Manga and Anime are currently experiencing a boom that extends far beyond the borders of Japan. The Japanese comics and animated films are wielding increasing influence on western art and pop culture as well, and have emerged as a global economic asset with sales worth billions. The comic and its film counterpart are frequently the setting in which utopian and fantasy urban models are portrayed. Ever since the 1980's, Japanese science-fiction comics have been featuring architectural concepts that two decades previously the Metabolist group of Japanese architects had devised. In Manga their adapted, utopian city plans and urban mega-structures from the 1960's and 1970's serve as spatial guide for readers, while at the same time creating atmospheric images to go with the story’s plot. To this end individual ideas for designs by Arata Isozaki, Kiyonori Kikutake, Kenzo Tange, and Kurokawa are not only illustrated in Manga, some comics even take these concepts further. Two years ago DAM was able to showcase a selection of visions by the recently deceased architect Kisho Kurokawa, a key figure in Japanese Metabolism. The current exhibition addresses the most important aspects of the drawn architecture in Manga and Anime. It provides examples of how in the last few decades architectural designs by the Metabolist but also by European successors like Superstudio and Archigram have inspired the pictorial language of one of the most popular contemporary media.

The exhibition is being staged in collaboration with Deutsches Filmmuseum and Museum für Angewandte Kunst in Frankfurt / Main, where a number of aspects relating to this topic will also be presented:

28 February - 03 August 2008
Anime! High Art - Pop Culture (Deutsches Filmmuseum)

28 February - 25 May 2008
Mangamania. Comic-Kultur in Japan 1800 - 2008 (Museum für Angewandte Kunst)

Accompanying Program
12 March 2008, 20:30
Anime evenings with an introduction by Dr. Diane Luther, Zurich
METROPOLIS / ROBOTIC ANGEL

22 March 2008, 22:30
APPLESEED