Chatting with architect Masataka Banno.

I enjoy talking about various projects.
Usually when people build a house, they build it with social aspects, such as livability with their family or balance with their neighborhood.

But things are different when it comes to the villas of the rich.
It is said that when a villa is built in a scenic or, in some cases, secluded location, the very person of the client himself will come out with a bang. LOL!
It is said that everything about a person, from his or her background to the sense of style he or she has developed in choosing that location, will appear.

Mr. Banno likes to look at maps on Google earth, and from various angles, he looks all over the terrain and related roads and roadless paths. He dreams about what he can see and what he would like to see from that location. It’s interesting.

No other creature on earth lives in defiance of nature as humans do.
Even if we talk about living in harmony with nature, we have to clear the land, do the foundation work, pour concrete, and erect reinforcing bars.

Plant hunter Seijun Nishibatake once served as the front of a lecture given by his architect counterpart. At that time, I was interested in what he had to say.
When you design a house, do you know the nature of the land you are building on? Or do you build from talking to the client?”

I think everyone who was listening was a bit nervous. Mr. Seijun believes that buildings should be designed with nature in mind, and I think that is the right attitude.

Man is a product of nature, but he became anti-nature in the making of civilization. That is not a bad thing; the process of urbanization has created civilization. That is why there is almost no nature in the city.

When building a structure, there is always this confrontation with nature. Because we are creating something anti-natural, we cannot do it without knowing the nature there. Without this kind of rhetoric, I don’t think first-rate buildings can be created.
Oh, that was a great warm-up for my brain!

◆ Reference
This is a dialogue from two years ago.
The Secret of Life! How to live in the present? That’s all.”
Masataka Banno, Architect x Jun Fukuda, Consultant
http://talked.jp/68/