Tetsuo Kobori

Architects

Journal

Addis Ababa

The experience of leaving my body and dancing until midnight at Azmari Bet, a bard’s pub was an intense sensation that made me forget everything. The sound of the masenqo, a single-stringed bowed lute of Ethiopia, the unique dance rhythms like jellyfish that continuously rocked my body and joints, and the resonance of physical dancing in the dimly lit, crowded, thin air gradually put me in a trance. Just when I thought it was almost over, the rhythm picked up again, and for two hours straight, I drank a distilled spirit called Arak. Addis Ababa is located at an altitude of over 2300 meters above sea level, so it was hard to breathe. It is Azmari Bet that pushes me over the limit.

At noon, we had a meal at Tafari’s house, and at the end of the meal, we had coffee, which is the same as the Japanese tea ceremony culture. At first, we were served with injera, a crepe-like dough made from fermented rice flour, in which beans, meat, and vegetables are stewed and wrapped. The coffee we were served after the meal began with a charcoal fire, followed by roasting the green beans in a clay frying pan, grinding them in a small mortar called a mukeccha with a stick through the beans, and pouring it into a round-bottomed pot with hot water. Bathed in frankincense smoke, I drink a small cup of  Tena Adam, an herb with a strong aroma, steeped in coffee. The taste is a refreshing yet clean blend of coffee and fresh herb, with no bitterness at all.

Yesterday, at the Little Ethiopia, a restaurant in Yotsugi, Tokyo, cultural anthropologist Itsushi Kawase told me about the ritual of inviting spirits into a space through that suffocating, frankincense smoke that I felt in Ethiopia.

Let’s return to the story of Addis Ababa. At noon, Sachiko Nakajima and I went to Fendika, a very pleasant place with a series of irregularly sized spaces that looked like an extension of a barracks (crowded at night with Azmari Bet and live music venues, but a place for children by day), where there were many children and we measured and sketched together. The kids insisted on drawing with the mysterious orientalists, and they were very creative, trading pens and paintbrushes, and the sketches were finished in no time at all. Melaku Belay, the owner of Fendika, was a street child but was saved by growing up in a place like Azmari Bet. He told me with passion that this is why he keeps this place going. He also said that he is an Architect. It was a survey that made me feel with my body that Africa has an origin of life beyond my imagination.

アジスアベバ

アズマリベット(吟遊詩人酒場)で深夜まで踊った体験は、身体を預けることで何もかも忘れてしまう強烈な感覚だった。マシンコ(エチオピアの弦楽器)の音色、独特な身体や関節を連続的に揺らすグラゲダンスのリズム、密で薄暗く薄い空気の中、肉体的な踊りの共鳴で、だんだんとトランス状態になっていく。終わるかな?と思うとまたレベルが一段と上がるリズムと勢いで、2時間ぶっ通し、アラケという蒸留酒を飲みながら、アジスアベバは標高2300m以上の土地なので息も苦しく、限界値を超えていく感じがアズマリベットだ。

昼タファリさんの家で食事と最後コーヒーを頂いたがこれは日本の茶の湯文化と同じだ。最初はインジェラという稲科の粉を発酵させて作るクレープのような生地で、豆や肉や野菜を煮込んだものをインジェラで包んでいただく。最後の方、コーヒーは炭を焚くことから始まり、土のフライパンで生豆を煎るところから始める。その後小さな「ムカチャ」と言われるすり鉢で豆を棒を刺しながら挽き、丸底のポットにお湯と共に入れる。乳香の煙を浴びながら、小さなカップに「テナ・アダム」という香りが強烈なハーブをコーヒーに浸して飲む。味はスッキリとした中にもコーヒーと爽やかなハーブがブレンドされて、苦さは全くなく、とても美味しい。

昨日は四つ木のリトルエチオピアで文化人類学者の川瀬慈さんから、この息苦しさと乳香の煙によって精霊を空間に呼び込む儀式のことや、空間の密度が高くないと来ないので、光や匂い、煙、意識を空間にいっぱいに満たさないといけないことなど教えてくれた。

中島さち子さんと昼にバラックが増築したような不定形の大きさの空間の連続がとても心地よいフェンディカ(Fendika、夜はアズマリベットやライブハウスで昼は子供達の居場所)にいくと、子供達がたくさんいて、一緒に実測とスケッチをした。子供達はペンや絵筆を取り合って不思議な東洋人?と描きたい!とすごいクリエイティブなパワーで、あっという間に仕上がった。フェンディカのオーナーのメラク・ベレイさんは小さい頃孤児?だったがアズマリベットのような場所で育って、救われた。だから私はここを続けていると熱量を持って語ってくれた。自分はアーキテクトだとも。ますますアフリカが自分の概念を超える生命のオリジンが存在することを身体で感じた調査だった。

The fear of eternity

I look up at the giant statue of Ramses II from below. The muscular arm and the powerful calf, the gaze watching far of the statue are intriguing. The Temple of Abu Simbel was built by Ramses II and is a rock cave temple made of hollowed out sandstone, also known as “Nubian Ruins”. On the almost square facade, there is a statue of a giant god sitting on four chairs, one of which is Ramses II. Since I came to Egypt, my image of the Egyptian gods changed little by little, and I began to think that architecture began with the fear of human eternity.

