REINVENTING 
THE 
COLLECTIVE 
FOR ETHICAL 
DESIGN
The Theoretical Confluences of 
Fumihiko Maki’s “Collective Form” 
and Thom Mayne’s “Combinatory 
Urbanism”
Colleen Chiu-Shee
AR_2019_bookmaster.indb   207 19/12/2019   07:58

Confluences Chiu-Shee
AR_2019_bookmaster.indb   208 19/12/2019   07:58

209 Reinventing the Collective for Ethical Design
The 1950s and 1960s were a transitional era when the architecture field saw 
the ideological shift from principles of High Modernism to human-oriented 
concerns. The shift gained momentum in concomitance with the rise of ur -
ban design as a new academic discipline. This era also encompassed the for -
mative years of Fumihiko Maki, a globally renowned Japanese architect and 
the 1993 Pritzker Prize winner, who went to the United States to study ar-
chitecture after witnessing the post-World War II  transformations in Japan. 
Maki reflected on his life experiences and world travels during his formative 
years and consolidated his thoughts in the book Investigations in Collective 
Form (1964). Maki’s notion of Collective Form is not only a manifestation of 
his cross-cultural education and practice in architecture and urban design, it 
also includes design philosophies that have lasting impact in the fields that 
concern the built environment. Maki’s theories were influential on Thom 
Mayne, another globally renowned architect based in the United States 
and the 2005 Pritzker Prize winner. Mayne also developed his architectural 
education and practice during a transitional era with changing ideologies 
in architecture and politics. Mayne expands on Maki’s notion of Collec-
tive Form and illustrates his design philosophies in the book Combinatory 
Urbanism: A Realignment of Complex Behavior and Collective Form (2011). 
Maki and Mayne express parallel understandings of the built en-
vironment and underlying human systems that transcend disciplinary, 
cultural, geographic, and time limitations. Their discourses about the 
“collective” involve confluences in multiple dimensions: the confluence 
of design-related fields with increasing elusive boundaries of academ-
ic disciplines, the confluence of Eastern and Western ideologies, and the 
confluence of traditional and modern concerns and design methods. This 
essay contextualizes Maki’s and Mayne’s design philosophies in their for-
mative years and discusses important ideas at the confluences of their 
theories. These ideas point to an ambiguous, yet adaptive quality essential 
in their ideologies. Revisiting their notions of the “collective” unearths 
their shared sociopolitical values, centered on adaptability, sustainability 
and equity in solutions to complex societal problems. Design principles 
AR_2019_bookmaster.indb   209 19/12/2019   07:58

Confluences Chiu-Shee
and practices aiming at collective good emphasize the potential for 
design to engender social-political changes, evoke the rethinking of ar-
chitectural practice and education, and provide enduring lessons about 
design ethics for today’s diversifying fields of environmental design.
MAKI’S UNIQUE EXPERIENCE  
DURING HIS FORMATIVE YEARS
Maki is one of the few Japanese architects of his generation to receive 
deep influences from international cultures. From 1952 to 1965, Maki 
studied, taught and practiced architecture in America and traveled 
around the world, before returning to Japan and starting his own prac-
tice. Maki regards this period as his “formative years” and considers 
living in America as his “journey to the west. ” Trained mainly as a mod-
ern architect, Maki also studied urban design at Harvard University and 
taught at Washington University in St. Louis (WUSTL) during the early 
1960s. The fusion of East-West and local-global influences undergirds 
his forward-looking ideologies. His architecture integrates local cul-
tures and traditions with contemporary materials and technologies.
Maki’s academic mentors—Kenzō Tange and Josep Lluís Sert—strong-
ly influenced his views on architecture and the city. At Tange Lab in the 
University of Tokyo, Maki learned about Walter Gropius’s work at Har-
vard Graduate School of Design (GSD) through reading L ’Architecture 
d’Aujourd’hui and adopted a very rational approach to problem solving 
and form-making. In the early 1950s, Tokyo was still recovering from the 
devastation of WWII while America was rising as one of the epicenters for 
architecture. In particular, Harvard and MIT had become the birthplace of 
innovation through the fusion of various ideas transplanted from elsewhere, 
especially Europe. Later, when Maki attended the GSD, the school was 
shifting from the Bauhaus ethos under Gropius’s deanship to an emphasis 
on urbanism advocated by Sert. Maki’s studies at these two institutions are 
fundamental to his formation, during which he developed growing interests 
in “the issue of identity in a mass society and the search for ways in which 
cities might accommodate distinctive places. ”
1
 The postwar social-cultural 
conditions inspired his explorations of the relationship between architec-
ture and the city and between parts and the whole in urban complexes. 
Maki grounds his concerns about architecture and the city in human-
istic philosophies, yet his approach to addressing socio-cultural problems 
hinges on formal explorations. This approach resonates with the ethos of 
the first American school that Maki attended—the Cranbrook Academy 
of Art. Eliel Saarinen, who insists that searching for form is a fundamen-
tal approach to artful creations, designed the Cranbrook campus and 
1  Fumihiko Maki, “Exploration of Urban Design 
Language, ” Fumihiko Maki, Phaidon, 2009, 16;
AR_2019_bookmaster.indb   210 19/12/2019   07:58

211 Reinventing the Collective for Ethical Design
and practices aiming at collective good emphasize the potential for 
design to engender social-political changes, evoke the rethinking of ar-
chitectural practice and education, and provide enduring lessons about 
design ethics for today’s diversifying fields of environmental design.
MAKI’S UNIQUE EXPERIENCE  
DURING HIS FORMATIVE YEARS
Maki is one of the few Japanese architects of his generation to receive 
deep influences from international cultures. From 1952 to 1965, Maki 
studied, taught and practiced architecture in America and traveled 
around the world, before returning to Japan and starting his own prac-
tice. Maki regards this period as his “formative years” and considers 
living in America as his “journey to the west. ” Trained mainly as a mod-
ern architect, Maki also studied urban design at Harvard University and 
taught at Washington University in St. Louis (WUSTL) during the early 
1960s. The fusion of East-West and local-global influences undergirds 
his forward-looking ideologies. His architecture integrates local cul-
tures and traditions with contemporary materials and technologies.
Maki’s academic mentors—Kenzō Tange and Josep Lluís Sert—strong-
ly influenced his views on architecture and the city. At Tange Lab in the 
University of Tokyo, Maki learned about Walter Gropius’s work at Har-
vard Graduate School of Design (GSD) through reading L ’Architecture 
d’Aujourd’hui and adopted a very rational approach to problem solving 
and form-making. In the early 1950s, Tokyo was still recovering from the 
devastation of WWII while America was rising as one of the epicenters for 
architecture. In particular, Harvard and MIT had become the birthplace of 
innovation through the fusion of various ideas transplanted from elsewhere, 
especially Europe. Later, when Maki attended the GSD, the school was 
shifting from the Bauhaus ethos under Gropius’s deanship to an emphasis 
on urbanism advocated by Sert. Maki’s studies at these two institutions are 
fundamental to his formation, during which he developed growing interests 
in “the issue of identity in a mass society and the search for ways in which 
cities might accommodate distinctive places. ”
1
 The postwar social-cultural 
conditions inspired his explorations of the relationship between architec-
ture and the city and between parts and the whole in urban complexes. 
Maki grounds his concerns about architecture and the city in human-
istic philosophies, yet his approach to addressing socio-cultural problems 
hinges on formal explorations. This approach resonates with the ethos of 
the first American school that Maki attended—the Cranbrook Academy 
of Art. Eliel Saarinen, who insists that searching for form is a fundamen-
tal approach to artful creations, designed the Cranbrook campus and 
1  Fumihiko Maki, “Exploration of Urban Design 
Language, ” Fumihiko Maki, Phaidon, 2009, 16;
AR_2019_bookmaster.indb   211 19/12/2019   07:58

Confluences Chiu-Shee
largely shaped its ethos. Maki was impressed by the campus and read about 
Saarinen’s notion. Saarinen might have indirectly stimulated Maki’s curi-
osity in understanding and inventing the form of urban complexes. After 
decades of practice, Maki highlights his persisting interest in creating a 
humanistic environment through shaping spatial experiences of the users. 
This interest is central to his design philosophy of modern architecture and 
contemporary cities, which is reflected in his notion of Collective Form.
Maki’s lifelong interest lies in the confluence of place-making and 
building-making. On one hand, Maki was strongly interested in investigating 
the qualities of the built environment and the intertwined linkages between 
architecture, groups of buildings and the city at interrelated scales. On the 
other, he was enthusiastic about exploring new technologies, materials and 
morphologies to shape high-quality architecture that performs not only 
aesthetically but also socio-psychologically. In this way, his practice is both 
retrospective and forward-looking and allows considerations at building and 
urban scales to inform each other. Maki grounds his concerns in a funda-
mental curiosity about how architecture can shape sociocultural charac-
teristics of the broader human society and expresses his visions through 
inventing buildings as a formal expression and spatial intervention. Maki 
believes that his urbanistic approach greatly contributes to more diverse, 
holistic considerations about the collective than a classic modernistic design.
THE POST-WAR INNOVATIVE MODERNISTS
World War II destroyed many cities and triggered a series of rapid, 
far-reaching social impacts. A generation of innovative, young modernists 
emerged after the war, who sought to rebuild and modernize their cities after 
witnessing the destruction. Maki is one of the progressive architects who 
were greatly influenced by the Modern Movement and its post-war trans-
formations. Maki was born in the Yamanote district of Tokyo in 1928. In 
the 1930s, the Bauhaus movement entered Japan and modernistic buildings 
represented excellence in design.
2
 By the 1950s, architects who challenged the 
validity of modernism, especially modernist approaches to designing cities, 
have begun their explorations of new languages and innovative methods.
After WWII, there was an ongoing trend towards an urban focus in 
architectural discourses. The 1950s saw an increasing dissatisfaction towards 
compositional design approaches that emphasized rigid alignment of function-
al zones. Architects, especially the younger generation of modernists, prob-
lematized the simplicity of geometric rationality and shifted their attention to 
regional, contextual, and anthropological concerns. From then on, numer-
ous urbanistic explorations emerged internationally to expand the design philos-
ophies and methodologies for designing architecture and urban complexes.
2  Fumihiko Maki, Nurturing Dreams: Collected 
Essays On Architecture And The City, The MIT 
Press, 2008, 11;
AR_2019_bookmaster.indb   212 19/12/2019   07:58

