Structure of National Aesthetics: What Beauty Means to Nation ?
The first Abe cabinet held high a policy banner saying "Beautiful Japan" and perished like a cherry blossom. Then the book "The Aesthetic Tone of Nation (Kokka no Hinkaku)" by a reputed Harvard grad mathematician Fujiwara criticized US as the ugliest country while Japan the most beautiful. (Ironically Chinese represent US with two letters meaning Beautiful+Country.) Forty years ago, Yasunari Kawabata won the Nobel Prize in literature and made the award lecture titled "Beautiful Japan who made me (Utsukushi Nihon no Watashi)" and perished himself with gas four years later after Mishima who had committed Harakiri to questing Beauty of Nation, while Kenzaburo Ohe who won the same prize twenty years later made the speech titled "Delirious Japan and me" How do you define aesthetical quality of a nation? In the near past, so many unstained beautiful youths perished themselves for Beautiful Nation. It wasn't by terror nor money that made the total mobilization possible, but dedication to invisible/ intangible sublime total. That is the source of Fascio. Since 311 triple disasters, Japanese bureaucrats have campaign "Cool Japan", meaning ??? They started using light blue, Columbia college color, yielding Japanese historical trade hot red color to Korean.
Opening Address:
Daisuke Hirose (GSAPP, Studio-X Tokyo Director)
Keynote:
Kunio Kudo (GSAPP, Professor of Architecture)
Guest Discussant:
Tom Henegan (Professor of Architecture,Tokyo Art University)
Tsuyoshi Matsuhata (Architect, Architectural Critique, Tokyo University of Science)
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Monday, July 22nd, 2013, 05:30 – 07:00 pm
Studio-X Tokyo (SHIBAURA HOUSE 1F), 3-15-4 Shibaura, Minato-ku, Tokyo
Schedule:
05:15 pm - Start accepting
05:30 pm - Start lecture and discussion
Theme: "Structure of National Aesthetics:What Beauty Means to Nation ? "
07:00 pm - Close
*Free and open to the public. No RSVP required.