Once inside the temple that is dyed in golden and pink, probably because of the color of sandstone, the space is designed to force visitors to pass by the statue of Ramses II, pass through three spaces, and reach the final space. I guess that the composition that converges into a small space as I go deep is because I think that a small place is suitable as a place to protect the king from fear.

永遠という恐怖
巨大なラムセス二世像を下から見上げる。筋肉が発達した上腕、力強いふくらはぎ、遠くまで監視するような眼差しは恐ろしい。アブシンベル神殿はラムセス二世によって建造されたもので、「ヌビア遺跡」とも呼ばれた砂岩をくり抜いた岩窟神殿だ。ほぼ正方形のファサードには四体の椅子に座った巨神像があり、その一体がラムセス二世である。エジプトに来てから、私のエジプトの神々に対するイメージは少しずつ変わり、人間の永遠に対する恐怖心から建築が始まったと考えるようになった。

神殿内部に入ると、砂岩の色なのだろうか、黄金色とピンク色に染まっている。ラムセス二世像の横を通り、三つの間を抜け、最後の空間にたどりつくように設計されている。奥へ行くに従って小さな空間へと収束される構図は、小さな場所こそが王を恐怖から守るべき場所としてふさわしいと考えてのことだろうか。

Architecture eternity

Along the desert of the city of Meidum, which is located downstream of the Nile, a square Mastaba (a rectangular tomb in ancient Egypt) appeared in one corner. The stereotyped idea that the pyramid is a triangle was broken. It is said that the triangular pyramid collapsed into this shape, but it is more powerful than the triangular pyramid. Looking at the crumbling Meidum’s Mastaba and the steps of Jewel’s Pyramid, I felt that the admiration and cravenness for challenging the architecture limits must have driven the people who built it. How to express eternity in architecture? It is an eternal yearning for those involved in architecture.

建築の永遠性
ナイル川の下流にある街・メイドゥームの砂漠を行くと、その片隅に四角いマスタバ(古代エジプトの長方形の墳墓)が現れた。ピラミッドは三角形だという固定観念はここで見事に崩された。三角形のピラミッドが崩れ落ちてこの形になったと言われているが、むしろこの方が、三角形のピラミッドより迫力がある。崩れかけたメイドゥームのマスタバやジュゼル王の階段ピラミッドを見て、建築への憧れと挑戦が、建造した人々を突き動かしたに違いないと感じた。永遠性を建築としてどのように表現するかーー。それは、建築に携わる者にとって永遠の憧れである。

In search of the beginning of architecture

I traveled to Egypt!
The reason I go on a journey is because I want to immerse myself in the essential joy of architecture and feel the beginning of architecture in that place. I believe that it will lead to understanding the true meaning of architecture, and the true relationship between humans and architecture, and nature and architecture.

建築の始まりを求めて
エジプトを旅した。旅に出るのは、遥かなる時を超えて建築の本質的な喜びに浸り、建築の始まりを感じたいからだ。それは、建築がもつ真の意味、そして人間と建築、自然と建築の真の関係性を知ることにつながると考えている。

 

 

My Spot

My Spot, Winter Kitakama Ridge

“Harmonization of Spirit, Mind and Body is what a human being should be” said mountaineer Reinhold Messner.
“Survival is adventure” said Tsuneo Hasegawa.

On the following day of when Hasegawa got lost in UltarⅡ and came to know Messner’s words, I headed to Northern Alps.I directed myself from Kamikochi to Mount Yarigatake, then arrived at Karasawa in the night.
After getting some water from mountain guards, I pitched a tent in scree, then I saw countless stars made up milky ways and shooting stars in the heavens. Wind was blowing harshly, I went in my tent, lighted a lantern, then relief and warmth had me fall asleep instantly.

In the next morning I went to Northern Hodaka, and it was after two days that I arrived at Mount Yarigatake with going through the deadly Daikiretto Ridge in the midst of Typhoon. Overwhelmed by the view of sky and transformation of the beam of clouds, I felt a lump in my throat and just sank down. By that climbing I certainly became a part of nature and was bitten by the bug of experience of space filled with beam, wind and rocks. As my soul, intelligence and body were exposed to bare natural environment, I came to know clearly what survival means, the weakness of body as well as the sensation of inner calmness.

Later, I met a genius mountaineer D, he taught me the stance of examining things deeply, and steep winter Kitakama Ridge route. Loved Kitakama to the end, D is still sleeping somewhere in Kitakama which he loved the most saying “leave me alone”.

This photograph was taken from a spot height when I climbed Kitakama, I took a lot of photographs aiming to capture the space of complete silence caused by tensed white snow, where the beam was varying constantly.

Now I am estranged from winter mountains, but suddenly the memory with mountaineer D and the atmosphere I felt in Kitakama in that winter crowded in on me when I was privileged to write this essay.

The daybreak from ebony to dark blue, my heart was leaping up “Oh, this could be so called space, thank you D”

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