213 Reinventing the Collective for Ethical Design
largely shaped its ethos. Maki was impressed by the campus and read about 
Saarinen’s notion. Saarinen might have indirectly stimulated Maki’s curi-
osity in understanding and inventing the form of urban complexes. After 
decades of practice, Maki highlights his persisting interest in creating a 
humanistic environment through shaping spatial experiences of the users. 
This interest is central to his design philosophy of modern architecture and 
contemporary cities, which is reflected in his notion of Collective Form.
Maki’s lifelong interest lies in the confluence of place-making and 
building-making. On one hand, Maki was strongly interested in investigating 
the qualities of the built environment and the intertwined linkages between 
architecture, groups of buildings and the city at interrelated scales. On the 
other, he was enthusiastic about exploring new technologies, materials and 
morphologies to shape high-quality architecture that performs not only 
aesthetically but also socio-psychologically. In this way, his practice is both 
retrospective and forward-looking and allows considerations at building and 
urban scales to inform each other. Maki grounds his concerns in a funda-
mental curiosity about how architecture can shape sociocultural charac-
teristics of the broader human society and expresses his visions through 
inventing buildings as a formal expression and spatial intervention. Maki 
believes that his urbanistic approach greatly contributes to more diverse, 
holistic considerations about the collective than a classic modernistic design.
THE POST-WAR INNOVATIVE MODERNISTS
World War II destroyed many cities and triggered a series of rapid, 
far-reaching social impacts. A generation of innovative, young modernists 
emerged after the war, who sought to rebuild and modernize their cities after 
witnessing the destruction. Maki is one of the progressive architects who 
were greatly influenced by the Modern Movement and its post-war trans-
formations. Maki was born in the Yamanote district of Tokyo in 1928. In 
the 1930s, the Bauhaus movement entered Japan and modernistic buildings 
represented excellence in design.
2
 By the 1950s, architects who challenged the 
validity of modernism, especially modernist approaches to designing cities, 
have begun their explorations of new languages and innovative methods.
After WWII, there was an ongoing trend towards an urban focus in 
architectural discourses. The 1950s saw an increasing dissatisfaction towards 
compositional design approaches that emphasized rigid alignment of function-
al zones. Architects, especially the younger generation of modernists, prob-
lematized the simplicity of geometric rationality and shifted their attention to 
regional, contextual, and anthropological concerns. From then on, numer-
ous urbanistic explorations emerged internationally to expand the design philos-
ophies and methodologies for designing architecture and urban complexes.
2  Fumihiko Maki, Nurturing Dreams: Collected 
Essays On Architecture And The City, The MIT 
Press, 2008, 11;
AR_2019_bookmaster.indb   213 19/12/2019   07:58

Confluences Chiu-Shee
From CIAM to Team 10 
Inspired by dramatic technological and social changes, the architecture 
field underwent ideological transformations during the early twentieth 
century. In 1928, a group of avant-garde architects founded the Interna-
tional Congresses of Modern Architecture (CIAM), led by Le Corbusier 
and Giedion until the 1940s. CIAM members were strongly influenced by 
Le Corbusier’s designs and theories, seeking comprehensive, urbanistic 
approaches to human environment. They gradually directed town planning 
efforts to a rigid alignment of functional zones, separating dwelling, work, 
recreation, and circulation. This movement gained momentum after the 
fourth CIAM meeting on “the Functional City” in 1933 when Le Corbusier’s 
Ville Radieuse (Radiant City, 1935 [ 1 ]) rose to be an international para-
digm, documented in The Athens Charter.
3
 After WWII, the Athens Charter 
gradually became an influential guideline for city design internationally. 
In American architecture schools, architects adopted CIAM’s mechanical 
principles that emphasized functional zoning and two-dimensional layout 
in studio teaching, including Walter Gropius’s and Marcel Breuer’s studios 
at the GSD and Ludwig Hilberseimer’s studios at Illinois Institute of Tech-
nology.
4
 One manifestation of the Functional City is the Plan for Brasília 
designed by Lucio Costa and Oscar Niemeyer in 1956. [ 2 ] The plan ex-
emplified a method of imposing order, progress and stability on Brazil’s 
new capital, aiming to establish a city based upon equality and justice.
During the 1950s, dissatisfaction with CIAM’s design principles 
increased. At the 1949 CIAM congress, Bruno Zevi criticized the dom-
inant rationalist attitudes, led by Le Corbusier, Gropius, and Giedion, 
for excluding alternative views on modern design. At the same meeting, 
Sert initiated discussions about the heart of the city. Young CIAM mem-
bers became increasingly concerned about “neighborhood, ” “cluster” and 
“association” and demanded a more organic, regional and contextual 
approach to imagining the city. At the 1953 CIAM congress, Alison and 
Peter Smithson advocated that a “hierarchy of human associations” (house, 
street, district, city) should replace principles of functional separation.
5
 
The Smithson couple and Aldo van Eyck officially formed Team 10 in 1954 
and challenged CIAM’s modernist approach at the 1956 congress. The rise 
of Team 10 ultimately led to the reorganization of CIAM in 1959. Team 
10 members aimed at “a new beginning” departing from what they had 
inherited from modernism and began searching for new design approach-
es for the “society’s realization-of-itself” through various explorations on 
urban theories and new formal languages, which were illustrated in Team 
10 Primer (1962). They emphasized the importance of human scales, an-
thropological associations, and the social complexity of a community. 
Many members visited, and taught in, American schools, such as WUSTL, 
3  Harry Francis Mallgrave, Modern Architectural 
Theory: A Historical Survey, 1673-1968; 
Cambridge University Press; 2005; chapter 14.
4  Klaus Herdeg, The Decorated Diagram: 
Harvard Architecture and the Failure of the 
Bauhaus Legacy, The MIT Press, 1985, 102;
5  Harry Francis Mallgrave, Modern Architectural 
Theory: A Historical Survey, 1673-1968; 
Cambridge University Press; 2005; chapter 14.
1  Ville radieuse (The Radiant City), 1930, 
Charles-Édouard Jeanneret (Le Corbusier)
2  The Monumental Axis in Brasília
1
2
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215 Reinventing the Collective for Ethical Design
From CIAM to Team 10 
Inspired by dramatic technological and social changes, the architecture 
field underwent ideological transformations during the early twentieth 
century. In 1928, a group of avant-garde architects founded the Interna-
tional Congresses of Modern Architecture (CIAM), led by Le Corbusier 
and Giedion until the 1940s. CIAM members were strongly influenced by 
Le Corbusier’s designs and theories, seeking comprehensive, urbanistic 
approaches to human environment. They gradually directed town planning 
efforts to a rigid alignment of functional zones, separating dwelling, work, 
recreation, and circulation. This movement gained momentum after the 
fourth CIAM meeting on “the Functional City” in 1933 when Le Corbusier’s 
Ville Radieuse (Radiant City, 1935 [ 1 ]) rose to be an international para-
digm, documented in The Athens Charter.
3
 After WWII, the Athens Charter 
gradually became an influential guideline for city design internationally. 
In American architecture schools, architects adopted CIAM’s mechanical 
principles that emphasized functional zoning and two-dimensional layout 
in studio teaching, including Walter Gropius’s and Marcel Breuer’s studios 
at the GSD and Ludwig Hilberseimer’s studios at Illinois Institute of Tech-
nology.
4
 One manifestation of the Functional City is the Plan for Brasília 
designed by Lucio Costa and Oscar Niemeyer in 1956. [ 2 ] The plan ex-
emplified a method of imposing order, progress and stability on Brazil’s 
new capital, aiming to establish a city based upon equality and justice.
During the 1950s, dissatisfaction with CIAM’s design principles 
increased. At the 1949 CIAM congress, Bruno Zevi criticized the dom-
inant rationalist attitudes, led by Le Corbusier, Gropius, and Giedion, 
for excluding alternative views on modern design. At the same meeting, 
Sert initiated discussions about the heart of the city. Young CIAM mem-
bers became increasingly concerned about “neighborhood, ” “cluster” and 
“association” and demanded a more organic, regional and contextual 
approach to imagining the city. At the 1953 CIAM congress, Alison and 
Peter Smithson advocated that a “hierarchy of human associations” (house, 
street, district, city) should replace principles of functional separation.
5
 
