Personally, I haven't involved in design, so I felt obstacles and invisible walls to "design." I've found it difficult for the ordinary people to talk about it. But lately I've met many designers then have begun to understand that obstacles has been fading.

When I saw people trying to understand what it would be like to have something like this in their daily lives, and what society and communities should be, I see that design has been already there. In a broad sense, I think we are involved in a part of design every day.

With that in mind, even people who have never played baseball can enjoy talking about baseball at an izakaya. I feel that if the design becomes the same, it will be an interesting world. If you can take the process of "consulting with a designer" when you want to realise what you like, you will be able to realise even more ideas.

This time, we interviewed about "ZINE", which anyone can freely express in the form of a book. No hierarchy was there among who is a designer but who isn't. Then I felt that there was already a wonderful sight there, it was beautiful. (T.Sasaki)

Building tools, houses, and cities with your own hands.

2M26 is a design art unit centered on Mélanie Heresbach and Sébastien Renauld. After receiving an architectural education in France, they came to Japan because of their interest in Japanese architecture, and based in Kyoto, they are doing very unique activities on the boundary between architecture and art. They build architecture and furniture with their own hands. Moreover, most of them are made of solid cedar, which is available at home-cente that are generally available, and processed only with their own hand tools. Of course, they may just be pursuing what they find purely fun, but that approach is also a kind of critical attitude towards contemporary architecture or modern society, as well as the ancient Japanese architecture. Then we might ask ourselves about the sustainability and the need for proper time for natural materials and their use. Why can't we do the same?

At the request of the Hiroshima City Museum of Contemporary Art, they are currently holding a workshop in a public space using a toolbox, a set of mobile furniture-making tools and materials, and a small house (which itself is also an art piece) to house it. They are working on a project to create a temporary museum in the city as a satellite of the Hiroshima City Museum of Contemporary Art, which is closed. In October 2021, the first workshop, which had been postponed after the pandemic, was finally realized. We talked to them at the workshop held in the Green Zone of Peace Boulevard in Hiroshima.

We asked how are you trying to find the goodness (beauty) of Japanese architecture in the present age? We also asked to talk about this toolbox project with the Hiroshima City Museum of Contemporary Art. They often use the word "joy". Is it joyeux in French? Through talking with them, I think that the "making something by yourself" that modern people tend to forget is resonnated to the original "joy" and environment of human beings.

Do you know zine? They say it comes from the word, "magazine". In fact, the definition is very vague, but in general it seems to refer primarily to small, manually edited booklets. Therefore, it is not properly distributed and will not appear on Amazon. On the contrary, it can be said that the rarity is high. It's also worth noting that it's packed with little worlds that bring the creator's personality to the fore. In other words, you'll meet zine once in a lifetime. Dense time and energy invite you like a magazine black hole in the palm of your hand.

One of the connections of zine lovers is growing on the island of the Seto Inland Sea. It is a place where counterculture meets island life. We felt the magnetic force that something interesting was happening on the quiet island of the Seto Inland Sea, so we visited the site and talked to them. 

The destination is Kurahashijima. The venue for this event is the large hall of "Seaside Katsuragahama-so", which is located at the tip of the beautiful beach "Katsurahama", which can be reached in less than an hour by car from Hiroshima. It was  the second time for this "Gozen de ZINE" exhibition/project. We visited there and we were like "What's this, what's zine?" then people welcomed us, Mr. Amamoto who launched STORBRIDGE to make Kurahashijima a richer and more enjoyable place, and runs "Seaside Katsuragahama-so" and "seaside cafe ALPHA", Mr. Kobayashi, who is a key-person of this ZINE event, also he owns a fermented food brand called "pukupuku", and Mr. Sekiura of "Sekiura Design" which helps their activities from the standpoint of design, branding, and direction, and Ruriko Sekiura, who runs a bagel and sweet shop called "bono bake". There was a healthy atmosphere in which people from various backgrounds shared joy while being inspired by the charm of this land and digging up what they were interested in each other. This "Gozen de ZINE" is one of the attempts. It was the experience they showed us a glimpse of a dazzling alternative world for a person like us, who is completely immersed in a modern society that is rushing somewhere. If possible, we would have liked to see the calm sea of ​​Katsurahama from the hall forever.

