2017 Volume 82 Issue 739 Pages 2295-2304
The commemoration of specific people and events has been one of the important role of architectures in society since a long time ago, as Adrian Forty, who is a famous historian states that “The creation of buildings for commemoration is one of the oldest purposes of architecture. The expectation that works of architecture can prolong collective social memory of persons or events beyond the mental recollections of individuals who knew or witnessed them at first hand has been a regular feature of architecture since antiquity, ···” in “Words and Buildings: A Vocabulary of Modern Architecture”. In contemporary architectures the memorial architectures are built with the purpose of the commemoration. Here we aim to illustrate contemporary Japanese architect's thoughts on the commemoration by investigating design theories of the memorial architecture.
Initially several descriptions about the architect's intention in designing the memorial architecture were extracted from each design theory. First these descriptions were analyzed by applying the method created by Jiro Kawakita, and were classified into two meaning ; one is the meaning proper to commemoration, which contains “expression of the commemoration object” and “transmission of the commemoration object”, the other is the meaning attendant on commemoration, which contains “relationship with local society”, “relationship with surrounding environment” and “relationship with interior capability”.
Secondly the combination of these meanings in each design theory was studied. Then following characteristic design theories were found ; the design theory in which an intention about the meaning attendant on commemoration is described and the design theory in which both intentions about the meaning proper to commemoration and intentions about the meaning attendant on commemoration are described.
Thirdly several descriptions about the way to represent the architect's intention were extracted and analyzed. The descriptions of the representation were abstracted into two different level ; the level of object to represent and the level of character of the object. Then the object to represent was classified into “whole” and “part”, and the character of the object was classified into “shape”, “color - material”, “composition” and “scale”.
Consequently, the relationship between the architect's intention and its representation were analyzed, and following characteristic relationships between the architect's intention and its representation were found ; the meaning proper to commemoration and “part”, the meaning attendant on commemoration and “whole”.
