私は長らく、関東大震災の復興住宅である同潤会アパートを研究してきた者だが、同潤会アパートは、たいていの集合住宅計画や設計の教科書に、住まいと町を総合的につなごうとした、都市型集合住宅の先駆例として登場する。そして、震災が起きるたびに、同潤会アパート待望論が出てくる。戦後、集合住宅は実にたくさん建設されてきたのだが、なぜ今に至るまで、90年近く前の例が参照されるのか？それは、同潤会アパートが「単なる住宅」ではなく、「都市居住者への総合的生活支援の場」として計画、設計されたからに他ならないからだと考えている。
戦後のほとんどの集合住宅は、まさに「住宅を集合させたもの」であって、集合住宅の中に住宅以外の要素はほとんど考えられてこなかったといってよい。人間はそもそも「住宅」にも住んでいるが、「まち」にも住んでいるものであり、「まち」とは住宅以外に人間の生活を成り立たせる、いろいろな機能を有する空間によって成り立っているものである。しかし、戦後の集合住宅に付け足し的につくられた、住機能以外のものは「下駄ばき的店舗」と「集会所」くらいのものであった。これに対し、同潤会アパートは店舗、集会所はもちろんのこと、共同浴場、娯楽室、談話室、医務室、理髪室、児童遊園、そしてあと付けではあったが保育園や幼稚園なども設備されていた。改良住宅であった猿江アパートでは、授産場が設けられ、ござ工場がつくられ、居住者がそこで働くことによっていくばくかのお給金と職業訓練を同時に手にすることができた。さらに、それらのござは当時同潤会が管理していた住宅の管理や改修に充てられていたのである。まさに、医職住を完備した都市住宅を目指していたのである。
そして住宅の面でも、家族向けの住宅ばかりではなく、「独身者」用の住宅までをも併設して供給していた。これは、被災した東京という町が、家族持ちのみから成り立っているのではなく、独身者をも含めた多様な世帯から成り立っていたので、当然と言えば当然のことであった。つまり、多様な家族を受け入れるという機能は、「まち」が本来担っていた機能であり、それを集合住宅の中に入れようとした企画は、実に画期的であり、集合住宅という建築物そのものの、都市化であったともいえよう。
こうした、都市や建築における機能論として、格段の進歩を遂げていた都市住宅の計画の領域において、戦後、内務省が建設省をはじめとする各省庁に分断されたあたりから、「建設省住宅局の仕事としての住宅」は、まちづくりや都市づくりや福祉の領域と長らく袂を分かっていたのだと、私は考えている。だからこそ、例えばいまだに、公共住宅の世界では大っぴらにSOHO（Small Office Home Office）という名の職住一体型の住宅すらできにくいということになっている。あくまでも「住」機能が主でなければならないからだそうだ。
I have been researching Dojunkai Apartment, post-Great Kanto earthquake restoration housing, for quite some time. Dojunkai Apartment appears in almost all textbooks on planning and designing of a housing complex as a pioneering example of urban city housing complex that attempted to integrate housing into a town. Every time we experience a disaster, we hear calls to bring Dojunkai Apartment back. Despite the fact that quite many housing complexes have been built since the end of World War II, why is it that this example from almost 90 years ago still gets referenced to even now? I think it is because Dojunkai Apartment is not a mere “residential building.” I think it is for no other reason but the fact that it was planned and built to be “a place to comprehensively support lives of people who live in a city.”
Most of the post-war housing complexes are literally an “assemblage” of residential buildings,” and it is fair to say the only element that was considered in such housing complexes was just housing. Human beings live in a “house” but also live in a “town,” and in addition to houses, a space that makes people’s lives work well that has a variety of functions is also part of the equation of “town.” However, what had been added to post-war housing complexes other than living functions were just a sideshow such as a store on the first floor of an apartment/condominium building or a meeting place. Dojunkai Apartment, on the other hand, had a communal bathhouse, entertainment room, conversation lounge, medical treatment room, barber shop and children’s playground, and although it was added later on, it even had a daycare and kindergarten. Sarue Apartment, which was a refurbished residential building, had a vocation aid center and a straw mat factory, where residents could make some money by working there and get vocational training at the same time. These straw mats were then used to maintain or renovate housing buildings which Dojunkai was managing at that time. They were truly aiming at becoming urban housing that is fully equipped with “I, Shoku, Jyu” or medicine, vocation and housing.
Looking at the housing aspect of Dojunkai, it even had housing for “single people,” not just for families. It kind of makes sense when you think about the fact that disaster-stricken Tokyo back then did not consist of just people with families. There were single people, too. In other words, a “town” was assuming the function of accepting diverse families by the nature of things, and the idea of attempting to incorporate that function into a housing complex was quite epoch-making. One could call it urbanization of an architectural structure called a housing complex per se.
In terms of the aspect of functionality in urban areas and in architecture, urban housing planning was showing a marked progress. Ever since the Home Ministry got segmentalized into various government agencies such as Construction Ministry after World War II, however, “housing that was undertaken as engagement by the Housing Bureau of Construction Ministry” has long gone into a separate way from community building or urban renewal and welfare coordination. That is the reason why SOHO (Small Office Home Office), where one’s workplace is integrated into his or her home, cannot even be built in the open in the world of public housing. “Living” function, according to them, strictly has to be the main thing.