Diane Arbus
"Identical twins, Roselle, N.J.1967"
An Aperture Monograph

It happens not only in the architecture that the act of all expression usually starts with formulating an overall picture of itself. Architecture could be the best example and therefore various techniques have been created to define this overall outline since the beginning of its history. Most of them belong to the proportional theory and they are mostly based on human scale and create proportional ratio mathematically. However there is a man who make an objection against this integrity. It is Hiroshi Hara, who’s been leading the architecture and advocated that method, “from parts to the whole” in his book, “ what is the architectural possibility” 30 years ago. At that time, it was Le Corbusier who support Hara’s idea. In the Modernism Architecture, proportional theory had been criticized and the concept “form follows function” becomes the back born of it. I could understand at that point. However, Corbusier himself is a flame keeper of theory of proportionality among modernist. Needless to say, “Modurole” is his comprehensive survey of the theory of proportion He thought that the whole thing in the architecture should be determined in the scientific way, for he’s been trying to be a scientific and modern people. On the contrary, he developed “ the five theories for modern architecture “ as the way how to make all the parts of architecture separately.

By the way, for me, the theory of partial architecture is very attractive, since the architecture itself has an unique characteristic , so to say “ Nai-gai-sei” (my original word). “ Nai-gai-sei” means that architecture has both outside and inside, unlike sculpture and this double aspect emphasize all parts of the architecture.

We can look over an integrity from outside easily, but it is difficult from inside. Once you enter inside, you wouldn’t figure out the integrity, with quickening of the senses by parts. I think architecture has such a relationship with people. It means that expressional intensity, which account for approximately half of architectural experience, exist themselves.