Japan's Postwar Building:Japanese Architecture and the West (1953)
They have needed each other in the past; they need each other today.
It is impossible to understand the rise of modern architecture in the West without some reference—all along the line—to the architecture of Japan.
It is equally impossible to understand the rise of modern architecture in Japan without reference, especially in recent times, to that of the West.
This story is concerned with the architectural give-and-take that has been going on between Japan and the West for three quarters of a century. But more specifically, this story is concerned with the latest results, in Japan, of that exchange of ideas.
Before getting down to cases, here are some of the things all modern architects in the West should remember with gratitude:
1. It was the discovery, in France and elsewhere, of the exciting natural forms in Japanese art that helped bring about the italic>Art Nouveau/italic> movement at the turn of the century, with its sinuous plant-inspired forms and ornament; and it was the italic>Art Nouveau/italic> movement in England, France, Germany Austria, the US, that upset eclecticism in architecture and design and thus opened the way to important later developments.
2. It was the discovery of the Japanese structural tradition, the traditional Japanese "open plan" and the traditional Japanese integration of architecture and landscape that made a lasting impression upon Frank Lloyd Wright and others.
3. It was the discovery of all these things plus the tradition of Japanese wood craftsmanship that shaped—and continues to shape—much of the domestic architecture on America's West Coast. [End Page 19]
4. And, finally, it was the discovery of Japanese simplicity, understatement and geometric, modular elegance that profoundly influenced men from Mies van der Rohe to Charles Eames, from Antonin Raymond to the designers of Lever House.
Now for the other side of the coin:
What is happening in Japan today is this—
The young architects there have been importing a new design tradition from the West. It started, of course, with Frank Lloyd Wright. More recently it has been the tradition of Le Corbusier, Gropius, Mies van der Rohe, Breuer and others.
Perhaps the young Japanese architects are not always aware that the thing they have been importing recently is about what their grandfathers exported 70 yrs. ago—but not digested and "industrialized" in the drafting rooms of Dessau, Berlin, Paris, New York and Rio.
So they are really getting something that is one part Japanese tradition, one part Western esthetic preference (Le Corbusier's, or Gropius', or Mies' or what have you), and one part Western industrialism.
What of the future?
The crucial question for Japanese architects is whether or not they can swallow the last part—industrialism—and, for that matter, whether they should; whether or not they are ready to accept an "industrial style" and throw out their own handicraft tradition; whether or not, in other words, Japan must await the completion of her own industrial revolution in building before trying an architecture that is expressive of that revolution.
The story on the following pages is an attempt to find the answers to some of these questions.
Now the development has come full circle,
and the architecture of the West is transforming
the cities of postwar Japan. For proof, turn the page.
1. Memorial Museum, Peace Center, Hiroshima
Architects: Kenzo Tange & Associates
On the spot where the atom bomb exploded, Japanese architects are constructing a Memorial Peace Center. The first structure to be completed in this reinforced concrete museum on stilts; other structures include bridges by the sculptor Noguchi and a huge parabolic arch. The picture above, showing the museum rise out of a forest of tombstones, is a tragic symbol of this effort. [End Page 20]
To US architects the antecedents for this development are not difficult to trace: The building on stilts is clearly inspired by Western work—from Le Corbusier to Raymond & Rado's Reader's Digest Building (March '52 issue). The louvered walls are just as clearly an adaptation of the work of Le Corbusier and Niemeyer in Brasil. The parabolic arch—most recently used in Saarinen's Jefferson Memorial scheme for St. Louis—came to the West from Persia. More than any other postwar work shown here, this development proves how strongly international architecture has appealed to young Japanese architects and how well they use it.
2. Winning Design, City Hall Competition, Shimonoseki
Architects: Makoto Tanaka & Associates
The competition for a new City Hall for Shimonoseki (pop.: 180,000) attracted the largest number of entries of any postwar Japanese design contest. Editor Hamaguchi says that although the Korean War has forced postponement of the building program, the competition result has had a profound influence upon postwar Japanese development.