The Smithson couple and Aldo van Eyck officially formed Team 10 in 1954 
and challenged CIAM’s modernist approach at the 1956 congress. The rise 
of Team 10 ultimately led to the reorganization of CIAM in 1959. Team 
10 members aimed at “a new beginning” departing from what they had 
inherited from modernism and began searching for new design approach-
es for the “society’s realization-of-itself” through various explorations on 
urban theories and new formal languages, which were illustrated in Team 
10 Primer (1962). They emphasized the importance of human scales, an-
thropological associations, and the social complexity of a community. 
Many members visited, and taught in, American schools, such as WUSTL, 
3  Harry Francis Mallgrave, Modern Architectural 
Theory: A Historical Survey, 1673-1968; 
Cambridge University Press; 2005; chapter 14.
4  Klaus Herdeg, The Decorated Diagram: 
Harvard Architecture and the Failure of the 
Bauhaus Legacy, The MIT Press, 1985, 102;
5  Harry Francis Mallgrave, Modern Architectural 
Theory: A Historical Survey, 1673-1968; 
Cambridge University Press; 2005; chapter 14.
AR_2019_bookmaster.indb   215 19/12/2019   07:58

Confluences Chiu-Shee
University of Pennsylvania, Columbia University and Harvard, transform-
ing architectural education. Maki became colleagues with Jacob Bakema 
(1959-61) and Aldo van Eyck (1961-62) at WUSTL, developed friendship 
with Team 10 members and participated in Team 10’s meeting in 1960. 
Maki’s view toward modern architecture largely paralleled the group’s 
aspirations, suggesting influences from the post-CIAM humanistic turn.
Tange and Metabolism
Maki’s worldview always had a strong tie to his inherent Japanese background. 
During his formative years he maintained close contacts with Kenzō Tange 
and the Metabolists. 
In Maki’s impression, Tange was eager to experiment with new 
ideas. Tange’s lab featured a distinctive international approach to design 
and presented dual characters—an atmosphere for both art creation and 
scientific research. The atmosphere at Tange’s lab inspired Maki to fa-
vor a dynamic process of collective decision-making. Maki recalls:
The issue is always how to proceed from a blank sheet of 
paper to realization – that is, how to direct and influence 
group behavior in a concentrated and unique way toward 
a certain objective. I hold as my ideal an organizational 
structure in which the group, while centered around one 
person and one theme, is in a state of flux, pushed this 
way and that way by internal contradictions and conflicts 
of imagination. Decisions are gradually made on the basis 
of objective reasoning, as is necessary for the creation of 
something as concrete as architecture.
6
 
During the 1950s, Japan underwent rapid postwar construction. A group of 
young Japanese architects, centered on Junzō Sakakura and Kenzō Tange, 
began to explore new languages, concepts and approaches for building cities. 
The group, formed in 1958, named themselves shinchintaisha, namely, metab-
olism. In a biological sense, metabolism is the essential exchange of mate-
rials and energy between organisms and the exterior world. It also means 
to replace the old with the new. The group adopted the word to express 
their ambitions to actively, metabolically develop a city through continuous 
growth and renewal.
7
 They sought to solve urban problems caused by Japan’s 
explosive growth on scarce land through building “artificial ground” in 
the “absence of tabula rasa. ” In 1960, the group initiated the World Design 
Conference (WoDeCo) in Tokyo, aiming to introduce their forward-looking, 
urban approaches to politicians, businessmen, journalists and academics both 
within and beyond Japan. As a mentor to the Metabolists, Tange emphasized 
6  Fumihiko Maki, Nurturing Dreams: Collected 
Essays On Architecture And The City, The MIT 
Press, 2008, 13.
7  Lin, Zhongjie (2010). Kenzō Tange and the 
Metabolist Movement. Routledge, 22.
AR_2019_bookmaster.indb   216 19/12/2019   07:58

217 Reinventing the Collective for Ethical Design
University of Pennsylvania, Columbia University and Harvard, transform-
ing architectural education. Maki became colleagues with Jacob Bakema 
(1959-61) and Aldo van Eyck (1961-62) at WUSTL, developed friendship 
with Team 10 members and participated in Team 10’s meeting in 1960. 
Maki’s view toward modern architecture largely paralleled the group’s 
aspirations, suggesting influences from the post-CIAM humanistic turn.
Tange and Metabolism
Maki’s worldview always had a strong tie to his inherent Japanese background. 
During his formative years he maintained close contacts with Kenzō Tange 
and the Metabolists. 
In Maki’s impression, Tange was eager to experiment with new 
ideas. Tange’s lab featured a distinctive international approach to design 
and presented dual characters—an atmosphere for both art creation and 
scientific research. The atmosphere at Tange’s lab inspired Maki to fa-
vor a dynamic process of collective decision-making. Maki recalls:
The issue is always how to proceed from a blank sheet of 
paper to realization – that is, how to direct and influence 
group behavior in a concentrated and unique way toward 
a certain objective. I hold as my ideal an organizational 
structure in which the group, while centered around one 
person and one theme, is in a state of flux, pushed this 
way and that way by internal contradictions and conflicts 
of imagination. Decisions are gradually made on the basis 
of objective reasoning, as is necessary for the creation of 
something as concrete as architecture.
6
 
During the 1950s, Japan underwent rapid postwar construction. A group of 
young Japanese architects, centered on Junzō Sakakura and Kenzō Tange, 
began to explore new languages, concepts and approaches for building cities. 
The group, formed in 1958, named themselves shinchintaisha, namely, metab-
olism. In a biological sense, metabolism is the essential exchange of mate-
rials and energy between organisms and the exterior world. It also means 
to replace the old with the new. The group adopted the word to express 
their ambitions to actively, metabolically develop a city through continuous 
growth and renewal.
7
 They sought to solve urban problems caused by Japan’s 
explosive growth on scarce land through building “artificial ground” in 
the “absence of tabula rasa. ” In 1960, the group initiated the World Design 
Conference (WoDeCo) in Tokyo, aiming to introduce their forward-looking, 
urban approaches to politicians, businessmen, journalists and academics both 
within and beyond Japan. As a mentor to the Metabolists, Tange emphasized 
6  Fumihiko Maki, Nurturing Dreams: Collected 
Essays On Architecture And The City, The MIT 
Press, 2008, 13.
7  Lin, Zhongjie (2010). Kenzō Tange and the 
Metabolist Movement. Routledge, 22.
AR_2019_bookmaster.indb   217 19/12/2019   07:58

Confluences Chiu-Shee
his interests in the future city at the WoDeCo and presented his Plan for 
Tokyo, which featured utopian megastructures and influenced many me-
tabolists’ approaches to urban design. He lectured about “Technology and 
Man,” arguing that we would consider our cities “in the same way as life, 
as organic beings composed of changeable elements, as the cell, continual-
ly renewing its metabolism and still retaining as a whole a stable form. ”
8
In 1958, when Maki returned to Japan temporarily as a fellow of 
the Graham Foundation, he met the Metabolists and assisted the Wo-
DeCo organizers. He proposed the Shinjuku Plan together with Ma-
sato Ōtaka, who presented their ideas of Group Form at the WoDeCo. 
In the presentation titled “Cooperation of Designers,” Ōtaka stated: 
… The city is composed of countless persons, countless 
individuals; ...wealth becomes more and more concentrated, 
developed, and transformed. With regard to this dynamic 
modern city I would like to propose a method of Group 
Form… dividing the city space into two sections: the 
machine-like sections and the human sections; and also of 
dividing it into two spaces: the space for speed and the space 
for people to walk.
After the WoDeCo, Maki distanced himself from other Metabolists, fa-
voring “organic urban growth and linkage” over “master planning” 
and being concerned about the world rather than just Japan.
9
The Decline of the American City  
and the Rise of Urban Design
Maki’s memoirs often speak about the influences from his involvement in 
Team 10 and Metabolism, both of which inspired him to search for inno-
vative design principles in the 1950s. The Metabolists in Japan put faith in 
technology and proposed gigantic utopian architectural structures. Team 
10 members invited Maki to attend their Bagnols-sur-Ceze conference in 
southern France in 1960. They expressed concerns about how to effectively 
house large numbers of population, yet rejected Metabolists’ ideas of mega-
structures due to considerations of humanity and regionalism. The exposure 
to reflective, forward-looking debates at the encounter of the Metabolists 
and Team 10 members greatly shaped Maki’s design thinking at the intersec-
tions of technology and humanity, of architecture and the city, of reflections 
on history and visions of the future, and of Eastern and Western ideologies.
Nevertheless, Maki has developed his own approaches to design amid 
the then ongoing worldwide transformations of modern architecture. 
His inspirations also included some precursors’ ideas centered on form 
8  Rem Koolhaas, Hans Ulrich Obrist; 
editors, Kayoko Ota with James Westcott; 
Project Japan : metabolism talks; Köln: 
Taschen, 2011, 186-197.
9  Rem Koolhaas, Hans Ulrich Obrist; 
editors, Kayoko Ota with James Westcott; 
Project Japan : metabolism talks; Köln: 
Taschen, 2011, 295.
AR_2019_bookmaster.indb   218 19/12/2019   07:58

