Table Of ContentDissecting the Danchi
Inside Japan’s Largest Postwar
Housing Experiment
Tatiana Knoroz
Dissecting the Danchi
“Dissecting the Danchi’ takes an unusually in-depth and insightful look behind
closeddoorsofJapanesestate-subsidised,suburbanhousingestates.Thesebuild-
ingswereoncethepinnacleofmodernityandinnovation,buttheagingstructures
and their ‘unconventional’ inhabitants have long since become stigmatised and
labelledasundesirablebythemainstream.Thebookisendlesslyrichandunique
in that it combines Knoroz’ imaginative architectural perspective with the kind
of deep ethnography that many anthropologists aspire to. A brilliant bonus lies
in her unveiling of “Devicology”; a new methodology to study interior envi-
ronments more effectively and positively impact on regeneration policies. This
is a fascinating and much-needed study of contemporary Japanese homes that
willengagereadersinterestedinurbanhousingissuesworldwideaswellasthose
drawn to the complexities and ambiguities of Japanese society.”
—Inge Daniels, Professor of Anthropology, University of Oxford, Author of The
Japanese House, Material Culture in the Modern Home
“Devicology, a word that Tatiana Knoroz coined with reference to Wajiro Kon’s
notion of Modernology (ko¯-gen-gaku), might be translated into Japanese as
“inventive science” (ko¯-an-gaku): the study of ingenuous gimmicks responding
to a given situation. In this book, Knoroz traces the mixture of hope, irony, and
despairinthehistoryofdanchihousingcomplexes,butthentakesusinsidethose
buildings to reveal a new style of living—one that may no longer be hopeful,
restricted by systems that prohibit self-renovation and refurbishment, but nor
is it hopeless, based as it is on flexibility, convenience, temporariness, and low
cost. Such lifestyles are filled with the wisdom and universal ingenuity that keeps
reappearing throughout human history.”
—Kiyoshi Sey Takeyama, Architect, Professor Emeritus of Kyoto University
“There is a purist position that architecture is unable to solve social problems.
Disprovinganysucharchitecturalautonomy,TatianaKnorozshowsinDissecting
the Danchi how Japan’s model minimum dwelling, the 2DK apartment—assem-
bledintodanchi,thepostwarlow-rise“newtown”developmentsbuiltaroundthe
nation—has been solution, problem, and now a type with an ambiguous status
in Japanese society. At a time with a renewed interest in government support
of progressive housing, the book thankfully illuminates a key area in the history
and present reality of Japanese housing that is unfortunately far overshadowed
(at least in English-language sources) by a focus on pristine and extreme private
houses. The danchi is dissected indeed, with valuable insights from vernacular
responses to climate, the economics of building height, the pathologizing of
danchi in Japanese films, to fieldwork with present-day danchi residents. The
architect-anthropologist Wajiro Kon, an influence on Knoroz, felt it was critical
to listen directly to the people you were designing for. Knoroz’s work reveals
that even if listened to, it can be difficult to get residents to speak, a challenge
provoking her exploration of multiple approaches to engagement, helping us
better understand danchi life, and more generally, a challenge of participatory
housing design.”
—Casey Mack, Architect, Author of Digesting Metabolism
Tatiana Knoroz
Dissecting the Danchi
Inside Japan’s Largest Postwar Housing Experiment
Tatiana Knoroz
Kyoto University
Kyoto, Japan
ISBN 978-981-16-8459-3 ISBN 978-981-16-8460-9 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-16-8460-9
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Acknowledgments
ThisbookwouldnotbepossiblewithouttheunwaveringsupportofProf.
Thomas Daniell, who in the past three years took my understanding of
Japanese architecture to a whole new level and gave countless advices on
academicwriting.Hishelpwithtexteditingandwordsofencouragement
is truly invaluable. Thank you for generously sharing your time with me
and I hope we will be able to work together again in the future.
Many thanks go to Prof. Gaia Caramellino, who introduced me to the
topic of Japanese housing back in 2017. As an expert in the history of
postwar mass housing, she patiently advised me on the methodology for
the initial stages of my research. Although we couldn’t meet in person
most of the times, our video meetings meant a lot for my work.
I am indebted to Yohei Suzuki and his friends, who were helping me
throughout my entire fieldwork process in Ibaraki Prefecture, as well
as Ren Naka, who traveled from Tokyo to interpret the interviews and
assistedwithfilmingduringmysecondsitevisit,andPavelIo,whokindly
helped me with translating and transcribing the interview videos and
recordings. Conducting fieldwork in a foreign language is an exhausting
task and I couldn’t have done it without you all. I also would like to
thank all the danchi residents who agreed to show their apartments and
give interviews, which wasn’t easy for many of them. I do not mention
theirfullnamesanywhereinthetextandsomenameshavebeenchanged
completely to protect their privacy.
v
vi ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
SpecialthanksgotoKenichiYoshinagaforagreeingtosharehisprofes-
sional insights on danchi, as well as allowing me to reproduce the danchi
plan drawings from his Danchi zukai book and the photographs of his
renovations. Moreover, I would like to thank Mitsuhiro Sakakibara from
RAD for connecting me with Mr. Yoshinaga, and for his brainstorming
suggestions that guided me during the development of the new inte-
rior analysis method. I am also very grateful to Asako Yamamoto for her
interview about municipal danchi renovation in Kyoto.
