Do|Co|Mo|Mo|Japan|10 Toyoda Hall : Fumihiko Maki
Toyoda Hall, Fumihiko Maki's debut project, contains the seeds of ideas that he has continued to develop throughout his career...
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John Barr
Aug 2, 20195 min read
Do|Co|Mo|Mo|Japan|09 Ministry of Foreign Affairs : Hideo Kosaka
The design of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs building represents a time when modernism was concerned with social issues.
John Barr
Jul 2, 201910 min read
Do|Co|Mo|Mo|Japan|08 Kasuien : Togo Murano
Togo Murano is one of the most popular 20th century architects amongst Japanese, and yet he is not widely known outside Japan...
John Barr
Jun 4, 20194 min read
Do|Co|Mo|Mo|Japan|07 : Ura House : Takamasa Yoshizaka
The Ura House, designed by Takamasa Yoshizaka in 1956, is influenced by Corbusian ideas but also anticipates Japanese Metabolism.
John Barr
May 7, 20193 min read
From Imperial Power to Consumer Power : Imperial Palace, Kyoto to Naka Incineration Plant, Hiroshima
The Naka Incineration Plant Hiroshima illustrates Japan's movement from a pre-modern, feudal, society to a post-modern, consumer society.
John Barr
Apr 29, 20194 min read
Do|Co|Mo|Mo|Japan|06 : Osaka Gas Building : Takeo Yasui.
The Osaka Gas Building, designed by Takeo Yasui and completed in 1933, reflects Osaka's optimistic embrace of the future at that time.
John Barr
Feb 26, 201920 min read
Tokyo Story : Looking Without Trying to Prove Anything
Between 1932 and 1962 Yasujiro Ozu made a series of films that provide a slice of Tokyo life during the arrival of Modernism in Japan.
John Barr
Dec 12, 20189 min read
Do|Co|Mo|Mo|Japan|05 : Kagawa Prefectural Government Offices : Takamatsu : Kenzo Tange
The Kagawa Prefectural Government Offices (1958) offered a radical new vision of what Japanese public buildings might be.
John Barr
Nov 21, 20186 min read
Do|Co|Mo|Mo|Japan|04 : The Hiroshima Peace Centre : Kenzo Tange
The background to the Hiroshima Peace Centre hardly needs to be explained: the first use of the Atomic Bomb and the deaths of over 200,000.
John Barr
Nov 3, 20183 min read
Do|Co|Mo|Mo|Japan|03 : International House of Japan : Kunio Maekawa, Junzo Sakakura, Junzo Yoshimura
The International House of Japan reflects the changed realities for Japan after WWII.
John Barr
Oct 12, 20185 min read
Do|Co|Mo|Mo|Japan|02 : Dojunkai Apartments : Tokyo : Dojunkai Corporation
The real value of Tokyo's Dojunkai Apartments has been ignored in the rush to maximise economic gain from the land that they occupied.
John Barr
Oct 5, 20182 min read
Do|Co|Mo|Mo|Japan|01 : Tokyo Women's Christian University : Antonin Raymond
Tokyo Women's Christian University is Antonin Raymond's first major building in Japan.
John Barr
Aug 21, 20188 min read
Yoshio Taniguchi : The Man in the White Suit
In the 1951 film, The Man in the White Suit, chemist Sidney Stratton invents a fabric that will never crease or get dirty or wear out.
John Barr
Jun 29, 201813 min read
Kiyonori Kikutake (The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde)
The widow of Japanese Architect Kiyonori Kikutake has described different facets of her husband's personality, one gentle and reflective.
John Barr
May 21, 20187 min read
Sabi (A Matter of Life and Death)
Sabi is an important concept in Japanese aesthetics that can be difficult to grasp because there is no directly equivalent word in English.
John Barr
Apr 25, 201816 min read
Katsura Imperial Villa (All Things to All Men)
In the 20th century Katsura Imperial Villa became a kind of touchstone for the essence of Japanese architecture.
John Barr
Mar 6, 20186 min read
Tadao Ando : Romanesque Architect
Tadao Ando is possibly the most famous Japanese architect of the modern era. But Ando's work is neither modern nor Japanese.
John Barr
Feb 2, 201810 min read
MOMA Kamakura : The Last Japanese Building
One of the qualities of traditional Japanese architecture rarely acknowledged is that, for the most part, it was built cheaply.
John Barr
Dec 10, 20178 min read
The Golden Temple (Zen and the Theory of Everything)
The Golden Temple in Kyoto is viewed through the eyes of the psychopathic arsonist of Yushio Mishima's novel.
John Barr
Nov 5, 201711 min read
Light and Transparency in Japanese Architecture (In Praise of Fuzziness)
Dark spaces exist in both Japan and the West but the responses have been different.
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