The Japan Institute is the visionary cultural arm of the Portland Japanese Garden. This afternoon, in their Living Traditions series, they bring Yuko Hasegawa, Shohei Shigematsu, Dorothée Imbert, and moderator Ken Tadashi Oshima to discuss the aspirational role of the built environment.
The American relationship with land and building is framed by the great frontier, manifest destiny, Transcendentalism, and landscape as a manifestation of a god. I often recommend the Great Frontier by Walter Prescott Webb to explain it. Those ideas informed the great Western expeditions, including photographers like Timothy H. O’Sullivan, Carleton Watkins, and others. Law and land ownership are prime. With so much land, inspiration and care is confined to islands and instances, parks. The dark side is represented by Interior Secretary Watt. His belief in the pending apocalypse required maximum exploitation at maximum speed of all public lands.
Japan has a different vibe. Shinto spirits inhabit the land. Japanese care and aesthetics inform building and placemaking on land. Small farms are supported. There are, of course, industrial sacrifice zones. Maybe America can learn from Japan.
Thus, A Conversation on Art, Architecture, and Landscape unfolds this afternoon https://japanesegarden.org/events/living-traditions-2024-creative-forum-pdx/ at W+K 224 NW 13th. Doors 3PM, talk 3:30, reception 5. Free (Sold out, wait for the video)
