以下は最近”很火”（中国語で盛り上がっているの意）の五十嵐太郎氏のヤンキー論を概訳して紹介するものです。

Igarashi Taro has been writing a series of commentaries about the work of Japanese star interior designer Morita Yasumichi (Glamorous) and more interestingly about how little the works of successful interior designers (we can include Super Potato and Philippe Starck here) have been discussed critically in  mainstream architectural media.

According to him, in Japan at this moment, the balance has shifted towards otaku or geek culture. The otaku is intellectual, researches into things obsessively. The rise and rise of Sejima Kazuyo and Nishizawa Ryue, and their next generation of followers, has ensured a new architectural flavour that is otaku, kawaii (cute), and soushokukei (herbivorous, bland). Igarashi himself, has been identified as the leading champion of this soushoukei architecture: Ishigami Junya has risen to international fame after being selected by him to represent Japan at the recent Venice Biennale.

So now Igarashi sets out to adjust the imbalance by talking about the dramatically opposing figure to the otaku — the “yankee”. And Glamorous’ Morita Yasumichi is the epitome yankee-ness: very successful, married a famous actress, purportedly drinks champagne for breakfast, keeps longish dyed brown hair, wears baseball jackets, probably drives a flashy car, knows his position in the business hierarchy and is as unintellectual as you can get talking about his own work (constantly using the word “cool” and “having a hard time” with a particular project.)

Of Morita’s work, described as “yankee baroque”, Igarashi names some features:

- a stubborn repetition of one element: decorative lamps, or graphic motifs
- the use of mirrors and chandeliers to create a gorgeous space – luxury items that the public can easily understand
- the use of classical european frames (literally)
- using extreme shapes, such as a baroque-deformation of classical modern forms

There was a time in architecture too, when yankee-ness could be seen. Take Shin Takamatsu’s muscular, figurative machine-look buildings for example.

Filtering through Morita’s own words in an interview, Igarashi’s sharpest observation is that the interior designer’s world is physically and mentally close to the client’s. The interior designer approaches a project the way that the client understands a project.  The interior designer dines at places where their clients will dine. There is an understanding of planning and development costs; an understanding of the relationship between the world of money and the world of interior decoration. And the endgame is always customer-satisfaction.

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Many years ago, I overheard a Singapore architect lamenting, “what’s wrong with being a ‘commercial’ architect?” to a more stubborn colleague. “And what do you mean I’m ‘commercial’?” he continued to fret. Now, it is well known that he has since become a very successful architect working on big projects in Singapore, and some say even China.