     I sit a mutated tropical bird?  A monstrous preying insect?  A 
shuttle craft at rest on its launching pad?  A sculpture derived from a 
futuristic scrap yard?  A giant-sized plough, threatening to gobble up the 
buildings opposite, and everything beyond in its path?  Or is it simply 
that the aliens have landed... is this an unnatural encounter of the 
third kind?  Perhaps when all is said and done, it is someone's idea of a 
practical joke.  After all, it was unwrapped to the public gaze on April 1 
last year, as if deliberately daring to make a fool of everyone.  Archit-
ect Makoto Sei Watanabe (he added the unusual middle name because his best 
friend was also Makoto Watanabe and everyone was always getting them mixed 
up) smilingly shrugs off these and the many other visual associations that 
have been made of his controversial masterpiece, the Aoyama Technical 
College in central Tokyo.
     "It's supposed to be ambiguous," he explained in surprisingly good 
English, considering he only studied at university and has never worked 
outside Japan (though he'd like to.)  "It's full of metaphors.  The norm 
these days is what I call 'architecture by limitations'; architects are 
supposed to work within an approved set of rules.  Well, I set out to 
deliberately break every one in the book."  At the end of 1988, he noted 
in a specialist publication that the college was holding an international 
contest for the design of its new headquarters.  Of the 87 entries, it was 
Watanabe's design on which the judges' eyes focused.  A trio of Austra-
lian architects, who ran second, designed the new Australian Embassy which 
recently opened in Tokyo.  The entrance is on the second floor, with four 
levels of classrooms and lecture halls.  The top storey--the area that 
elicits the most comment--is a gallery.  The dome on the roof?  A water 
tower.  The scarlet rods, like the handle of a lawn mower?  Lightning 
conductors.  It's constructed from aluminum and stainless steel, in three 
finishes, plus a plethora of both bold and subtle colour.
     Watanabe gave himself enormous problems turning his vision into a 
practical reality.  To reproduce anything in 3-D is difficult, and 
elevations and plans communicate little.  A model can give an impression, 
he says, but is still not precise.  And precision is the main element in 
this unique building.  A second difficulty was that since every part and 
detail was original, he could not fall back onto mass production.  Japan 
has got the erection of a lot of its buildings off to a fine art--or 
rather onto the factory production line.  Making basic components that can 
then be slotted together in a large but still limited number of permuta-
tions helps keep costs down and maintains, in this society at least, a 
comforting conformity.  But Watanabe claims he was able to custom-order 
all the parts he needed at reasonable cost; his building hasn't been that 
much more expensive and is so much more rewarding.  After all, it makes 
people think.
     "I used the computer to work out all the elements, from the compo-
nents of the basic structure, to all the exterior and interior detail, and 
even the furniture.  The technique I utilised--computer graphics--is 
not new, but it hasn't been explored in architecture very much to date.  
Then I had to spread the work around to get what I wanted; the dome was 
made in one prefecture, the metal panels in another.  I went to small 
highly specialised companies to get the quality and finish I required."  
Though appearing 100 per cent futuristic in its totality, Watanabe says 
this is deceptive.  He deliberately incorporated traditional conventions 
in the lower levels of the building, while experimenting with ideas that 
hardly existed except in his imagination higher up.  He aimed to confront 
existing architectural vocabulary with a total lack of cliche, allowing 
the two concepts to meet, somewhere rather above the middle.  He purposely 
left the structure open to interpretation, piling lots of ideas on top 
of another, like a modern-day Gaudi.  Or maybe as only Makoto Watanabe can 
do.  Yet he aimed for logic in the overall design, and must have achieved 
his desired effect, because he won the commission.  It took 3.5 months to 
design, then 10 months to build and furnish.
     Ask him if he regards himself trendy architect, and he'll suddenly 
look critical and rather severe.  This is quite a feat for a slight, 
friendly but shy boyish-looking 38-year-old, but he acts out his response 
well.  He hates trendy things.  A trend is when an idea has reached the 
crest of a wave, from where it's creatively downhill all the way.  No, he 
insists, this building is new--there's nothing like it anywhere else in 
the world today.  It appears successful, too, having been featured in many 
publications, from the men's magazine Brutus, to an eight-page coverage in 
that most illustrious of accolades The Japan Architect:  90, published by 
the Japanese Institute of Architects.  Even more important, young people 
seem to like it.  After promotional posters appeared in trains and busses 
advertising the fact that it was open for business, the college received 
double the number of applications to the year before.  The secretary to 
the principal, however, dictated it was policy for staff not to discuss 
their feelings about the building; and that if I wanted a response from 
any students, I would have to fill out a form.  Such is bureaucracy in 
Japan.
     Born in Yokohama in 1952, and a graduate of the Master Course in 
Architecture at the National University in the city, Watanabe spent three 
years working with Masato Ohtaka, and then five with Arata Isozaki, under 
whom he worked on the Science Centre at Tsukuba.  He established his own 
three-man practice, Architect's Office (03-829 3221, fax 3837) in 1984, 
and has since won any number of design awards.  "A matter of keeping my 
eyes open and ears flapping," he explained.  He always loved art--drawing, 
painting and sculpture--even as a child.  But he was drawn by science, 
too, so architecture seemed a natural route to choose at 17 or so.  He 
still favors the surrealists, like Dali and Magritte (which seems in 
order somehow) yet claims to be most influenced by Italian Renaissance and 
Baroque architects like Bernini and Borromini.
     Ask where in the world today architecture is generally the most 
interesting and adventurous and he'll smilingly not hesitate a second:  To-
kyo, of course.  "Am I critical of other projects?  Well, naturally.  But 
I'm never rude and judge my words carefully.  It's a small world after 
all, and human relationships are all-important in Japan.  "The Sprial 
Building where we are now sitting, in Omoto-sando?  I often work here with 
artists.  I find it very calm, very quiet.  "The Asahi Beer building in 
Askausa?  Interesting.  I used to work near the site.  Personally, I'm not 
wild about it and feel no great sympathy.  But I do understand the 
architects' ways of thinking.