We enjoyed the zines lined up onto "gozen", which is a kind of Japanese style tray with 4 legs, then asked their thoughts on each zine at the cafe on the first floor. As a matter of fact, We overheard a lot of interesting stories not only ZINE topics but also about their rich activities for Kurahashi islands before turning on the mic and camera, which means that those topics couldn't be covered enough here and we thought we'd have to revisit them someday. 😅

本や映画パンフレットを、読んだり観たりした内容からそのデザインを考えてみる。
illustration and text by Maiko Teramoto

Miyukibashi Nishizume-dori, which is located slightly outside the center of Hiroshima City and goes straight to National Highway No. 2, is a mixture of old and new buildings, and a somewhat vague and unreserved cityscape continues. The distinctive architecture that suddenly appears in the landscape is the main character of this story. The corners of the building, set back slightly from the road, have been trimmed, and the polyhedral façade is boldly made entirely of glass sashes. Why is there a huge glass wall on this side? Despite being known to be filled with strong sunset light.

This is the building where Hiroden Plaza (a subsidiary of Hiroshima Electric Railway Co., Ltd.) is located. By the way, plaza is a word that has its etymology in Latin, which means a plaza where people in the city gather. I remember when I first saw this building, which was connected to the bowling alley next to it (the white box-shaped building on the left side of the photo) by a bridge, I thought it was somehow out of place. This was because I felt a sense of discomfort with the potential of this architecture and the current somewhat quiet cityscape. The corners of the building, set back slightly from the road, have been trimmed, and the polyhedral façade is boldly made entirely of glass sashes, albeit facing west.

There is an expression of a critical attitude towards some kind of modernist architecture called brutalist. One of the architects who showed that attitude was Alison & Peter Smithson from England. The Economist Plaza (Economist Building) in London is one of their masterpieces. When I saw this Hiroden Plaza, the first thing which came in my head was the appearance of the Economist Plaza. An office building containing a magazine company called Economist, a residential tower, and a commercial facility are built as separate buildings, and the footsteps are a plaza open to the people of the city. It could be a shortcut, a place of relaxation, and a plaza where people literally come and go. I secretly think that this architecture is conscious of the appearance of the low-rise building of Economist plaza. The original Economist plaza was completed in 1964. This building was completed six years later.

This Hiroden Plaza building is also just across the street from the former Hiroshima University, and is just a stone's throw from the former Faculty of Science Building, which is still being as an A-bombed building. It must have been a cityscape full of students at the time of completion. That is why the client must have planned a student plaza with a bowling alley at its core.

However, after that, the university moved, and the surrounding area was filled with condominiums and middle-rise buildings with stores on the first floor and residences on the upper floors. There is a lot of traffic, but it is no longer a hangout for people. Perhaps if there was still a university here, and if it was a plaza crowded with students, this glass architecture would surely show its potential as a cafe or restaurant. It seems that the façade, which has become the norm to be blocked by blinds and curtains, quietly tells a slightly sad story of architecture that was at the mercy of the changing appearance of the city with the times.

むしろ世界は、その片隅にある。

写真では多くが、いわゆる被写体が主になるように、画面の中にある。そのように世界が写真の中に収まる。 でも、世界って、そうなのか？ 

目の前の見るともなく見ていて全て分かっていると思っている風景の隅で、 実は何かが起こっているのではないのか。あるいは、画面の大半を占めているものよりも、その中の小さな点が、大切だってこともあるかも。 そういうふうに世界を見たい。 むしろ世界は、その片隅に、何かが起こっているはず、なので。Photo and text by Maiko Teramoto

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