ARCHITECTURE of ISLAM | Takeo Kamiya | (original) (raw)

Dear xxxx xxxx,
Thank you for your kind mail.

I have been studying Indian and Islamic architecture continuously. I wrote a new book "Sacred Architecture in India" in Japanese in combination with my photographs five years ago. It covers the architecture of so many religions in India respectively:Buddhism, Hinduism, Jainism, Islam, and other religions including Ajivikas, Todas, Sikhs, Christians, and Jews. The book is also a visual guide to Indian culture in a handy size.

But it is very difficult for me to publish more books. A plan for publishing "Wooden Architecture in India" has not been executed. Recently I wrote a fairly important book "Architecture of Islam, its Charm and Elucidation" on demand of a publisher four years ago and the editing went on to the final stage, but the publisher refused to publish the book on false pretexts.

The true reason for that difficulty is the Mafia's pressure on every publishing company. I have been persecuted by the enormous Construction Mafia in Japan for more than ten years. It is not easy to explain briefly to foreigners. But in Japan, a system of "architects" equivalent to the European or American ones has not yet been established. There is only a system of "builders" in Japanese laws.

Architects must be primarily independent from construction companies, as lawyers must be independent from the prosecution and doctors must be independent from pharmaceutical companies, otherwise it is impossible to protect the citizens' safety, health and property.
If the prosecution can employ lawyers, any citizen could be sentenced guilty even if they have done nothing. If pharmaceutical companies can employ doctors, they can earn a lot in prescribing even unnecessary medicines of their own production.

If construction companies can employ architects, their estimates could not be checked and their corner-cutting could be kept concealed. It is very convenient for them to dominate architects as salaried designers or builders. On top of that they can get construction projects by insisting they don't demand design fees, as if commissioning design from independent architects might be an absurd waste of budget. But actually they can earn more in adding design fees to construction expenses secretly without checks, and the quality of designs will decline.

You may not be able to imagine such a situation, but in Japan such a system is legal in the field of construction. Major Japanese construction companies have grown too large and too powerful and nobody can oppose or criticize them. They can manipulate even journalists and politicians whom they contribute to more than any other industry does.

I did write some papers in architectural magazines to criticize such systems that disturb the establishment of the Architect's Law in Japan. Since then the Mafia (the secret organization under the federation of major construction companies for the purpose of guarding their profits just like the CIA) has been obstructing all of my activities: designing, studying, and publishing.
It is not only me who has suffered being excluded from the architectural (constructional) society in Japan. Although Japan is considered to be a mature democratic country, actually it is quite the contrary; it is sometimes as terrifying a country as some developing countries.

I don't know if I can publish books on Indian, Islamic, and other architecture in the future. I expect foreign architects and journalists know about situations such as this and will do something to improve it.

With best regards____________________________ Takeo Kamiya