Takafumi Hara /Uragawara

“Little beehive”

In 2003, when the Hussein statue has been torn down by American army, I stayed at
Gropiusstadt. During my stay I looked around the new town and saw the most of it. New towns in the world, being built as the symbol of their age, are often stranded when the time changes. I have also lived for ten years in a relatively newly built new town called Tama in Japan.

On the one hand new buildings were still being erected, but on the other the old ones turned to ruin and together with the aging society problem progressing. Led to a state, when I gradually began to feel anxiety towards that town. That is why before I came to Gropiusstadt in Berlin. I was a little bit prejudiced. But during my stay there I felt the pleasure of this isolated world. I felt as if Berlin were a big forest, with this “Little beehive” inside it. While walking through this forest, I ran across that beehive, which seemed to me to be distancing itself from the outside world. Both Japanese and Berlin new towns seam cold and artificial. That is why, focusing on the people who live there, I would like to make a project with the same theme in both town.