Editorial

The traditional Japanese toilet, according to novelist Jun�ichiro Tanizaki, was a place of spiritual repose. In his book on Japanese aesthetics, �In Praise of Shadows�, Tanizaki recounts how a fellow writer considered his morning trips to the toilet as a "physiological delight." "And surely there could be no better place to savour this pleasure," he notes, "than a Japanese toilet where, surrounded by tranquil walls and finely grained wood, one looks out upon blue skies and green leaves� No words can describe that sensation as one sits in the dim light, lost in meditation or gazing out at the garden."

Tanizaki concludes that in sharp contrast to Westerners, "who regard the toilet as utterly unclean and avoid even the mention of it in polite conversation," the Japanese sensibly realise that, "in such places, the distinction between clean and unclean is best left obscure, shrouded in a dusky haze." Of course the aseptic ambience of Western bathrooms, all bright lights and white tiles, belongs to a very different concept of hygiene where the unclean is sharply delineated from an ideal purity.

Not unlike an incriminating corpse, excrement conceals a guilty secret: something has been killed, eaten and then destroyed through digestion. To avoid being publicly associated with the evidence, we build separate rooms so we can be alone when we dispose of the body. Whatever the sources of our uneasiness, our attitudes towards excrement generate concrete consequences. It is just one example of our obsessive desire to separate the pure and impure.

This issue of �Building Material� has sought essays and work that might reinforce the body and cultivate our ability to resist the discourses that repress it. An emphasis on the value of the body is essential to the production of a rich and delightful architecture.

UPCOMING BUILDING MATERIAL no.9

Building Material no.9, May 2002, will focus on architectural competition entries, in particular unpublished, unpremiated work. In seeking these, it is Building Material�s intention to uncover work that was, and remains important to the architect, but was not, and never will be, built.

Building Material invites readers wishing to submit work to prepare the following:

• A brief written description (max. 400 words) of the competition entry outlining its aims.
• A3 hardcopies of relevant images/ drawings.
• Scanned images/ drawings on ZIP disc/ CD formatted for AppleMac and scanned as a TIFF or J.PEG image in Grayscale and in 300 dpi resolution.

Those wishing to submit work before 11th May can contact Peter Carroll, editor at: [email protected]