MA –

SpacePlaceVoid - Forum

In March 1966 Architectural Design, London published a special issue on "MA – The Japanese Sense of Place" by Guenter Nitschke. Later versions of the same research appeared among other places in the book "From Shinto to Ando", Academy Editions, London in 1993. In 1976 Arata Isozaki designed an exhibition "MA – Space-Time in Japan" for the Cooper-Hewitt Museum, New York, which having travelled through many countries, in 2000 returned to Japan as an "MA Exhibition, 20 Years after".

The Sense of Ma, an enigma of Japanese awareness, has baffled architects, philosophers, painters, musicians, and actors from all over the world ever since 1966. Japanese themselves published new treatises on

MA since that time. The response to Nitschke's originally modest attempt to introduce Ma to a Western audience has not subsided over nearly 40 years; on the contrary, the number of foreigners keen to study this intriguing sensitivity here in Japan directly has increased constantly.

In order to collect and annotate the enormous research material which has accumulated on this subject so far and make it easily available. The Institute of East Asian Architecture and Urbanism in Kyoto starts a Research Forum and Data Bank on Ma in 2003 with its own webpage www.MA-SpacePlaceVoid.net It has become clear that this seems to be a rational approach to pool an otherwise dispersed knowledge and energy.

 The Institute shall publish an electronic newsletter with initially three categories of information:

accessing ma – annotated bibliography of essays and books on Ma in Japanese and Western languages

absorbing ma – new and old texts, essays and books otherwise not available

chatting ma – correspondence between and by individual researchers
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For a membership to this non-profit and open-ended Research Project and a subscription to its electronic Newsletter, transmit an annual fee of $ 100.- to the account of the Institute of East Asian Architecture and Urbanism with the Tokyo Mitsubishi Bank, Demachi Branch No: 506-0682336 and send an email to that effect to the Institute: info@east-asia-architecture.org