidden in towns can be striking through the contrast to their urban context. There is the pleasure of discovery for a visitor. There is also the enjoyment of a detailed knowledge of the fine grain of a city, where hidden areas can be returned to and be absorbed into the patterns of daily life.�

35 Captured Landscape - the paradox of the enclosed garden, Kate Baker Image from databases online

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Tsunami “Aftermath of the 2011, Great East Japan Earthquake and tsunami of Ishinomaki, Miyagi 3.277 people dead, 428 still missing (15.880 dead across Japan) 22.357 buildings destroyed 7298 households requiring temporary housing The damage from the earthquake was largely experienced in the form of human casualties and the flooding (30% of the lowland areas were flooded)�

37 Facts from lecture at Ishinomaki 2.0 group, in Ishinomaki Images from databases online Images from Ishinomaki Itopia

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Hostess clubs

39 Images from databases online Images from Ishinomaki Itopia

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Love hotel thematics

41 Images from databases online

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DESIGN STRATEGY

Japanese wood block technique was first seen in the very early 1600’s, and had taking its inspiration from the Chinese stone cut. The Japanese then found that much finer details could be expressed if using the easiest accessible material for them: the cherry wood. This type is very strong in its fibers and can preform a sharp cut without breaking or compressing fibers. Its hardness would allow the artist to detail fine hairlines that would even be difficult to paint with a brush.

The first prints were a monochrome black indian ink, with only one layer. It wasn't till the 1700’s that artists started experimenting with more then one color. By planning more then one wood block layer by layer, more colors could be added. It was a challenge, as getting the layers to match up, was a precise art. A print could then be created by using 5-7 wood blocks.

Using the different layers gave the artist another gift aside from the colors: they discovered how to express distance in their paintings. Within the portrayed landscapes they added a perspective that would then tell a narrative in the background and the foreground. Subjects for painting were unusual compared to the typical subjects of these prints around the world. Elements of nature would often be used for describing the mood of a place. Rain, wind, snow and mist would be the artists finest way of detailing and expressing the reason for the print.

Shunga prints were firstly understood as a an ancient form of porn or erotic art, and it is, but when looking closer into the buildup of the print within the background and the foreground there will be hidden objects that will be sending an more important signal then the act of sex. It could be the print of her kimono, his way of hair binding, the cleaning lady next the the couple begging for be a part, the landscapes view through the window, or even, taking place in a tea house as a rendezvous in secrecy.

44 A selection of cherry wood blocks carved with motives. Each block stands as a fragment in it self, but come together in a synthesis when all layers has been added to the paper.

Wood cut Art As a strategy for using the technique, I intend to work with the wood cut art as the artist of the Ukiyo-E movement used them. As the wood cut print materialised once all layers have been collated, I intend to use the fragmented motives in layers by naming them with functions related to the proposal.

I will use this technique of layering as a representational tool, through models and drawings.

Working with this additive approach enables distinct programmatic and site elements to be juxtaposed/collaged together, simultaneously creating and exploring spatial and functional relations.

The method will be used as both an analytical tool for understanding the perception of the city and a design a tool for developing the proposed park and love hotel.

By comparing each layer in this craft technique with a scalar layer within the project, a synthesis of space will appear. The bodily experience will be the primarily focus of the design. The layers in themselves are not understood as anything functional when seen as fragmented pieces, but the juxtaposed collage creates a synthesis for the desired experiences.

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woodcuttechnique p

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e

t

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unpredictable a e s t h e t i c

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p l a n n i n g

b o d i e s

s t r a t e g y

t a c t i l i t y

p o l i t i c s

s e n s e s

t s u n a m i

materiality

Strategy

Operating within following methodological framework, this project will be closely aware of the existing and propositional scales. I intend to use the possibilities that arrise in the scale of the city, that of the building and of the body; they each have an individual narrative where the close scale of tactility will be fully exposed.

Working with drawings in the scale of 1:5000, I intend to explore the relation between the park and the city.

Though working with models in 1:200 I will be exploring the juxtaposition between nature and the machine: the park meeting the love hotel. Drawings will support this scale, to express the process and future of the site.

1:5 - 1:1 models relating to the body and senses for exploring the relationship between two bodies and their sensory relationships with materials and space.

I propose to work primely with models, supported by drawings and text.

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APPENDIX

Bibliography Kate Baker, Captured Landscape closed garden, Routledge, Taylor

The &

paradox Francis

of the enGroup, 2012

Juhani Pallasmaa, The Eyes of the Skin, John Wiley & Sons, 2005 Alberto

Pérez-Gómez,

Built

upon

Love,

MIT

Press,

2008

Robert Venturi and Denice Scott Brown, Learning from Las Vegas, MIT Press, 1972 Heike gros

Munder, Museum

The Garden of Forking Paths, für Gegenwartskunst Zürich &JRP-Ringier,

Mi2011

Bernard Rudofsky, Architecture without Architects,The museum of Mordern Art, New York, 1965 Francis

D.

Ching,

Form,

Space

and

Order,

Wiley

&

Sons,

2007

Kim Ikkyon, The Cultural History of Sexual Infrastructure, (Unknown Japanese), 2012 Italo

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Calvino,

Invisible

Cities,

Vintage,

1997

“They tell this tale of its foundation: men of various nations had an identical dream. They saw a woman a woman running at night through an unknown city; she was seen from behind, with long hair, and she was naked. They dreamed of pursuing her. As they twisted and turned, each of them lost her. After the dream they set out in search of that city; they never found it but they found one another; they decided to build a city like the one in the dream. In laying out the streets, each followed the course of his pursuit; at the spot where they had lost the fugitive’s trail, they arranged spaces and walls differently from the dream, so she would be unable to escape again.”

51 Italo Calvino, Invisible Cities

Ishinomaki: CITY OF LOVE

Trine Bacnh Møller PA:CS 2016