The building contains the city administrative offices and an assembly hall. According to the architect—who worked in Antonin Raymond's Tokyo office in the early '30s—the aim of the design is to create "a democratic city hall atmosphere in which officials and citizens can meet on friendly terms." The notion of placing a building on stilts leaves the Japanese landscape architect free to form his gardens without meeting visual and physical obstacles—a concept as familiar to Le Corbusier as it was to the builders of Katsura Palace, more than 350 yrs. ago.
3. Reception Rooms, Hotel Hasshokan, Nagoya
Architect: Sutemi Horiguchi
While most Western architects are sure to marvel at these remarkable designs (made for the occasion of the Emperor's visit in 1950), many young Japanese feel that Architect Horiguchi is an archconservative. It is true that Horiguchi began as one of the first Japanese proponents of Western modernism; it is also true that he later returned to the study of Sukiya-zukuri, the most refined traditional style in Japanese architecture; but however much the younger generation of Japanese architects may criticize Horiguchi as a "backslider," they—and architects everywhere—can still learn a good many important things about proportion, scale, module wood construction from this skilled designer.
The room and porches shown here are strongly reminiscent of the style of Katsura Palace, use the traditional Tatami floor mats, the Shoji screens, the Fusuma sliding doors. Fluorescent fixtures are covered with white rice paper to diffuse the light. The rest of the ceiling is of wood paneling ("no plywood, of course!" says Editor Hamaguchi…). The structure is exposed, and posts on stone footings support the main floor in the traditional manner. [End Page 21]
4. Aquarium Project, Ueno Park Zoo, Tokyo
Architects: Kenzo Tange & Associates
Architects of the Hiroshima Memorial Museum are responsible for this (as yet unbuilt) design as well. Again there is evidence of a strong influence emanating from the work of Le Corbusier and others; but here a sensitive and imaginative notion has been added. Say the architects: "The theme of this project is a house of water… the ripples of the Shinobazu Pond, a place beloved by the citizens of Tokyo, are echoed in the ripples of concrete roof, which in turn is reflected in the ripples of the pond… a sonnet between architecture and water in the midst of a noisy metropolis."
5. Exhibition Building, Kobe Fair
Architects: Kenzo Tange & Associates
This temporary structure is possibly the most interesting modern building in postwar Japan. Its plan is a square with a central court; its structure is wood. But the traditional Japanese material is used in a non traditional manner: the connections are no longer complex, interlocking joints—they are made of steel and bolts—and the bracing of the frame is diagonal, a method disliked by traditional Japanese craftsmen. In its combination of a traditional material, of a traditional sense of delicate understatement, of a modern method of assembly and of a modern industrial panel system, this building seems to point a new way for Japanese architecture.
6. Nurses' Training School, Teishin Hospital, Tokyo
Architects: Hideo Kosaka & Government Architects
On the face of it, this looks like a good example of Swiss architecture. Actually, this inexpensive structure (which won a Grand Prix in 1950) has many features that are typically Japanese—e.g. its structure is wood (sprayed with stucco for code reasons); its detailing is especially fine; its thin roof is covered with aluminum sheets; and the vaulted passages between school wings are pipe-supported steel arches covered with sheet iron. It is a curious mixture of traditional or makeshift techniques and an esthetic expression based upon a developed industrial society.
7. Dormitories, Tel. & Tel. Training School, Tokyo
Architects: Shosai Uchida & Government Architects
About these dormitories Editor Hamaguchi says: "All building materials used here are inexpensive. The lightness of open wood balconies and the massiveness of the unfinished concrete end walls (used as earthquake bracing) give a strong contrast to the whole [End Page 22] design. Projected stairs add variety to facades. Although the influence of Le Corbusier (his summer house in Les Mathes) may be seen in the open balcony structure, the framing is bold and the detail functional and clean. Monotony was avoided by the use of bright color accents. These buildings may lack the refinement of Japanese architecture, but that refinement used to be produced by cheap manual labor. Here is a truer expression of social and economic conditions in Japan today."