219 Reinventing the Collective for Ethical Design
his interests in the future city at the WoDeCo and presented his Plan for 
Tokyo, which featured utopian megastructures and influenced many me-
tabolists’ approaches to urban design. He lectured about “Technology and 
Man,” arguing that we would consider our cities “in the same way as life, 
as organic beings composed of changeable elements, as the cell, continual-
ly renewing its metabolism and still retaining as a whole a stable form. ”
8
In 1958, when Maki returned to Japan temporarily as a fellow of 
the Graham Foundation, he met the Metabolists and assisted the Wo-
DeCo organizers. He proposed the Shinjuku Plan together with Ma-
sato Ōtaka, who presented their ideas of Group Form at the WoDeCo. 
In the presentation titled “Cooperation of Designers,” Ōtaka stated: 
… The city is composed of countless persons, countless 
individuals; ...wealth becomes more and more concentrated, 
developed, and transformed. With regard to this dynamic 
modern city I would like to propose a method of Group 
Form… dividing the city space into two sections: the 
machine-like sections and the human sections; and also of 
dividing it into two spaces: the space for speed and the space 
for people to walk.
After the WoDeCo, Maki distanced himself from other Metabolists, fa-
voring “organic urban growth and linkage” over “master planning” 
and being concerned about the world rather than just Japan.
9
The Decline of the American City  
and the Rise of Urban Design
Maki’s memoirs often speak about the influences from his involvement in 
Team 10 and Metabolism, both of which inspired him to search for inno-
vative design principles in the 1950s. The Metabolists in Japan put faith in 
technology and proposed gigantic utopian architectural structures. Team 
10 members invited Maki to attend their Bagnols-sur-Ceze conference in 
southern France in 1960. They expressed concerns about how to effectively 
house large numbers of population, yet rejected Metabolists’ ideas of mega-
structures due to considerations of humanity and regionalism. The exposure 
to reflective, forward-looking debates at the encounter of the Metabolists 
and Team 10 members greatly shaped Maki’s design thinking at the intersec-
tions of technology and humanity, of architecture and the city, of reflections 
on history and visions of the future, and of Eastern and Western ideologies.
Nevertheless, Maki has developed his own approaches to design amid 
the then ongoing worldwide transformations of modern architecture. 
His inspirations also included some precursors’ ideas centered on form 
8  Rem Koolhaas, Hans Ulrich Obrist; 
editors, Kayoko Ota with James Westcott; 
Project Japan : metabolism talks; Köln: 
Taschen, 2011, 186-197.
9  Rem Koolhaas, Hans Ulrich Obrist; 
editors, Kayoko Ota with James Westcott; 
Project Japan : metabolism talks; Köln: 
Taschen, 2011, 295.
AR_2019_bookmaster.indb   219 19/12/2019   07:58

Confluences Chiu-Shee
and derived from the changing conditions in postwar American cities. 
During the 1940s, American cities were fraught with urban illnesses such 
as industrial decline, auto-dependency, urban sprawl and racial-econom-
ic divisions. The white flight had left aging urban centers congested with 
nonwhite populations prevented from moving to suburbs.
10
 Supported by 
President Truman, the Congress passed the 1949 Housing Act which made 
federal funds available for cities to clear large areas in city centers and build 
massive public housing. Redevelopments in the following years typical-
ly presented a CIAM approach or a Corbusian appearance, with multiple 
high-rise towers organized repetitively in rows, occupying giant super 
blocks merged from many existing city parcels. The Pruitt–Igoe Housing, 
designed by Minoru Yamasaki in 1950, best exemplified the modernist 
urban renewal projects. [ 3-4 ] The challenges of maintenance, crime and 
social conflict in the complex drew increasing criticism. Architectural de-
sign was blamed as a major cause. Despite the failures of such early urban 
renewal efforts, it was during the years of Pruitt–Igoe’s rise that Sert had 
become the distinguished precursor who greatly promoted urban design 
at the GSD. Since the early 1950s, Sert led discussions and design studios 
on the future of the city centers as opposed to continued suburban sprawl. 
Shortly after completing his study at the GSD, Maki went to WUSTL in 
1956 and co-taught architecture studios with Roger Montgomery, experi-
menting with designs for urban renewal. Sert’s, Maki’s and Montgomery’s 
optimism towards revitalizing American cities led to the two earliest Urban 
Design degrees in American schools: Sert founded the Master of Urban 
Design degree at Harvard GSD in 1960; Maki and Montgomery established 
the Master of Architecture and Urban Design program at WUSTL School 
of Architecture in 1961. The initial focuses in these studios were to ex-
plore city design and test solutions for realistic urban renewal projects.
Maki’s intense exposure to Western influence largely contributed to 
what distinguishes Maki from his Japanese architect peers. Under Sert’s 
deanship at the GSD, Maki witnessed the ascent of urban design in the 
architectural academic world. He was influenced by discourses from precur-
sors who rethought urban form and order in American cities. For example, 
in 1943, Eliel Saarinen proposed his vision of “organic order” and “organic 
decentralization” as the “surgical repair of deteriorated or blighted areas 
of failing cities. ” He emphasized that “the fundamental reason for success 
or failure in all town-building depends on whether or not town formation 
is based on the architectural principle of organic order. ”
11
 Maki’s notion of 
Group Form shares Saarinen’s emphasis on organic order. György Kepes 
wrote in Language of Vision (1944) that the vision is a “device of orientation” 
and “a means to measure and organize spatial events” in both physical and 
human spheres and that the vision must evolve into a language of space that 
10  Mumford, Eric Paul, Defining urban design: 
CIAM architects and the formation of 
a discipline, 1937-69; New Haven : Yale 
University Press, c2009,
11  Eliel Saarinen; The City: Its Growth, Its Decay, 
Its Future,1943;
3  Wendell O. Pruitt Homes and William Igoe 
Apartments aka Pruitt-Igoe Housing, 1954, 
St. Louis, Missouri
4  P r ui t t – I go e H ou sing
3
4
AR_2019_bookmaster.indb   220 19/12/2019   07:58

221 Reinventing the Collective for Ethical Design
and derived from the changing conditions in postwar American cities. 
During the 1940s, American cities were fraught with urban illnesses such 
as industrial decline, auto-dependency, urban sprawl and racial-econom-
ic divisions. The white flight had left aging urban centers congested with 
nonwhite populations prevented from moving to suburbs.
10
 Supported by 
President Truman, the Congress passed the 1949 Housing Act which made 
federal funds available for cities to clear large areas in city centers and build 
massive public housing. Redevelopments in the following years typical-
ly presented a CIAM approach or a Corbusian appearance, with multiple 
high-rise towers organized repetitively in rows, occupying giant super 
blocks merged from many existing city parcels. The Pruitt–Igoe Housing, 
designed by Minoru Yamasaki in 1950, best exemplified the modernist 
urban renewal projects. [ 3-4 ] The challenges of maintenance, crime and 
social conflict in the complex drew increasing criticism. Architectural de-
sign was blamed as a major cause. Despite the failures of such early urban 
renewal efforts, it was during the years of Pruitt–Igoe’s rise that Sert had 
become the distinguished precursor who greatly promoted urban design 
at the GSD. Since the early 1950s, Sert led discussions and design studios 
on the future of the city centers as opposed to continued suburban sprawl. 
Shortly after completing his study at the GSD, Maki went to WUSTL in 
1956 and co-taught architecture studios with Roger Montgomery, experi-
menting with designs for urban renewal. Sert’s, Maki’s and Montgomery’s 
optimism towards revitalizing American cities led to the two earliest Urban 
Design degrees in American schools: Sert founded the Master of Urban 
Design degree at Harvard GSD in 1960; Maki and Montgomery established 
the Master of Architecture and Urban Design program at WUSTL School 
of Architecture in 1961. The initial focuses in these studios were to ex-
plore city design and test solutions for realistic urban renewal projects.
Maki’s intense exposure to Western influence largely contributed to 
what distinguishes Maki from his Japanese architect peers. Under Sert’s 
deanship at the GSD, Maki witnessed the ascent of urban design in the 
architectural academic world. He was influenced by discourses from precur-
sors who rethought urban form and order in American cities. For example, 
in 1943, Eliel Saarinen proposed his vision of “organic order” and “organic 
decentralization” as the “surgical repair of deteriorated or blighted areas 
of failing cities. ” He emphasized that “the fundamental reason for success 
or failure in all town-building depends on whether or not town formation 
is based on the architectural principle of organic order. ”
11
 Maki’s notion of 
Group Form shares Saarinen’s emphasis on organic order. György Kepes 
wrote in Language of Vision (1944) that the vision is a “device of orientation” 
and “a means to measure and organize spatial events” in both physical and 
human spheres and that the vision must evolve into a language of space that 
10  Mumford, Eric Paul, Defining urban design: 
CIAM architects and the formation of 
a discipline, 1937-69; New Haven : Yale 
University Press, c2009,
11  Eliel Saarinen; The City: Its Growth, Its Decay, 
Its Future,1943;
AR_2019_bookmaster.indb   221 19/12/2019   07:58

