Devices and Notions of Japanese and French spacialities and temporalities

Organizer: BONNIN, Philippe, Visiting Research Scholar

　The following team research project of one year at Nichibunken in Kyoto focuses on the analysis of concepts and devices constituting spatiality. The present analysis is related to both cultures; Japanese and French.
　The project proposes to define precisely the heart of those spacialities (central notions and devices) and arrive at a jointed explanation (instead of a self-centered one).
　The main axis of these studies aims at considering a variety of views and the very differences that they expose. Each scholar will express in his own language how he/she reads each constituent (notion, concept or emblematic device) of spatiality. Supported by robust studies, of a concrete as well as a universal type, taking into account the specific ways of generalization, proper to each of the two cultures, this team project should allow us to engage in debate the differences concerning basic principles as well as the differences in terms of scientific procedure and methodology. Reports made by joint French-Japanese teams would be particularly welcome.
　The different notions in question will be studied in their historical depth, in order to point out and to compare the epistemological and fundamental differences between housing and spatiality in Japan and in France, but furthermore to consider them in a more prospective way in their present realizations. Each study should retrace the history of these notions and their first occurrences, their etymological origins, their following uses and developments, their best expressions in architectural space (place and date of these buildings have to be precisely indicated).
　The idea of a crossed observation supposes to go beyond a naive comparison, or to avoid a vain assessment of the incompatibility of cultures. Consequently the use of the two languages French and Japanese is necessary, considering that the words do not have the same meaning in both languages, but beside that, that language is not only a medium but at the same time instrumental in forging the concepts. Above all, in this intercultural dialogue, each scholar from both the Japanese and French sides will have to take into account and recognize that our methods and ways of thinking are mainly different and that these differences —without overstressing them— are even the subject of our questioning.