ABSTRACT
The author argues that the foregoing statement by Isozaki in turn best describes the twofold character of not only Kikutake's works, but also Megastructure proposals of Metabolism in general. That is to say, through their Megastructure, Metabolists undeniably contributed valuable feedback to urban theories grown out from the major shift from CIAM to Team X of the international context, while their theories were also tightly related to postwar Japanese discussions on the role of tradition in architecture. Although the concrete form ( katachi )—the Megastructure form—they proposed was finalized in an essentially Western way, the conceptual foundation of their works—or to say their hypothesis ( ka )—was indeed incontrovertibly Japanese. Thus, it is reasonable to think that in Metabolism, Megastructure stood not simply for the ideal city vision according to modern Western tradition, but also it aimed to incorporate a part of the Japanese cultural tradition.