8. Museum of Modern Art, Kamakura
Architect: Junzo Sakakura
The most widely publicized postwar building in Japan is this Museum of Modern Art whose architect also designed the magnificent Japanese Pavilion at the Paris World's Fair of 1936. His new museum obviously owes much to Mies van der Robe's Barcelona Pavilion of 1928 (just as Mies owes much to the Katsura Palace). But this museum is more than another "Miesian" design: it is symbolic, in a sense, of the entire dilemma of Japanese architecture today. The esthetic here is steel-and-asbestos-and-aluminum—a reasonable expression in Chicago, Ill., or in Paris, France. But in today's handicapped Japan? The building itself answers the question, for the industrial finishes are poor—through no fault of the architect's, but only because Japan's industry is not yet up to the standards of the Western prototypes. As if the architect sensed this dilemma, he introduced a nostalgic and beautiful detail traditional Japanese building: the post on a stone footing.
US Architects on Japanese Architecture
"During my later years at the Oak Park workshop, Japanese prints had intrigued me. ... Ever since I discovered the print Japan had appealed to me as the most romantic, artistic, nature-inspired country on earth. Later I found that Japanese art and architecture really did have organic character. Their art was nearer to the earth and a more indigenous product of native conditions of life and work, therefore more nearly modern as I saw it, than any European civilization alive or dead." (From his Autobiography)
"Where can we find greater structural clarity than in the wooden buildings of old? Where else can we find such unity of material, construction and form? Here the wisdom of whole generations is stored. What feeling for material and what power of expression there is in these buildings!" (From his Inaugural Address, Chicago, 1938)
"Whether it is a paper toy or a tea-house, or a garden or a palace, these traditional Japanese things seem to represent a super understanding of humble materials and elements in relation to human scale and human needs. The question [End Page 23] in applying it seems to be in recognizing just what are the humble materials in our environment—what is our scale and what are our needs. ... We have a long way to go before we know the humble materials of our environment well enough to select from them."
"The Katsura Palace in Kyoto should be considered as seriously as the Acropolis, but I don't believe it was even mentioned in Bannister Fletcher."
"It might have been better for my work to date had it been more directly affected by Japanese architecture. The early domestic and monastic (Shinto only) dwellings show a simplicity and discipline that we here have not learned as architects or wanted as dwellers. No people have done better in relating the building to the land—land to the scale of human use….
"I greatly admire the sensitivity the Japanese have for the relationships of form and space. It is most completely demonstrated in their gardens."
"Where we, being at the beginning of an era, are necessarily groping for knowledge and its expression, Japanese architecture is at a point of maturity molded by an effort of generations searching for the truth. This applies to traditional architecture—as exemplified, for instance, by the Katsura buildings, and to new buildings that continue the tradition, constantly recreating it to fit life.
Unfortunately there is a strong tendency in Japan, manifested by recent buildings, to disrupt this tradition and swing over in an imitative process to our Western ways. I can see the reasons for this tendency, but it would be most unfortunate should the Japanese architects discard their tradition which is a treasure we can only wish for and will have to strive for for a long time to come."
"The standardized, lightweight, most simply furnished Japanese home, so neatly related to a well-balanced way of living, has been a deep moral inspiration to me for several decades, as well as the thorough, consistent technical propriety of its essentials and details. I feel warmly grateful to a people who have made this grand offering to the world."