Confluences Chiu-Shee
can enable humans’ sensibility to perceive space-time relationships. Maki’s 
premise for investigating Collective Form resonates with Kepes’s advocacy 
for renewed visual representation of dynamic organizations in contemporary 
cities. Maki encountered Kepes at the first Harvard Urban Design Confer-
ence (HUDC), when Kepes presented his research on the “Perceptual Form 
of the City, ” conducted with Kevin Lynch at MIT and later published as 
Lynch’s The Image of the City. The focus of the study was on human’s per -
ceptions of their relationships to the physical world. At the second HUDC, 
Kepes and Lynch together suggested that a good urban environment should 
be coherent, connected and growth-facilitating.
12
 This idea is a critical ref-
erence for Maki’s notion of Collective Form. In 1960, Louis I. Kahn lectured 
about “Order and Form” at the WoDeCo to the Metabolists including Maki. 
Kahn suggested that “design is form-making in order” which could emerge 
out of growth and support diversity and integration.
13
 Kahn’s philosophy 
connects physical form with social order and favors organic growth and 
social inclusivity. Maki’s writings cite Kahn’s work, echoing his beliefs. 
Reviewing Maki’s formative years, his academic experience, interna-
tional travels and his interactions with his international peer architects 
have played fundamental roles in shaping his distinctive characteristics 
as an architect. Maki developed unique design thinking during a crucial, 
transitioning period in modern architecture. His writings on Collective 
Form capture major debates during the ideological shift in the mid-twen-
tieth century. His theories exemplify the post-CIAM ideological break-
throughs in architectural thinking toward humanism and urbanism.
INVESTIGATIONS IN COLLECTIVE FORM (1964)
Maki’s book Investigations in Collective Form (1964) consolidates his philos-
ophies of architecture and urban design as an emerging practitioner and 
educator. One of the most memorable periods in Maki’s life was from 1958 
to 1960, when he traveled on the Graham Fellowship and retraced philoso-
pher Tetsurō Watsuji’s footprints recorded in his book Fudō (1928). Trav-
eling from Japan to Europe, Watsuji observed the monsoon region in Asia, 
the deserts in the Middle East and the meadowlands in Europe, comparing 
the three regions’ civilizations.
14
 Maki studied the formation of vernacu-
lar settlements in various climates and cultures in Southeast Asia, India, 
the Middle East and Europe. He also visited new modern cities, such as 
Chandigarh (Maki met Le Corbusier at Chandigarh). The forms and orga-
nizations of traditional settlements inspired Maki to propose the concept of 
Group Form. When Maki finished his trip in 1960, he returned to WUSTL 
and wrote an essay on three paradigms of Collective Form based on his 
travel notes, which was eventually developed into the book Investigations 
in Collective Form, published by WUSTL in 1964 and reissued in 2004. 
12  Mumford, Eric Paul, Defining urban design: 
CIAM architects and the formation of 
a discipline, 1937-69; New Haven : Yale 
University Press, c2009, 101.
13  Mallgrave and Christina Contandriopoulos; 
Architectural theory, Volumn II: An Anthology 
from 1871 - 2005; Malden, MA : Blackwell Pub., 
2006-2008; 291.
14  Fumihiko Maki, Nurturing Dreams: Collected 
Essays On Architecture And The City, The MIT 
Press, 2008, 26.
AR_2019_bookmaster.indb   222 19/12/2019   07:58

223 Reinventing the Collective for Ethical Design
can enable humans’ sensibility to perceive space-time relationships. Maki’s 
premise for investigating Collective Form resonates with Kepes’s advocacy 
for renewed visual representation of dynamic organizations in contemporary 
cities. Maki encountered Kepes at the first Harvard Urban Design Confer-
ence (HUDC), when Kepes presented his research on the “Perceptual Form 
of the City, ” conducted with Kevin Lynch at MIT and later published as 
Lynch’s The Image of the City. The focus of the study was on human’s per -
ceptions of their relationships to the physical world. At the second HUDC, 
Kepes and Lynch together suggested that a good urban environment should 
be coherent, connected and growth-facilitating.
12
 This idea is a critical ref-
erence for Maki’s notion of Collective Form. In 1960, Louis I. Kahn lectured 
about “Order and Form” at the WoDeCo to the Metabolists including Maki. 
Kahn suggested that “design is form-making in order” which could emerge 
out of growth and support diversity and integration.
13
 Kahn’s philosophy 
connects physical form with social order and favors organic growth and 
social inclusivity. Maki’s writings cite Kahn’s work, echoing his beliefs. 
Reviewing Maki’s formative years, his academic experience, interna-
tional travels and his interactions with his international peer architects 
have played fundamental roles in shaping his distinctive characteristics 
as an architect. Maki developed unique design thinking during a crucial, 
transitioning period in modern architecture. His writings on Collective 
Form capture major debates during the ideological shift in the mid-twen-
tieth century. His theories exemplify the post-CIAM ideological break-
throughs in architectural thinking toward humanism and urbanism.
INVESTIGATIONS IN COLLECTIVE FORM (1964)
Maki’s book Investigations in Collective Form (1964) consolidates his philos-
ophies of architecture and urban design as an emerging practitioner and 
educator. One of the most memorable periods in Maki’s life was from 1958 
to 1960, when he traveled on the Graham Fellowship and retraced philoso-
pher Tetsurō Watsuji’s footprints recorded in his book Fudō (1928). Trav-
eling from Japan to Europe, Watsuji observed the monsoon region in Asia, 
the deserts in the Middle East and the meadowlands in Europe, comparing 
the three regions’ civilizations.
14
 Maki studied the formation of vernacu-
lar settlements in various climates and cultures in Southeast Asia, India, 
the Middle East and Europe. He also visited new modern cities, such as 
Chandigarh (Maki met Le Corbusier at Chandigarh). The forms and orga-
nizations of traditional settlements inspired Maki to propose the concept of 
Group Form. When Maki finished his trip in 1960, he returned to WUSTL 
and wrote an essay on three paradigms of Collective Form based on his 
travel notes, which was eventually developed into the book Investigations 
in Collective Form, published by WUSTL in 1964 and reissued in 2004. 
12  Mumford, Eric Paul, Defining urban design: 
CIAM architects and the formation of 
a discipline, 1937-69; New Haven : Yale 
University Press, c2009, 101.
13  Mallgrave and Christina Contandriopoulos; 
Architectural theory, Volumn II: An Anthology 
from 1871 - 2005; Malden, MA : Blackwell Pub., 
2006-2008; 291.
14  Fumihiko Maki, Nurturing Dreams: Collected 
Essays On Architecture And The City, The MIT 
Press, 2008, 26.
AR_2019_bookmaster.indb   223 19/12/2019   07:58

Confluences Chiu-Shee
5  Compositional Form, Megaform and 
Group Form. Redrawn by author based on 
the original diagram in Fumihiko Maki’s 
Investigations in Collective Form, 1964.
Compositional Form Mega Form Group Form 5
AR_2019_bookmaster.indb   224 19/12/2019   07:58

225 Reinventing the Collective for Ethical Design
In the book, Maki reflects on diverse Eastern and Western ideas and 
paradigms of architecture and urban design, contemplates the desired quali-
ties of contemporary cities and illustrates how to operationalize correspond-
ing design principles. The book consists of two chapters: the first, written by 
Maki and Ōtaka, elaborates on the formal characteristics and spatial ratio-
nales in three typologies of Collective Form—Compositional Form, Mega-
form and Group Form [ 5 ]; the second, written by Maki and Jerry Goldberg, 
investigates linkages among components of Collective Form. Compositional 
Form refers to the predominant Corbusian design in early CIAM projects. 
Megaform includes Metabolists’ schemes featuring “superstructures” . Maki 
critiques the formal rigidity and spatial limitation of these two paradigms and 
advocates Group Form. He suggests that vernacular settlements have evolved 
incrementally and organically at a human scale, responding to local settings. 
Maki argues that these three models capture basic relationships between in-
dividual elements and the whole in an urban complex; they are not mutually 
exclusive and can coexist in one configuration. Maki’s notion of Collective 
Form was well-received in the field, praised by renowned architects such 
as Walter Gropius, Kevin Lynch, Aldo van Eyck, and Jacob Bakema. Maki’s 
philosophies underlying the advocacy of Group Form parallel the concerns 
about contexts, urbanism and humanism expressed by Team 10 and Lynch. 
Maki posits at the beginning of his book that urban societies are “a 
dynamic field of interrelated forces” in “a state of dynamic equilibrium, ” 
whose character changes over time. This understanding of the dynam-
ic nature of cities fundamentally differs from the modernist view which 
views urban dynamics as disorder and backwardness. Maki regards urban 
designers as the most concerned observers of a society and its physical, 
technological and social changes. Poised to tackle and influence urban 
dynamics, Maki points to the then inadequacy of spatial languages for 
creating coherent urban spaces amid socio-technological dynamism. 
He initiates the search for adaptable forms of the collective—espe-
cially a collection of buildings—as important segments of the city.
Maki emphasizes the distinction between form and design. Refer-
ring to Kahn’s presentation at the WoDeCo on “Form and Design, ” Maki 
considers form as an outcome of the built environment that is observable 
and belongs to the viewer, whereas he views design as designers’ inference 
about form based on site condition, budget limitation and client’s ideas. 
Form is shaped by collective acts and belongs to the society, whereas de-
sign is an individual activity and is personal to designers. Form appears 
and changes according to the coordination of plural designs. Based on 
his understandings of form and design, Maki analyzes the design ratio-
nales underlying the three conceptual typologies of Collective Form.
AR_2019_bookmaster.indb   225 19/12/2019   07:58

Confluences Chiu-Shee
6  Plan for Tokyo Bay, 1960, Kenzō Tange
7 Plan for Tokyo Bay
8  Japanese Metabolism: The Nakagin Capsule 
Tower, 1972, Tokyo, Japan, Kisho Kurokawa
6
7 8
AR_2019_bookmaster.indb   226 19/12/2019   07:58

