Place in Fiction

The project explores fiction and literature as a representational method for idea conceptions, architectural solutions and most importantly, a critique on complex issues in society. Overlaying Murakami's critique of the post-modernist Tokyo and Tchorek's Theory of Place, 'useless' architecture is drawn to question the notion of utility in Tokyo.

Mariusz Tchorek’s Theory of Place defines Place as a 'sudden gap in the utilitarian approach to the world'. To interrogate this concept within the context of fiction, Murakami's 1958 novel 'Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World' is chosen as the speculative literature to examine, question and challenge the excessive pursuit of utility. The project examines the phenomenon of hikikomori in Japan through the lens of Murakami's novel as he takes readers through the dystopic technological Tokyo and its fictionalized critique of modern Japanese business culture. The novel is re-narrated architecturally, allowing the various complexities and themes that form the ‘places’ to emerge in fragments, leading to provocation as readers inhabit these re-presented ‘places’. These are then transcribed into three sets of triptychs that draw on the parallel post-modernist themes of the 1980s, such as the invasiveness of technology, erosion of the self and the mind, and dystopian utopia where an individual's worth is measured in utility. By drawing from Murakami’s literature and Tokyo, culturally, geographically, and chronologically, the project traverses the gap between fiction and reality, leading to a more nuanced understanding of the hikikomori issue. The maps drawn reveal the routines and patterns of these social recluses in the city, enabling architectural intervention to uncover the hidden. Consequently, the project proposes seven architectural follies in a fictionalized Tokyo, aiming to create a constellation of gaps in the hyper-utilitarian universe of the city. These follies are drawn out in correspondence with Murakami’s characters, narrative structure, and plot, offering a set of ‘useless’ un-programmable spaces that through mere exposure and tectonic composition, invite the possibility of connecting the hikikomori with the broader society. In its background, the project raises questions about architecture’s responsibility to communities that resist ‘treadmill’ capitalism.