"Many times the 'influence' of the Japanese architecture on the West Coast is mentioned—I cannot accept this. If there is a similarity of result, it is only because of a possible similarity of conditions…. The ways of life are very different, and I believe the basic thinking and consequent results… must again be very different." [End Page 24]
"Japan's ancient art is an important part of art history. Japan's domestic architecture is much more than two by fours, modular design, or prefabrication, i.e. the easy methods of industrialized architecture; it is the perfect expression of climatic and social conditions, of national heritage and cultural refinement alien to our mode of life. As such it has never affected my own ideas."
"Western (or American) wooden residential structure has gained appreciably from traditional Japanese architecture and its emphasis on indoor-outdoor living, cleanly modular design, exposed structure, emphasis on natural materials, a new sense of related house to garden, and the reduction of interior elements to a minimum. These things, at least, the contemporary house of today has in common with the Japanese. This has not been a direct importation, but rather an evolvement of a pattern that was introduced many years ago by Frank Lloyd Wright and others who felt its influence early."
"Japanese Art, Architecture and Gardens have had a profound influence on our Architecture—chiefly through leaders like Wright and Wurster. To the Japanese we owe the open plan and the combination of the living room with the gardens. Their understanding of materials we will do well to emulate in the future."
"Their feeling for inanimate Nature has made the Japanese supreme in such matters as the placing of stones, the management of contour lines and the use of water. All the important gardens are products of a highly stylized art in which experiment is encouraged and conventional repetition avoided.
The Japanese grasp of rhythm and accent in plant arrangements far excels our own, as does the marshaling of detail into significant and relevant patterns. It is the esthetic conception which is the foundation of this virtuosity that must be allowed to seep into our artistic consciousness." (From Gardens in the Modern Landscape)
"Traditional Japanese architecture was not widely known in Europe at the beginning of the Twenties…. I don't know whether there was any direct influence from Japanese architecture on modern architecture while the basic development took place. Later on, of course, I was very much impressed by traditional Japanese architecture, and I found in it at many points a confirmation of my own aims."
"Japanese wooden architecture…will have a strong influence… upon all modern architectural design.
To me it is inspirational in its simplicity, its usefulness of purpose, its recognition of forms in nature and finally in its conformity to a mode of simple yet elegant living." [End Page 25]
"From my early beginnings as an architect, I was greatly intrigued and attracted by the Japanese house. Its lightness, its flexibility and pleasing lines impressed me deeply. The restrained order of its standardized building parts appealed to me as the hallmark of a deeply rooted culture adaptable to any new development. The elements for today's industrial prefabrication seem to be inherent in this ancient modular conception which simultaneously left freedom for a great variety of compositions, avoiding monotony.
I consider it a challenging task for the new generation of Japanese architects to find the fitting links between that flexible, traditional concept of the old craft periods and the new development on an industrial basis."
Western industry's steel stanchions on the stone footings of a Katsura Palace! Is this the right way for a country with a great handicraft tradition? Japan's young architects say that they will soon have the technology they need to realize the dreams of today's Western leaders. But is there not something in the tradition of Japan herself which can make a new and original contribution? If there is, the young Japanese architects may again have a lesson to teach the West, just as their fathers had before them.
________
Memorial Museum, Peace Center, Hiroshima
Winning Design, City Hall Competition, Shimonoseki
Reception Rooms, Hotel Hasshokan, Nagoya
Aquarium Project, Ueno Park Zoo, Tokyo
[End Page 26]
Exhibition Building, Kobe Fair
Nurses' Training School, Teishin Hospital, Tokyo
Dormitories, Tel. & Tel. Training School, Tokyo
Museum of Modern Art, Kamakura
[End Page 27]
Note
This essay first appeared as Ryuichi Hamaguchi, "Japan's Postwar Buildings: Japanese Architecture and the West," Architectural Forum, vol. 98, no. 1 (January 1953): 138–49. Our intention was to reproduce the pages of this essay exactly as they appeared in the 1953 publication, but we were not able to do so because of permissions issues. Although we have found some discrepancies in the original captions, we have decided to reproduce them as is, in keeping with Hamaguchi's editorial policy.
