Dogs and Demons_ Tales From the Dark Side of Japan - Kerr [110]
Tokyo has added the biggest behemoth to its extensive stable of white elephants. The Tokyo International Forum, beloved of world architectural critics for its curving glass walls following the train tracks near Tokyo Station and for its tall atrium, was completed for ¥165 billion in January 1997. It opened with a high occupancy rate, having rented out its meeting rooms to municipal agencies celebrating its completion. But within a few months occupancy had sunk to below 30 percent, with no hope for a revival in sight. Lovely though the atrium is, there was no need for it in the first place. Although it is labeled an «international forum,» it is neither much of a forum nor international, though its upkeep is world-class: this elephant gobbles fodder to the tune of ¥4.6 billion a year. And the new Yokohama Stadium, constructed at a cost of ¥60 billion, has only one purpose-to host a few competitions in the Soccer World Cup planned for 2002. There is no long-term use in sight, and Yokohama expects maintenance fees to run into hundreds of millions of yen every year.
To make matters worse, all these halls and stadiums face fierce competition from one another. The commuting town of Sakae (population 25,000), an hour outside Tokyo, opened a multipurpose civic center in July 1995, with a hall that seats 1,500 people, welfare facilities, and a «community base» called «Fureai [Get-in-touch] Plaza Sakae.» Unfortunately for Sakae, the neighboring, even smaller towns of Inzai and Shiroi opened similar halls at the same time. Meanwhile, not far away, the cities of Matsudo, Sakura, and Narita all have big halls of their own. Sakae can't compete.
Small towns burdened with heavy operations fees turn again to mother's breast, the Construction Ministry, from which they can suckle more subsidies if they agree to build new monuments. The town of Igata is caught in such a cycle of dependency. Igata agreed to build three nuclear-power generating facilities in its environs in exchange for hefty grants (¥6.2 billion for the third plant alone). But the town used up all the money on multipurpose town halls and other facilities, so it approved expansion of the third plant in exchange for more subsidies. These did not suffice to return the village to financial health, for the cost of maintaining its empty monuments was so high that Igata exhausted the funds by 1995. Igata now has no choice but to accept another power station.
Managing monuments successfully is largely beyond the capacity of the bureaucrats who are in charge of them. In some cases, there is no choice but to give up the original purpose of the hall and recycle it. The town of Nakanita, in Miyagi Prefecture in Kyushu, led the way in the 1980s with its Bach Concert Hall, at the time the most high-tech concert hall in Japan, which today is used for karaoke contests and piano lessons.
The painter Allan West, who lives in Nezu, Bunkyo-ku Ward, in Tokyo, described his experience with a new center that opened in his neighborhood. The organizers intended to have an «international room» for crafts use by locals, so he stopped by to ask what their plans for the room were. They had no idea. He suggested that they install a printmaking press for public use, and gave them a catalog of presses. They weren't interested.
Yet they had taken the trouble to draw up regulations for the international room:
1. The room can be used only by groups of at least ten or eleven people.
2. At least seven of these people must live within a six-block area of Nezu.
3. They must pay ¥3,000