MydeepestgratitudegoestoShigeruMatsumoto,thevicemanagerof
Uzo¯ Nishiyama Memorial Library, who passionately shared his knowl-
edge of Nishiyama’s research and gave permission to reproduce rare
photographs and drawings from the archive to illustrate the book. Simi-
larly, I would like to thank Ko¯ichi Tanohata from UR, Mr. Tanaka from
Wajiro¯ Kon Memorial Archive in Ko¯gakuin University, and Souta Mori
from nmstudio architects for the images copyright permissions.
Some sections of this book have grown out of my papers published
in Strelka Magazine, Log 51 and Optimistic Suburbia 2 Conference
proceedings. I would like to thank all the editors for their insightful
comments.
Last but not least, gratitude beyond measure goes to my husband Ian
forhiscontinuoushelpwithinterpreting,handlingimageusepermissions,
copyeditingandsolvingtechnicalissues,aswellasemotionallysupporting
me throughout the entire book writing period. The world pandemic has
been a huge challenge with many plans and aspirations shattered, but
thanks to you I could always feel I am not alone and succeed in finishing
this work.
Introduction
Japanisoftenportrayedasacountrywhererobots,crazygadgets,cutting-
edge engineering, and million-dollar corporations elegantly coexist with
centuries-oldculturalheritageandstrikingachievementsincontemporary
art,design,andfashion.Theconsistencyofthisgloballyestablishedimage
isquiterecent;infact,itisanartificiallyachievedresultoftheCoolJapan
campaign started in the 1990s that attempted to compensate Japan’s
industrialeconomiclosseswiththeassertionofsoftpowerthroughmedia
export and cultural dissemination (Sugimoto, 2014). While you might
findallofthepromisedtechnologicaladvancementsandother“coolness”
when visiting the most popular neighborhoods of Tokyo, day-to-day life
in other parts of Japan is still full of twentieth-century remnants. Many
shops, supermarkets, and fast-food chains only accept cash payments.
Opening a bank account without a custom-made personal stamp might
turn out to be harder than storing all of your money under a mattress.
Receiving any kind of governmental service requires a stack of filled
out forms and certificates, and some important correspondence can only
happen by fax or postal mail.
Outside of Shibuya’s and Shinjuku’s skyscraper districts, Japanese
urban environments can also be strikingly retro. Leaving the centers
of big cities will get you immersed into faceless rows of cookie-cutter
townhouses occasionally pierced by dusty shops with outdated electrical
appliances, and faded posters featuring smiling candidates of municipal
elections from ten years ago.
vii
viii INTRODUCTION
Fig. 1 Wakamiya Danchi, drone footage by Yohei Suzuki, 2017 (Source cour-
tesy of Yohei Suzuki)
If you wander around those suburban areas long enough, you will
surely stumble upon neighborhoods consisting of uniform gray concrete
apartment blocks which may remind of Soviet khrushchevkas—one of the
most famous postwar housing typologies. Thousands of similar projects
were built all over Japan from the 1950s and into the late 1970s to solve
the housing crisis which took place in the aftermath of WWII. Origi-
nally celebrated by the public as a highly desirable living environment,
danchi are currently becoming a popular backdrop for contemporary
horrormoviesandasourceofvariousproblemsforthelocalgovernments,
just like their prototypes in Europe (Knoroz, 2019).
With monotonous concrete slabs sometimes arranged into enclaves or
small satellite cities (Figs. 1–2), these multi-story mass housing estates
were designed and constructed by the local municipalities and the semi-
private Japan Housing Corporation (JHC) as a partial solution to the
INTRODUCTION ix
Fig. 2 Wakamiya Danchi, drone footage by Yohei Suzuki, 2017 (Source cour-
tesy of Yohei Suzuki)
postwar housing crisis. Despite the small number of completed danchi,1
clever advertising campaigns and publication in popular media increased
their impact on residential design, domestic culture, and the establish-
ment of a Japanese middle class (Nietzel, 2016). Their architecture was
directly inspired by European and Soviet2 modernist housing models,
with one significant difference: as they were intended for short-term
tenancy, the units had comparatively small floor areas. Every danchi
dweller was assumed to be saving to purchase a house, thereby freeing
theirapartmentforthenextpersontotakeastepupthe“housingladder”
promoted by the Japanese government (ibid.).
11.13 million units were built between 1955 and 1983 (A Quick Look at Housing in
Japan. 1985. Tokyo: Ministry of Construction), and as of 2015 there were more than
750,000 rental units managed by the Urban Renaissance Agency alone (“Profile of UR”,
Urban Renaissance Agency, https://www.ur-net.go.jp/profile/english/pdf/profile_en_all.
pdf).
2Read more about the Soviet influence in Chapter 2.
