Architecture as the Ethics of Climate

This book explores the notion of climate itself, its relationship with human culture, and its significance to architecture and urbanism by referring to the environmental philosophy of Tetsuro Watsuji, a leading thinker of modern Japan.

Jin Baek teaches theory and history at the Department of Architecture and Architectural Engineering of Seoul National University. His research focuses on environmental ethics, cross-cultural issues that exist between East Asia and the West in both architecture and urbanism, and the cultural significance of urban regeneration.

Introduction 1. Tetsuro Watsuji's Notion of Fudo and Its Cultural Significance 1.1 Beyond Heidegger's Dasein 1.2 What is Fudo? 1.3 Ex-sistere and Reflection 1.4 Beyond Regional Determinism 1.5 Ethics of the Inter-personal 1.6 Inter-Fudos and the Subject transcending the Insularity of a Fudo 2. "Self-less Openness" and Fudo: Renewed Sustainable Significance of Japanese Vernacular Architecture 2.1 Criticism of the Traditional Japanese House 2.2 Corridor and Individualism 2.3 The Wall, Fan and the Wind Conduit 2.4 "Self-less Openness" of Japanese Vernacular Housing 2.5 Modernity and the Duality between the Inside and Outside 2.6 Joint Measure and the Spatiality of Japanese Vernacular Housing 2.7 From Collectivity to Privacy 2.8 Contemporary Fudo-sensitive House 3. The Ecology of "We" and Ambient Warmth: Richard Neutra's Ecological Architecture 3.1 Beyond Psychoanalysis and Positivism 3.2 Coordinated Balance of Different Forces 3.3 Anchorage and the Coordination of Forces 3.4 Illumination 3.5 Warmth and the Inter-personal in Japanese Tradition 3.6 Facing and the Ecology of "We" 3.7 Ecos and the Inter-personal 4. Dialectics between the Regional and the Trans-Regional 4.1 Fudo and Beyond Critical Regionalism 4.2 Criticism of Regionalism 4.3 Fudo and the Resuscitation of the Corporeal Efficacy of a Code 4.4 Fudo and the Dialectics of Opposites 4.5 Dialectics of Opposites and Human Praxis 4.6 Beyond Regional Confines 4.7 The Regional and the Trans-Regional 4.8 Type and Differences Conclusion Index