Abstract
A few years after the American warships of Commodore Matthew Perry in 1854 forced Japan to open its trade to the world, the Japanese government sent out their young architects to learn about Western architecture and construction methods. Japanese architecture had up to that point been in the very capable hands of carpenters. The influence of the Japanese carpenter can still be felt today, as most of the larger construction companies in Japan can trace their origins back to traditional carpentry; the world’s oldest continuously running independent company was Kongo Gumi, founded in 578 and remaining continuously in operation until in 2006 it was absorbed within another Japanese construction company, Takamatsu. It is around the end of the nineteenth century that in Japan a schism appeared within its construction field with the introduction of the profession of the architect which led to one person now being solely in charge of the envisioning part of construction, while the execution would be remain in hands of the carpenters who were modernising as well. The division of architecture as an intellectual activity fitted well with, whom I believe is one of Japan’s most influential architects: Kazuo Shinohara (1925–2006). Although at first glance, Shinohara’s early projects look like the design of a traditional Japanese house, while analysing his writings, that always accompanied the publication of his projects, a series of deeper conceptual layers of spatial thought appear. For Shinohara, the house is a work of art, a “binding relationship between seemingly indifferent components and the whole (J. A. Architecture: Kazuo Shinohara. p. 119)” Shinohara sought contradictions, in order to provoke an emotional reaction in the people using his spaces. Shinohara took the small house and turned it into a self-expressing universe.
I intend to devote myself to attempting to inscribe inscribe eternity within spaces….If our hearts demand what is internal, let us clearly expressed this need.
Kazuo Shinohara (Kazuo Shinohara : Houses—2G. pp. 246, 247).
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Notes
- 1.
David G. Wittner: Commodere Matthew Perry and the Perry Expedition to Japan. p. 70–.
- 2.
Ariyuki Kondo: From Modern Japanese Design to Pevner’s Art Geography, in Kjetil Fallan ed. al: Designing Worlds: National Design Histories in an Age of Globalisation. p. 95.
- 3.
Tatsuno Kingo is also credited with being the first Japanese architect to set up his own architectural office in 1903. The profession of architect did not exists in Japan, as buildings would be designed by, a master carpenter, a Daiku. Carpenters incidentally also acted as the volunteer fire brigade. This is mentioned in Tokyo High City—Low City by Edward Seidensticker.
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Oshima Tadashi Ken, ed. al: Maekawa Kunio and the Emergence of Japanese Modernist Architecture. p. 38.
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Philip Drew: The Architecture of Arata Isozaki. p. 192.
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ゼネコン from General Contractor. The very large contractors such as Kajima, Obayashi, Taisei, Shimizu and Takenaka are referred to as Super Zenekon スーパーゼネコン.
- 8.
- 9.
Agnus Stevenson: Oxford Dictionary of English. p. 82.
- 10.
A Japanese abbreviation of the words: gene(ral) con(tractor).
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Panikkos Poutziouris et al: Handbook of Research on Family Business. p. 535.
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Arata Isozaki : Japan-ness in architecture. p. 166.
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Arata Isozaki : Japan-ness in architecture. p. 137.
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Stuart D.B. Picken: Historical Dictionary of Japanese Business. p. 94.
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Wooden framed screens clad with translucent Japanese paper.
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Hiroshi Watanabe: the architecture of Tokyo. p. 118.
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Hiroshi Watanabe: the architecture of Tokyo. p. 118.
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Thomas Daniell: After the crash: architecture in post-bubble Japan.
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Kazuo Shinohara: The Japanese Conception of Space, in 2G: Kazuo Shinohara: Houses. p. 247.
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Rem Koolhaas Project Japan. p. 284.
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Kazuo Shinohara: The Japanese Conception of Space, in 2G: Kazuo Shinohara: Houses. p. 45.
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Kazuo Shinohara: The Japanese Conception of Space, in 2G: Kazuo Shinohara: Houses. p. 48.
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Kazuo Shinohara: The Japanese Conception of Space, in 2G: Kazuo Shinohara: Houses. p. 249.
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Kenneth Frampton: Modern architecture, a critical history. p. 284.
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- 33.
Kazuo Shinohara: The Japanese Conception of Space, in 2G: Kazuo Shinohara: Houses. p. 30.
- 34.
