Category: 30s

1937 – Keio Gijuku Yochisha Elementary School – Yoshiro Taniguchi

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1937 – Keio Gijuku Yochisha Elementary School – Yoshiro Taniguchi
1937 – Keio Gijuku Yochisha Elementary School – Yoshiro Taniguchi
1937 – Keio Gijuku Yochisha Elementary School – Yoshiro Taniguchi

After becoming an Associate Professor at the Tokyo Institute of Technology in 1932, architect Yoshiro Taniguchi designed the Yochisha Main Building of Kejo School in 1937. A masterpiece of modern architecture from the early Showa period, it remains an important work representative of Taniguchi’s early career. He subsequently led the building of other school buildings and hospital wards and even designed the Monument to the Birthplace of Keio Gijuku, which stands in Akashi-cho, Chuo-ku, where Keio was originally founded. The building is registered as one of the 100 best representatives of modern architecture in Japan. Note: The school is not open to the public, visit only with application possible.

Name: Keio Gijuku Yochisha Elementary School│Type: Education│Architect: Yoshiro Taniguchi│Completed: 1937

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1938 – Hara Museum of Contemporary Art – Jin Watanabe

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The building was originally built as the residence of a businessman. Designed in a modernist style by Jin Watanabe. The reinforced concrete structure, with an exterior finish of mosaic tile, was turned into a museum of contemporary art in 1979. The addition was designed by Arata Isozaki. The unique building which reveals many influences of the European architectural styles of the 1920s and 30s stands today as a rare example of early-modern Japanese architecture.

Name: Hara Museum of Contemporary Art (former Hara Residence)│Type: Residential / Museum│Architect: Jin Watanabe│Completed: 1938

Location

1935 – Tsuchiura House – Kameki Tsuchiura

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The Tsuchiura family residence was designed by Tsuchiura Kameki (1897-1996), a successful architect of Modern Architecture, for his own house. Het met Frank Lloyd Wright during his studies at Faculty of Architecture, Tokyo University, and since then studied under Wright who made a great influence on the Japanese architect. Later he came to know the European Modern Architecture, so that he flourished as the architect of Modern Architecture. His own house is one of his rare extant works.

The house is an urban housing of wooden dry construction, characterized by an overall outer appearance of a large white box with large glass windows. The inside is a large single room without decorations, four-layered floor levels which skillfully made use of difference in altitudes within the premises offer a flowing movement to a visual connection and circulation. An excellent spatial construction unites contradictory elements of spatial unity and rhythmical chances.

Name: Tsuchiura House│Type: Residential│Architect: Tsuchiura Kameki│Completed: 1935

Location

1935 – Asakura Choso Museum – Fumio Asakura

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1935 – Asakura Choso Museum – Fumio Asakura
1935 – Asakura Choso Museum – Fumio Asakura © Lukas Gruntz
1935 – Asakura Choso Museum – Fumio Asakura © Lukas Gruntz
1935 – Asakura Choso Museum – Fumio Asakura
1935 – Asakura Choso Museum – Fumio Asakura © Lukas Gruntz
1935 – Asakura Choso Museum – Fumio Asakura
1935 – Asakura Choso Museum – Fumio Asakura

It took seven years from 1928 to 1935 to build the Asakura Museum of Sculpture. Originally it was Fumio Asakuras home and studio. Although seven years of the construction period seems very long, sculptor Asakura himself was involved in the design and the supervision of the construction, so it was built in a way that an ordinary architect did not adopt. The modernist studio wing’s exterior concrete wall is painted black, and white can be seen in the courtyard. Here is also a contrast between black and white. As to the traditional Japanese residential wing, new materials were already applied to the walls, so we probed traces of the original walls that Asakura actually made. As a result, it turned out that red and black sand, fibers, mortar, and mortar mixed with lampblack were used for the walls.

Name: Asakura Museum of Sculpure│Type: studio, residential│Architect: Fumio Asakura│Completed: 1935

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