227 Reinventing the Collective for Ethical Design
Three Types of Collective Form
Maki considers Compositional Form as the then most accepted outcome 
of modern design in the 1950s. The elements of Compositional Form are 
individual buildings conceived separately based on considerations of func-
tionality, visuality and spatial relationships on a two-dimensional plane. 
Designers prioritize geometric, proportional rationality in their designs. 
Maki views the making of Compositional Form as a natural extension of 
conventional architecture. The masterplans of Brasília and Chandigarh, 
complying with principles in CIAM’s Athens Charter, exemplify Compo-
sitional Form. In these newly planned capital cities, each building stands 
freely as a sculpture independent from other buildings and the field, pre-
senting an iconic, monumental image. Maki acknowledges the merit of 
this approach, especially in particular historical contexts, yet suggests 
that designs following compositional principles tend to neglect the space 
between solitary, autonomous buildings and lack inter-building linkag-
es and collective coherence. The compositional approach to design views 
urban development as a static, completable process and therefore fails in 
adapting to urban changes. Its prescriptive, formally deterministic ratio-
nality is inherently rigid and constrains future alterations and evolution. 
Maki coined the term “Megaform” in this book, defining it as “a large 
frame” accommodating all urban functions, which would be realizable with 
technological innovation. A Megaform shares features of order and rational-
ity with a Compositional Form, yet grows with increasing demand. Tange’s 
Plan for Tokyo Bay [ 6-7 ], his studio at MIT themed “ A Community for 
25,000, ” and the Metabolists’ schemes [ 8 ] best exemplify Megaform. These 
proposals concern the relationship between the collective and individuals. 
They share the aspiration to generate metabolic cycles of urban development 
in organically growing infrastructures which would accommodate contin-
uous growth. The Metabolists’ ideal city consists of elements with various 
metabolic cycles. Elements with long lifecycles include large-scale infrastruc-
tures for transportation and defense, such as highways, rails, harbors, dams 
and enormous “artificial grounds” spanning over ground-level infrastruc-
tures. These long-term, massive infrastructures serve as spines and plat-
forms for the growth of small-scale elements with short lifecycles, including 
residential, commercial, business and recreational clusters. The Metabolists 
believe that the combination of megastructures and numerous individu-
al cells would allow for continuous growth and simultaneous renewal. 
The concept of Megaform derived from the demand for massive ex-
pansion in modern cities and presents a Utopian nature. It continues being 
imagined and experimented with practice. Reyner Banham’s book Mega-
structure: Urban Futures of the Recent Past (1976) presents hundreds of built 
AR_2019_bookmaster.indb   227 19/12/2019   07:58

Confluences Chiu-Shee
and unbuilt projects featuring Megaform. Maki views Megaform as a promis-
ing approach to generating multi-functional urban complexes incorporating 
environmental engineering and modern infrastructures. However, he points 
out that although a megastructure enables changeable infills, it can become 
obsolete itself and lead to systematic failures. This innate deficiency in me-
gastructures shares the rigidity and monumentality of Compositional Form.
Maki’s distance from the other Metabolists is evident in the essay 
“Towards Group Form, ” co-authored with Ōtaka and published in the 
Metabolists’ founding manifesto, Metabolism: The Proposals for New Ur -
banism (1960). Questioning a static, rigid physical structure, Maki calls 
for “a more subtle internal order that underlies the natural evolution of 
cities. ”
15
 He insisted that “a real urban order should accommodate certain 
degrees of disorder and encourage spontaneity, providing an alternative 
interpretation of ‘city as process’ to the megastructural approach. ” This 
ideal form is “a kind of master form which can move into ever new states 
of equilibrium and yet maintain visual consistency and a sense of contain-
ing order in the long run. ”
16
 Against the invention of geometries and the 
static nature of compositional and mega form, Maki advocates for Group 
Form which is an organic pattern derived from environmental needs.
The concept of Group Form emerged during Maki’s two-year trav-
els. Starting in 1958, Maki headed west from Japan to Chandigarh, India; 
Isfahan, Iran; Damascus, Syria; Beirut, Lebanon; Cairo, Egypt; and Istanbul, 
Turkey. He then visited Greece and the rest of Europe. Maki observed 
numerous self-constructed houses scattered along the Mediterranean 
coast. He was impressed by the repetitive patterns and the intricate order 
in these vernacular communities. He perceived qualities of dynamism, 
coherence, flexibility, internal linkages, and open-endedness in these or-
ganically grown, self-governed communities. Maki began to use the term 
“Group Form” to describe the form of traditional settlements, exemplified 
by Hydra Town in Greece [ 9-10 ], European medieval cities, North Afri-
can villages, Japanese villages [ 11 ], and sixteenth-century Dutch towns. 
Maki perceived an organic whole in vernacular settlements such as 
Hydra.  The form of the town emerged with the aggregation and repetition 
of its typical housing units and the streets, paths and public spaces con-
necting housing clusters. The internal order evolved incrementally over -
time and was well understood by its residents. Each resident was a builder 
who would intuitively fit into the community and carry on its traditions. 
The entire town was composed of generic, simple spatial elements, which 
collectively presented regional culture and identity. Maki found it fasci-
nating that these communities survived for hundreds of years and main-
tained their order and overall image, being coherent both socially and 
physically. From housing units, to housing clusters and to the entire town, 
15  Zhongjie Lin, Kenzō Tange And The Metabolist 
Movement: Urban Utopias of Modern Japan, 
2010, 11.
16  Fumihiko Maki, Investigations in Collective 
Form, 1964,11.
9  H ydr a , Gr e e c e
10  H ydr a , Gr e e c e
11  Japanese Agrarian Village—Shirakawago 
Village with its main axis running North-
South
9
10
11
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229 Reinventing the Collective for Ethical Design
and unbuilt projects featuring Megaform. Maki views Megaform as a promis-
ing approach to generating multi-functional urban complexes incorporating 
environmental engineering and modern infrastructures. However, he points 
out that although a megastructure enables changeable infills, it can become 
obsolete itself and lead to systematic failures. This innate deficiency in me-
gastructures shares the rigidity and monumentality of Compositional Form.
Maki’s distance from the other Metabolists is evident in the essay 
“Towards Group Form, ” co-authored with Ōtaka and published in the 
Metabolists’ founding manifesto, Metabolism: The Proposals for New Ur -
banism (1960). Questioning a static, rigid physical structure, Maki calls 
for “a more subtle internal order that underlies the natural evolution of 
cities. ”
15
 He insisted that “a real urban order should accommodate certain 
degrees of disorder and encourage spontaneity, providing an alternative 
interpretation of ‘city as process’ to the megastructural approach. ” This 
ideal form is “a kind of master form which can move into ever new states 
of equilibrium and yet maintain visual consistency and a sense of contain-
ing order in the long run. ”
16
 Against the invention of geometries and the 
static nature of compositional and mega form, Maki advocates for Group 
Form which is an organic pattern derived from environmental needs.
The concept of Group Form emerged during Maki’s two-year trav-
els. Starting in 1958, Maki headed west from Japan to Chandigarh, India; 
Isfahan, Iran; Damascus, Syria; Beirut, Lebanon; Cairo, Egypt; and Istanbul, 
Turkey. He then visited Greece and the rest of Europe. Maki observed 
numerous self-constructed houses scattered along the Mediterranean 
coast. He was impressed by the repetitive patterns and the intricate order 
in these vernacular communities. He perceived qualities of dynamism, 
coherence, flexibility, internal linkages, and open-endedness in these or-
ganically grown, self-governed communities. Maki began to use the term 
“Group Form” to describe the form of traditional settlements, exemplified 
by Hydra Town in Greece [ 9-10 ], European medieval cities, North Afri-
can villages, Japanese villages [ 11 ], and sixteenth-century Dutch towns. 
Maki perceived an organic whole in vernacular settlements such as 
Hydra.  The form of the town emerged with the aggregation and repetition 
of its typical housing units and the streets, paths and public spaces con-
necting housing clusters. The internal order evolved incrementally over -
time and was well understood by its residents. Each resident was a builder 
who would intuitively fit into the community and carry on its traditions. 
The entire town was composed of generic, simple spatial elements, which 
collectively presented regional culture and identity. Maki found it fasci-
nating that these communities survived for hundreds of years and main-
tained their order and overall image, being coherent both socially and 
physically. From housing units, to housing clusters and to the entire town, 
15  Zhongjie Lin, Kenzō Tange And The Metabolist 
Movement: Urban Utopias of Modern Japan, 
2010, 11.
16  Fumihiko Maki, Investigations in Collective 
Form, 1964,11.
AR_2019_bookmaster.indb   229 19/12/2019   07:58

Confluences Chiu-Shee
the overall community was spatially rich and vibrant. To Maki, Hydra’s 
unique and intricate relationships between parts and the whole were loose 
without a rigid hierarchy, which essentially brought an enduring quali-
ty to the town. Even when individual houses were destroyed or replaced 
by similar houses, the town’s overall form would remain consistent. 
Maki’s emphasis on the autonomy and influence of each element 
(as opposed to a dominant overall structure) and his advocacy of a dynam-
ic, coherent Group Form (as opposed to two-dimensional compositions 
of solitaries or a centralized, powerful relationship between parts and the 
whole) reflects that he values collective culture, democratic organization 
and incremental progress in an urban society. Group Form represents 
a society with collective orders and connections that allow for inherent 
dynamics. Maki favors a dynamic, reciprocal relationship—both in form 
and in operation—between individuals and the whole in a Group Form. 
Each individual units is a prototype, which determines the character of the 
ensemble at large. Once the link between the elements and the whole is 
established, each unit can evolve freely and autonomously while the char-
acteristics of the whole remain consistent. Group Form grows cumulatively 
in a non-hierarchical process. Maki insists that “in an organic form such as 
a city, an urban order can only be maintained if the autonomy of individu-
al buildings and districts is assured. ”
17
 Group Form derives from concerns 
about local societies, cultures, and their development. It represents an urban 
environment with a flexible, democratic order, which accommodates long-
term spatial and social dynamisms while ensuring individuals’ autonomy.
To further distinguish Group Form from other rigid typologies, Maki 
highlights its temporal dynamics. He suggests that Group Form “can move 
into ever-new states of equilibrium and yet maintain visual consistency 
and a sense of continuing order in the long run, ” because its image “derives 
from a dynamic equilibrium of generative elements, not a composition of 
stylized and finished object. ”
18
 The overall Group Form is an open-ended 
process with continuous evolution. This notion embraces Group Form’s 
incomplete, unpredictable and transient characteristics, reflecting the urban 
conditions then. Group Form is essentially sustainable, allowing for flexible 
social structures that can adapt to unpredictable, rapid unban changes. 
Maki’s democratic notions regarding humanistic concerns likely have 
derived from his experience in American academia between 1953 and 1965. 
Living in Boston, St. Louis and New York, Maki witnessed the rise of 
community movements against modernist urban renewal projects. Maki 
also read the work from influential urban theorists and educators, includ-
ing Jane Jacobs, Kevin Lynch, and Aldo van Eyck, whose ideas resonated 
in criticizing the modernist approach towards city planning from a human-
istic, populist perspective. Maki’s emphasis on the overall, sustainable image 
17  Fumihiko Maki, “Exploration of Urban Design 
Language,” Fumihiko Maki, Phaidon, 2009,17.
18  Fumihiko Maki, “The Future of Urban 
Environment,” Progressive Architecture 45, 
Oct, 1964, 178.
AR_2019_bookmaster.indb   230 19/12/2019   07:58

