Arakawa, designer and conceptual artist, is dead at the age of 73. Arakawa created buildings the purpose of which was to stop aging and even to cheat Death. The fact that her husband died has made his widow, Madeline Gins, only more determined in her efforts to prove that “aging can be outlawed.” (NY Times, 5/20, p. A20) “This mortality thing is bad news,” Ms. Gins said.
Arakawa’s buildings are meant to keep those who use them in a constant tentative relationship with the space they are in: the floors are slanted and some have obstacles around which one must step; windows seem misplaced; many colors fight one another for dominance; light switches are not where one would expect; doors seem to be missing. The “staying young” part comes in when the user of the building is forced to be ever alert for the unexpected, just to avoid serious physical injury, and therefore becomes ever more agile and flexible.
Steven Holl, the Manhattan architect, says that the couple’s work emerges from Japanese philosophy. “It may take years for people to fully understand it,” he said.
Personally, I think the work can be understood as metaphor, as a playful expression of the wish humans have to escape mortality. I can understand the work as art, as an exhibit to experience and to comment upon. Taking one’s self out of an expected environment and being surprised by newness is always a learning experience. So it’s a nice place to visit, but I wouldn’t want to live there. The problem with Arakawa and Ms. Gie is that they wanted to live there, and they wanted others to live there–literally.
Human beings are limited in all kinds of ways. We don’t have furry skin to protect us from the cold. We can’t run fast like a cheetah. We have to eat regularly, or we perish. And in fact even if we eat regularly and well, we will one day perish. This inevitable movement towards death is undoubtedly the most formidable and fearsome of all our limitations. “It’s immoral that people have to die,” says Ms. Gins. It’s sad when people die, but it’s not immoral. It’s just reality. As the Buddhists say, “We are of the nature to get sick. We are of the nature to die.”
And as for our houses, while we are on this earth, we need a sense of place. We need to know that when we come into our home, we can reach the light switch and banish the dark. When need to know that when we step, the floor will be steady under us. So much is tentative, so much is uncertain in our world. During our time here, may we feel safe. May we be at peace in the place we call home.
