A frontier within
Architect
Arata Isozaki

IEtsuko Takano has created “a frontier within” a cultural space in Tokyo. This is how I view the relentless activities of Iwanami Hall for half a century period. The Frontier Within (Uchi naru henkyo) is originally the title of Kobo Abe’s essay. Foreseeing the global cultural circumstances, he imagined a situation where a totally unique culture was to be born, just like Creole culture created in the colonial period by the chemistry between an indigenous culture and modernism, the core of modernization meant to control the world with the banner of universality.
Events of the cultural space in Tokyo were, for example, the underground movement in the 60’s and setting up a base on a frontier outflowing from the center in the 70’s. In the 80’s, artists drifted as images overflew. In such a process, Iwanami Hall beaconed like a lighthouse even though it was a tiny and shabby. It was a core, small but hard, created by Etsuko Takano. At Iwanami Hall, I watched Alexander the Great directed by Theo Angelopoulos, bringing my lunchbox. I watched Fu Rong Zhen by Jin Xie twice. Needless to say, I watched all of the films of Andrzej Wajda shown there. I felt as if I became a frequent visitor to a seedy outlying theatre. (Later on, I realized what mattered to a platform was not the size of it but the intensity of it during my visit to Krakow, an ancient capital where Mr. and Mrs. Wajda had home and a small theatre to present dramas.) Also, The Trojan Women directed by Tadashi Suzuki, played by Hisao Kanze and Kayoko Shiraishi, was put on the modest stage of Iwanami Hall, which has become a legendary performance in the dramatic circles over the world. Although I witnessed many times Kanze’s beautiful performances of Noh play, his standing pose on this stage at Iwanami Hall was deeply burnt into my memory. The essence of Zeami’s “Senuma (a pause)” was there in his play, and that was shown in a small hall of Iwanami Hall as “the frontier within” of Tokyo.
Etsuko Takano also arranged my meeting with Andrzej Wajda on the occasion of his visit to Japan for receiving the Kyoto Prize. He decided to utilize the reward to build “Centre of Japanese Art and Technology” in Krakow. Andrzej relied upon Etsuko. Further fund-raising was required. It was about building a cultural institution crossing over a conventional boundary. It resembled filmmaking. The starting point had to be out of the reach of the governing party dwelling in the center of a state. Andrzej established a culture in Krakow as a fringe of the world by supporting “Solidarity” of Lech Walesa. Likewise, I decided to back up Etsuko’s project as an architect living in the Japanese Islands. I attended the opening ceremony of the Centre of Japanese Art and Technology with her and had the honor of shaking hands with the then President Walesa who was one of the prominent guests at the ceremony.
Now that information goes viral all over the world in an instant, we can enjoy the same culture wherever we are. For this reason, a new cultural space can be created only in a frontier in my opinion. It can be literally geographical frontier where a unique cultural identity is developed. Furthermore, it can be the constant creation of “a frontier within” a big city, by which implosion will be induced and change will be brought about across the world art and culture scenes. To me, Etsuko Takano’s challenges at Iwanami Hall seem to be such a new model that I meant. A will of one human being kept the movement alive. Where did the determination come from? Kobo Abe who authored “The Frontier Within” spent his early years in Manchuria, and so did Etsuko Takano. They repatriated to Japan in their youth when the war was over. They were people who came from the frontier.