"I've been thinking lately about what I can leave for my son. According to geneticists, there is nothing more important to humans than genes. So it doesn't matter if 'I' disappear from the world one day, because I did the work of transportation, and 30 years ago I passed on my genes to my son. My son became 'me', so that I would once again become young and experience the vast expanse of life again. It's awesome to think about. ”
This is a passage that 80-year-old Masayuki Kurokawa once wrote in his blog. Masayuki Kurokawa named his blog "Mandala Kiyuki", which refers to the place where all sages and merits converge; Kiyuki, or Yuki. A well-known Architect and Product Designer in Japan, Masayuki Kurokawa's work is listed as an important collection by the Museum of Modern Art in New York.
The 1930s and 1940s were crucial for the Japanese design community, with Masayuki Kurokawa, Tadao Ando, and Kazumitsu Tanaka all born during these 10 years. The Kurokawa family is a famous family of architects, Masayuki Kurokawa's father is an architect and former head of the Tokai branch of the Japan Architectural Association, and his brother is Noriaki Kurokawa, one of the "Three Masters of Japanese Architecture".
It is rumored that Kurokawa Masayuki, who has the same taste in dressing as Jobs, is very fond of Issey Miyake's black clothes – but he has made some modifications to this statement, "I not only wear Issey Miyake, but recently I also like China's 'single farmer'." Branding is not really important, black clothes can give me a sense of security. Because I'm not an important person, I hope you don't pay attention to me."
At the opening of the flagship store of Beijing's Tetsupin Qiao Fu Fangcaodi, Masayuki Kurokawa delivered a speech entitled "East Asian Culture and Life", and he looked far younger than his actual age. From the beginning of the impact of the earth's crust and the formation of mountains and rivers, the East Asian aesthetic concept slowly unfolded in front of such a huge world.
Masayuki Kurokawa's book Design and Death always appears on the recommended list of design books, in which he explores the relationship between design and life, desire and death. But the contrast is that Kurokawa Masayuki is not a serious person, his "naughty" reputation is well-known, and it is said that his favorite is to "say hello" to young girls. The day of the meeting with Fika was set in the suite of the design hotel, and Masayuki Kurokawa looked at the photo and asked worriedly, "Is it okay if the background of the photo is the bed?" There was a twinkle in his eye, and there was no difference between him and a teenager who had successfully played a prank.
In 1967, Masayuki Kurokawa graduated from the Faculty of Architecture at Waseda University and began running his own studio, with his initial project focusing on pure architectural design. Perhaps deliberately trying to distinguish himself from his brother Noriki Kurokawa, the shift took place in 1974 when the 37-year-old Masayuki Kurokawa won the German iF Award for the first time for a group of product designs called "GOM", one of the world's most famous modern industrial design awards.
GOM is pronounced similarly to "rubber" in Japanese, and this group of works is indeed a cross-material work made of black rubber combined with stainless steel metal. At that time, Kurokawa Masayuki observed that the wheels of motorcycles can reduce bumps on potholed roads, so he believes that this soft material, like human skin, can provide soft protection for hard metals. Later, the series was placed in the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art in New York.
The 1970s, when Masayuki Kurokawa began to receive world-class awards, was a period when the Japanese economy began to take off.
At this time, the Japanese gradually emerged from the post-war depression, and the affluent life prompted the demand for more convenient and personalized products. In the broader context of the times, in the mid-20th century, the concept of modern industrial design arose in the Western architectural world, and designers began to listen to the needs of users and create daily necessities adapted to the electrified society.
As a result, a series of innovative classic products and ideological theories were produced during this period. For example, the architectural ideas advocated by Kurokawa Kijo changed from the previous "metabolic theory" to the "symbiotic ideas" that were more suitable for modern society, and he also completed a masterpiece in this period, one of the most well-known capsule hotels in Japan, the "Ginza Nakagin Cabin Building".
The Irony cast iron jug is also one of the most widely known series of all Kurokawa Masayuki's product designs. Sand mold cast iron itself records the evolution of iron, forming a time imprint that is both rough and beautiful on the surface of the iron. The black cast iron retains a secret solemnity like death, and the heat that rises when the water boils and the constantly rolling bubbles give it a warm sense of life.
In Kurokawa's view, all life comes from chaos. Whenever chaos is explained, Kurokawa Masayuki likes to talk about the example of the screen. The blank part of the ancient screen represents a restrained, light oriental aesthetic, and Kurokawa Masayuki attributes this unknown to "chaos". Just like the "one yuan" mentioned in the Taoists, or the state that was not completely understood before Pangu opened the world, the ambiguous space that can be imagined is the most wonderful. On the other hand, if everything is too clear, it is a loss of beauty.
