In 2021, the DOCOMOMO Online School focused on in-depth research on urban modern heritage and its relation to Japanese culture. People have lived and will continue to live in modern neighbourhoods and sites that represent 20th century urban heritage. Daikan-yama Hillside Terrace in Tokyo, is such an example of a modern architecture and urban masterpiece, designed between 1969 and 1992 by Pritzker Prize winner Fumihiko Maki (1928). Through studying this masterpiece, we learned that modern architectural heritage is not just a symbol or an object frozen in time but a collective form still active, that must be woven into history and context to ensure its future.
Faced with the COVID19 pandemic challenges, in 2020 the DOCOMOMO Student Workshop had to be postponed and was transformed into the Online DOCOMOMO School. It will offered an intensive 10-day online program organised around teams of international tutors and students. Students in Tokyo serving as physical sensors identified connections to the context and the urban fabric that enabled the International Students to weave them into their designs. It lead students to explore and experience together the meaning and significance of conservation and preservation of 20th century cultural heritage.
Fumihiko Maki, who was a member of the seminal post-war architecture movement Metabolism, played a prominent role in the Online DOCOMOMO School Tokyo 2020+1. Maki provided theoretical content, while his office made available the background information necessary to understand the Daikan-yama Hillside Terrace site that adjoins the historic Asakura House of 1919.