Shinohara was fervent against re-taking pictures after he initially published his projects. In the 2G Magazine which was published after his death, we can see that most of his clients respected his design intent and many of the houses have remained close to their original design. In the Shino House however we can see the gold-book cover fabric having been removed and the walls re-painted in white. In the Uncomplete House the walls have been clad with wood panelling. In both cases, to me, the spatial effect is very different from Shinohara’s ambition for these spaces. Given his rather unusual design approach, it takes a special client to accept the spatial concepts he proposed. However, the notion of architecture as a work of art does not seem to be understood, even by Shinohara’s most compromising clients.
- 35.
J. A. Kazuo Shinohara, Complete Works in Original Publications p. 53.
- 36.
J. A. Kazuo Shinohara, Complete Works in Original Publications p. 74.
- 37.
J. A. Kazuo Shinohara, Complete Works in Original Publications p. 90.
- 38.
J. A. Kazuo Shinohara, Complete Works in Original Publications p. 112.
- 39.
J. A. Kazuo Shinohara, Complete Works in Original Publications p. 112.
- 40.
J. A. Kazuo Shinohara, Complete Works in Original Publications p. 125.
- 41.
Kazuo Shinohara: The Japanese Conception of Space, in 2G: Kazuo Shinohara: Houses. p. 242.
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Kazuo Shinohara: The Third Style, in 2G: Kazuo Shinohara: Houses. p. 270.
- 43.
Wybe Kuitert: Themes, Scenes, and Taste in the History of Japanese Garden Art. p. 348.
- 44.
The tradition of the removal of shoes to seems to be taken very serious in Japan. Take for example the case of the minister of education Arinori Mori who in 1899 was stabbed and killed by a young ultranationalist. The youth, who in turn was killed on the spot by Mori’s bodyguard, had a manifesto on him in which he charged that: “Eduction Minister Mori Arinori, while visiting the Ise shrine, mounted the steps of the sanctuary without removing his shoes, in defiance of the imperial prohibition, lifted the sacred veil with his walking stick to peer inside, and retired without performing the customary obeisance.” Marius B. Jansen: The making of Modern Japan p. 410.
- 45.
. Kazuo Shinohara: The Japanese Conception of Space, in 2G: Kazuo Shinohara: Houses. p. 244.
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Kazuo Shinohara: The Japanese Conception of Space, in 2G: Kazuo Shinohara: Houses. p. 245.
- 47.
J. A. Kazuo Shinohara, Complete Works in Original Publications. p. 5.
- 48.
Kazuo Shinohara: Urban Rumors in Rem Koolhaas: Mutations. p. 720.
- 49.
This is the main premise of Arata Isozaki book Japan-ness in architecture.
- 50.
Arata Isozaki : Japan-ness in architecture. p. 166.
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Arata Isozaki : Japan-ness in architecture. p. 167.
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Botond Bognar, Contemporary Japanese Architecture. p. 13.
- 55.
Rebuilt many times due to the 1923 earthquake and damage during WWII.
- 56.
Hiroshi Watanabe: The architecture of Tokyo. p. 90.
- 57.
Demolished in the early 1990s to make place for the Tokyo International Forum by Rafael Viñoly.
- 58.
Sigfried Giedion: Space, Time and Architecture. p. 22.
- 59.
Kazuo Shinohara: The Japanese Conception of Space, in 2G: Kazuo Shinohara: Houses. pp. 244, 245.
- 60.
Gaston Bachelard : Poetics of Space. p. 4.
- 61.
Gaston Bachelard : Poetics of Space. p. 4.
- 62.
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- 63.
Margaret R. Miles: Augustine on the Body. p. 31.
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- 65.
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- 66.
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- 67.
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Kinutake in Rem Koolhaas Project Japan
- 69.
Tadao Ando: The Japan Architect Vol. 58. p. 52.
- 70.
Toyo Ito: Pao for the Tokyo Nomad Girl in Botond Bognar: The New Japanese Architecture. p. 47.
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Toyo Ito: Vortex and Current. On Architecture as Phenomenalism in Japanese Architecture II. pp. 22–23.
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Kazuo Shinohara: The Japanese Conception of Space, in 2G: Kazuo Shinohara: Houses. p. 247.
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van der Linden, M. (2021). The House as a Container for the Unconscious. In: Architecture. Advances in 21st Century Human Settlements. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-33-4658-1_9
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