231 Reinventing the Collective for Ethical Design
the overall community was spatially rich and vibrant. To Maki, Hydra’s 
unique and intricate relationships between parts and the whole were loose 
without a rigid hierarchy, which essentially brought an enduring quali-
ty to the town. Even when individual houses were destroyed or replaced 
by similar houses, the town’s overall form would remain consistent. 
Maki’s emphasis on the autonomy and influence of each element 
(as opposed to a dominant overall structure) and his advocacy of a dynam-
ic, coherent Group Form (as opposed to two-dimensional compositions 
of solitaries or a centralized, powerful relationship between parts and the 
whole) reflects that he values collective culture, democratic organization 
and incremental progress in an urban society. Group Form represents 
a society with collective orders and connections that allow for inherent 
dynamics. Maki favors a dynamic, reciprocal relationship—both in form 
and in operation—between individuals and the whole in a Group Form. 
Each individual units is a prototype, which determines the character of the 
ensemble at large. Once the link between the elements and the whole is 
established, each unit can evolve freely and autonomously while the char-
acteristics of the whole remain consistent. Group Form grows cumulatively 
in a non-hierarchical process. Maki insists that “in an organic form such as 
a city, an urban order can only be maintained if the autonomy of individu-
al buildings and districts is assured. ”
17
 Group Form derives from concerns 
about local societies, cultures, and their development. It represents an urban 
environment with a flexible, democratic order, which accommodates long-
term spatial and social dynamisms while ensuring individuals’ autonomy.
To further distinguish Group Form from other rigid typologies, Maki 
highlights its temporal dynamics. He suggests that Group Form “can move 
into ever-new states of equilibrium and yet maintain visual consistency 
and a sense of continuing order in the long run, ” because its image “derives 
from a dynamic equilibrium of generative elements, not a composition of 
stylized and finished object. ”
18
 The overall Group Form is an open-ended 
process with continuous evolution. This notion embraces Group Form’s 
incomplete, unpredictable and transient characteristics, reflecting the urban 
conditions then. Group Form is essentially sustainable, allowing for flexible 
social structures that can adapt to unpredictable, rapid unban changes. 
Maki’s democratic notions regarding humanistic concerns likely have 
derived from his experience in American academia between 1953 and 1965. 
Living in Boston, St. Louis and New York, Maki witnessed the rise of 
community movements against modernist urban renewal projects. Maki 
also read the work from influential urban theorists and educators, includ-
ing Jane Jacobs, Kevin Lynch, and Aldo van Eyck, whose ideas resonated 
in criticizing the modernist approach towards city planning from a human-
istic, populist perspective. Maki’s emphasis on the overall, sustainable image 
17  Fumihiko Maki, “Exploration of Urban Design 
Language,” Fumihiko Maki, Phaidon, 2009,17.
18  Fumihiko Maki, “The Future of Urban 
Environment,” Progressive Architecture 45, 
Oct, 1964, 178.
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Confluences Chiu-Shee
of Group Form parallels Kepes and Lynch’s study at MIT on perceptual 
form of the city (1954-1959), published as The Image of the City (1960). 
Both Maki and Team 10 members proposed ideal urban form following 
their humanist and social aspirations. Group Form also parallels the struc-
turalist approach of adding dynamic individual elements to create a cluster, 
in which individual elements can change without altering the overall urban 
image. Aldo van Eyck (a Dutch Structuralist) identifies architectural reci-
procity in part-whole, small-large and house-city relationships and sought 
to create corresponding diversity-unity and individual-collective reciprocity 
in human societies.
19
 To reconcile the dual phenomena, he emphasizes the 
transitional, in-between places, resonating with Maki’s emphasis on inter-el-
ement linkage in Group Form. They advocate that architects should create 
organic linkages between individual elements and the whole and between 
old and new elements. Accordingly, the designs of new architectural projects 
must respect existing urban contexts and fit into the rest of the city. Such 
propositions suggest a humble, yet socially responsible, role of architects 
in a society. Contrasting modernist design, which generates self-interest-
ed icons with a dominating image overwriting existing orders in the city, 
approaches exemplified by Maki and Team 10 are democratic and plural-
istic. Architects become mediators among individuals, among individuals, 
collectives and the society, and among the past, the present and the future.
Maki has greatly enriched his notion of Collective Form through inten-
sive practice. His basic approach to design remains “starting with individual 
elements to arrive at a whole. ”
20
 Maki emphasizes after years of practice that 
space is an important medium and that the coherence of Collective Form 
depends on the cumulative effect of the designs of both exterior spaces and ar-
chitectural forms. The underlying aspirations in his investigations in Collective 
Form have been central to the designs of his representative projects, includ-
ing Hillside Terrace [ 12 ], Tokyo Metropolitan Gymnasium, Keio University 
Shōnan-Fujisawa campus, and Republic Polytechnic campus in Singapore.
THE CONFLUENCE OF COLLECTIVE FORM AND 
COMBINATORY URBANISM
Maki has been a keen learner of local cultures across the globe and an active 
participant in forward-looking dialogues about people and the society. 
Maki’s cross-cultural understanding of the urban is rooted in his inher-
ited background and international influence. His contextualized explo-
rations of adaptive, sustainable and democratic environment and social 
systems are highly relevant to today’s urban practice and education. His 
spatial-social concerns and ethical stance on design principles have en-
during impact on architectural and urban thinking in an era challenged by 
19  Vincent Ligtelijn and Francis Strauven; Aldo 
van Eyck: writings; The child, the City and 
the Artist: An essay on architecture, The in-
between realm; written in 1962; Amsterdam, 
Netherlands: SUN, 2008, 218.
20  Fumihiko Maki, Fumihiko Maki, Phaidon, 
2009, 6.
1 2  F umihik o M ak i,  
Hillside Terrace Housing in 2010
12
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233 Reinventing the Collective for Ethical Design
of Group Form parallels Kepes and Lynch’s study at MIT on perceptual 
form of the city (1954-1959), published as The Image of the City (1960). 
Both Maki and Team 10 members proposed ideal urban form following 
their humanist and social aspirations. Group Form also parallels the struc-
turalist approach of adding dynamic individual elements to create a cluster, 
in which individual elements can change without altering the overall urban 
image. Aldo van Eyck (a Dutch Structuralist) identifies architectural reci-
procity in part-whole, small-large and house-city relationships and sought 
to create corresponding diversity-unity and individual-collective reciprocity 
in human societies.
19
 To reconcile the dual phenomena, he emphasizes the 
transitional, in-between places, resonating with Maki’s emphasis on inter-el-
ement linkage in Group Form. They advocate that architects should create 
organic linkages between individual elements and the whole and between 
old and new elements. Accordingly, the designs of new architectural projects 
must respect existing urban contexts and fit into the rest of the city. Such 
propositions suggest a humble, yet socially responsible, role of architects 
in a society. Contrasting modernist design, which generates self-interest-
ed icons with a dominating image overwriting existing orders in the city, 
approaches exemplified by Maki and Team 10 are democratic and plural-
istic. Architects become mediators among individuals, among individuals, 
collectives and the society, and among the past, the present and the future.
Maki has greatly enriched his notion of Collective Form through inten-
sive practice. His basic approach to design remains “starting with individual 
elements to arrive at a whole. ”
20
 Maki emphasizes after years of practice that 
space is an important medium and that the coherence of Collective Form 
depends on the cumulative effect of the designs of both exterior spaces and ar-
chitectural forms. The underlying aspirations in his investigations in Collective 
Form have been central to the designs of his representative projects, includ-
ing Hillside Terrace [ 12 ], Tokyo Metropolitan Gymnasium, Keio University 
Shōnan-Fujisawa campus, and Republic Polytechnic campus in Singapore.
THE CONFLUENCE OF COLLECTIVE FORM AND 
COMBINATORY URBANISM
Maki has been a keen learner of local cultures across the globe and an active 
participant in forward-looking dialogues about people and the society. 
Maki’s cross-cultural understanding of the urban is rooted in his inher-
ited background and international influence. His contextualized explo-
rations of adaptive, sustainable and democratic environment and social 
systems are highly relevant to today’s urban practice and education. His 
spatial-social concerns and ethical stance on design principles have en-
during impact on architectural and urban thinking in an era challenged by 
19  Vincent Ligtelijn and Francis Strauven; Aldo 
van Eyck: writings; The child, the City and 
the Artist: An essay on architecture, The in-
between realm; written in 1962; Amsterdam, 
Netherlands: SUN, 2008, 218.
20  Fumihiko Maki, Fumihiko Maki, Phaidon, 
2009, 6.
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Confluences Chiu-Shee
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235 Reinventing the Collective for Ethical Design
globalization and increasingly volatile social-political dynamisms. Since 
the mid-twentieth century, fields related to architecture and urban plan-
ning have greatly diversified and become increasingly interdisciplinary. 
Architectural and urban practitioners face more complex urban problems 
intertwined on physical, social and environmental dimensions. Agencies 
shaping the built environment often hold diverse, conflicting interests. 
Capitalist ideologies largely drive state and market forces. Attempts to 
innovate traditional approaches to city making ought to continue. 
Thom Mayne, another reflective architect and pioneering thinker, has 
expressed similar aspirations as Maki and published Combinatory Urban-
ism: A Realignment of Complex Behavior and Collective Form (2011) as a 
manifesto of his design philosophies. Mayne argues that the idea of using 
urban planning as a means to control urban growth based on the prediction 
of future development has become obsolete. He also refutes the idea that 