Masayuki Kurokawa hopes to guide people to think about chaos and even life and death through his works. So in his opinion, the design is thoughtful, not a simple graphical arrangement. He didn't like things that were too entertaining because that was too shallow.
But Masayuki Kurokawa doesn't like to force his design style with masterpieces, and he feels that people are always looking for new and interesting things. In this environment, design also becomes utilitarian, with the sole purpose of facilitating consumption. Behind the "masterpieces" and "best-selling models" is usually the pandering to the market, and Kurokawa Masayuki feels that compared with the design itself, the aesthetic concept of the world and life is the core of his own creation
As a member of the Kurokawa family of architects, Masayuki Kurokawa believes that he has inherited a lot from his father, not only as an architect's DNA, but also with open-mindedness about death: his father had planned many things after his death before his death, and even wrote a message to the guests attending the funeral while he was still in good health. As meticulous as the placement of the spirit plaque, the production of sacrificial supplies, and the arrangement of the lounge, Kurokawa Masayuki's father jokingly discussed with everyone, "Where will I stand to give a speech when the time comes."
"Such a cute joke as 'where to stand at my own funeral' is probably only my father can say," Kurokawa Masayuki quipped, "With such a father, maybe after I become an undead, I will also intervene in my son's funeral arrangements." ”
In 2014, Masayuki Kurokawa made a tea room in Tianjin called "Yumetei-an", which he himself said was a new building that was divorced from the creative thinking he had so far made. "However, if you look closely," Kurokawa Masayuki paused, "and when I was 25 years old as a graduate student, I proposed the same project idea as when I applied to the Kaufmann Foundation for project fees." It seems that I had formed my existing creative thinking in my twenties, but it must have been quietly lurking before that, deeper in my mind. ”
The men of the Kurokawa family are more or less alike, and after the death of his father, genes remain in Masayuki Kurokawa's body and become a part of him. Perhaps a family of architects, Masayuki Kurokawa discovered his youngest son's strong interest in architecture during his sophomore year of college. "He also finally met the architect family gene in his DNA," Masayuki Kurokawa told his wife at the time.
Masayuki Kurokawa began to pass on his family's genes and connections to his children, but they didn't buy it very often. For example, the younger son could have entered the research office of Japan's top architect Shigeru Ban by virtue of his family connections, but he eventually chose a professor who was not very famous. Even this made Kurokawa Masayuki unhappy—when he was young, he avoided the research office of Takasumasa Yoshisaka, the most famous of waseda's department of architecture at that time, because he did not want to be a teacher, although when he entered the school, his family had asked Professor Yoshisaka to take more care of Kurokawa Masayuki.
"I want to explore the design side independently, and my son may really inherit it," but Kurokawa Masayuki did not forget to mend the knife: "Although this child has been chasing the fart worm behind the children since kindergarten." ”
Kengo Kuma occasionally shows envious applications when he talks to Masako Kurokawa about the parenting sutra, because the daughters of the Kuma family will not be so much like their fathers. Kurokawa Masayuki comforted and said, "Kumasang, sons and daughters are not the same", while it is difficult to hide their happy emotions.
Masayuki Kurokawa is like a father, and his son is like Masayuki Kurokawa. Masayuki Kurokawa inherited his father's serious blood and flowed seriously in his body, and sometimes he looked at his son's serious look and felt like a child's grandfather. "Probably I have finally completed the work of passing on from ancestor to grandson," he would think secretly.
"Seeing my recent photos feels like my father, and I really want to see my father and mother again recently, and I want to thank them for the chromosomes they gave me." The trip with my son was enjoyable. My second wife and I also had two children, and after some things we never saw each other again, we will meet again before we die. Aimless life, but also want to live again in a mess. Such Kurokawa Masayuki has used the phrase "living in a mess" many times in interviews to describe himself.
This interview has been around for a long time, but I can still often think of Masayuki Kurokawa in his lectures. At that time, he stood in front of a huge projection curtain, behind which were the impact of the earth's crust, the formation of mountains and rivers, and the chaos of the universe. In this long process, human beings are too small and too lonely. This is the fate of the Kurokawa architect family, and the fate of every life born in chaos. Recognizing the beauty of death may be a blessing for us, and in the process of constantly practicing with death, invisible fears become no longer huge.
Caption photo: Xia Shuliang
Image: Masayuki Kurokawa's official website, Tetsushin; some of the content is from "Mandala Kiyuki" and ZEAL PRODUCTION STUDIO