architecture is about inserting single objects into a comprehensively planned 
urban matrix. The conventional prescriptive approach to urban design and 
development is increasingly ineffective in meeting human and societal needs, 
since urban future cannot be accurately predicted, especially in increasing-
ly mobile and rapidly changing societies. Mayne insists that architects and 
planners need to create new design concepts and methods that address the 
complex interplay of human and natural forces that shape cities and influ-
ence the future. Accordingly, architecture must responds to urban forces 
active in its contexts which transcend property boundaries; urban planning 
must create flexible, adaptive spatial structures that can accommodate rapid, 
unpredictable social-spatial changes. Architecture and planning practices 
must overlap and converge both in scale and in their spatial-social concerns.
Like Maki, Mayne experienced socio-cultural changes during his for-
mative years which shaped his view toward architecture and the city. Mayne 
studied in architecture schools during the 1960s, which was a turmoil, 
transitional period in America. Mayne recalls experiencing the early phase 
of the exhaustion of modern projects and an antagonist attitude toward 
the past when schools paid little attention to urban history education. 
It was also a fraught time in American history amid the Civil Rights move-
ment and Vietnam War. Against the backdrop of dramatic cultural-po-
litical changes, Mayne witnessed the discourse about architecture toward 
considerations of urban and natural forces. During Mayne’s early practices 
in the 1970s, he realized that the ongoing social changes driven by various 
powers within broader business and political communities were out of sync 
with architects’ aspirations. It was also a time of worldwide neoliberal turn 
in economic policies. American ideologies were divided by two prevalent 
understandings of the government’s role: one notion favored unfettered 
freedom in a laisser-faire environment and rejected collective act, whereas 
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237 Reinventing the Collective for Ethical Design
the other highly, almost religiously, appreciated the importance of the com-
munal. Such dilemma in reality made architects’ dialogues about the ideal 
form of architecture and the city seem lofty and Utopian. By the 1980s, the 
world had moved toward a more singular capitalist model. Urban design 
as a profession and dialogues about design ethics were disappearing. 
To Mayne, there has been an unresolvable cultural divide in America 
rooted in conflicting values, which makes it difficult to negotiate and find the 
middle ground. Mayne believes that collective goals still are important for 
the overall wellbeing of a society and that equitable distribution of resources 
is crucial to a healthy economy. Capital should not be owned only by a small 
group of people. Therefore, the discourses about what development objec-
tives matter to the society as a whole should shape architectural thinking. 
Architecture becomes the reflection of the world, consolidating conflicting 
values and social relations in its physical configuration. Those who shape the 
built environment—be it architects, urban designers or planners—must be-
come thought leaders who bear the responsibility to respond to current so-
cio-cultural conditions and to stimulate progressive cultural transformations.
Both Maki and Mayne traveled around the world, observed different 
places through an anthropological lens and absorbed ideas from various 
cultures. They share a sense of social responsibility. Both are interested in the 
fluidity, adaptability and complexity of architecture and the city. There are 
three parallel ideas at the confluence of their ideologies. First, they both view 
architecture and the city as open-ended, dynamic fields of interrelated forces. 
These interrelated forces shape Group Form in Maki’s view and are “combi-
natory” in Mayne’s term. In their views, architecture and urban complexes 
play infrastructural roles in constantly changing societies. They refuse to 
view architecture as isolated, static objects; rather, they emphasize the orga-
nizational and infrastructural roles of architecture in networked conditions 
and highlight the societal importance of tangible and intangible interconnec-
tions among urban elements. Mayne expands on this notion and views the 
built environment as information landscapes, which include elements with 
autonomous characteristics. Building interconnections and forming net-
works within the information landscapes become the method for coherently 
organizing plural elements and mediating between complicated problems.
Second, both Maki and Mayne consider the transformation and impact 
of urban complexes over time. A sense of space influences human experiences 
and memories; therefore, architecture and the city have lasting socio-cultural 
impacts. Maki and Mayne aim to create adaptive urban complexes that can 
accommodate future changes. To do so, they favor flexible configurations 
that respond to both site conditions and larger contexts. Mayne argues that 
architectural and urban design depends on iterative processes of feedback 
and adaptation. Both architects have been highly reflective in their practices 
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Confluences Chiu-Shee
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239 Reinventing the Collective for Ethical Design
during which they continuously critique and challenge their own thinking and 
proposals with urbanistic, landscape, tectonic, functional considerations. They 
regard design practice as a reflective, cumulative process that builds on critical 
assessment of, and adaptive adjustment to, plural problems simultaneously. 
Third, both Maki and Mayne embrace ambiguity in urban complexes, 
where multiple layers of constituent elements and inter-element linkages 
co-exist. They are interested in linkages, in-between spaces and interval be-
haviors. Mayne particularly rejects binary worldviews and advocates for the 
negotiation among plural, more nuanced understandings of issues at hand. 
Mayne holds architects accountable in making decisions that result from the 
negotiation of conflicting values in the complexities and dynamisms of con-
temporary societies. 
Overall, both Maki and Mayne advocate for the creation of urban sys-
tems that both solve current, contextualized problems and facilitate endur-
ing socio-cultural progresses in a broader society. They imbue socio-political 
aspirations in their practices and seek to intervene in intricate, interrelated 
urban spaces and political systems, aiming to generate enduring impact 
through the creation of adaptive urban complexes. They also both advocate 
for expanding and reshaping architecture and planning education to prepare 
practitioners for tackling broader societal challenges that matter for collec-
tive, sustainable wellbeing.
Conclusion
Fifty years after Maki proposed the notion of Collective Form, Mayne finds 
it thought provocative and useful for today’s discourse about architecture 
and cities. Dialogues about the “collective” in architecture, urban design 
and planning stimulate new conversations and arguments about ongo-
ing societal struggles in contemporary cities. The notion of Combinatory 
Urbanism not only echoes Maki’s propositions of Collective Form, it also 
continues the socio-cultural debates about ethical principles for architectur-
al practices originated during a transitional period in the fields of archi-
tecture and urbanism. This stream of discourse links many seminal ideas, 
including those from CIAM, Team 10, Tange, Sert and Lynch. It traces the 
historical evolution of architectural and urbanistic ideologies and con-
nects Eastern and Western innovative thoughts. The fields of architecture 
and urbanism have always projected the ideal city. At the confluence of all 
the progressive attempts lies debates about design ethics for practitioners 
who shape urban systems. Maki’s and Mayne’s notions about architecture 
and the city are open-ended, ambiguous at the conceptual level, allowing 
for interpretation and improvement. They inspire productive, norma-
tive debates aiming at societal significance and hence produce enduring 
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241 Reinventing the Collective for Ethical Design
impact on fields concerning the human environment and urban societies. 
With technological innovation and massive adoption of digital tools, 
human connections increasingly become more abstract and intangible. Dis-
course about Collective Form brings back the disappearing discussion about 
the urban realm in a world with fragmented interests and even more rapid 
changes. Would collective aspirations disappear? What should be collective 
form for today’s cities? How to build infrastructures and public realm that 
support collective goals of cultural and societal progresses? These questions 
remain relevant to the current society and worth continued discussion. 
Solving urban problems requires collective wisdoms synthesizing consid-
erations on plural dimensions, including economic, tectonic, urbanistic 
and environmental factors. These dimensions are structural to a society. 
Tremendous efforts must be invested in balancing all these dimensions to 
generate a better collective outcome. 
Urban study is located within the reality of its context. Historical 
evolution of ideologies in response to urban changes provides lessons for 
addressing contemporary issues and preparing for future changes. Today’s 
flows of capital, knowledge and information are increasingly connected at 
a global scale. Yet, new forms of social and cultural divide increase with 
capitalist urban production. The urban realm is not limited to man-made 
cities, but applies to a multi-faceted realm interweaving natural, artifi-
cial and virtual elements. This opens the possibility of architecture to 
contribute profoundly toward the formation of more diverse and fertile 
urban environments. Mayne suggests that the current business and po-
litical environment fails to facilitate structural change in contemporary 
cities. Therefore, architects, urban designers and planners ought to be the 
imagineers who reshape the societal infrastructures to enable socio-po-
litical changes. They ought to be optimistic and take the initiative. 
Acknowledgements
This essay derives from my master’s studies at Washington University in St. 
Louis. I am grateful and deeply indebted to all those who supported me along 
the way. Special thanks go to my thesis committee Robert McCarter (chair), 
Eric Mumford and Seng Kuan. I also thank all my interviewees, including 
Fumihiko Maki, Thom Mayne, Cynthia Weese, Benjamin Weese, Robert Vickery, 
Jr., Peter MacKeith, Robert Dannenbrink, Jr., Donald Brandenburger, Eric 
Pettersson, and Ralph Insinger for their warm and insightful responses.
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