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Representative Rebel? . - Reviews - Moekawa Kunio and the Emergence of Japanese Modernist Architecture - book review

Art Journal, Spring, 2003 by Dana Buntrock

Jonathan M. Reynolds. Moekawa Kunio and the Emergence of Japanese Modernist Architecture. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2001. 336 pp. 8 color ills., 154 b/w. $60.

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For anyone who has put together a reading list on Japanese architecture, Jonathan Reynolds's carefully researched book Mackawa Kunio and the Emergence of Japanese Modernist Architecture (1) is a welcome addition to the current skimpy selection of published works on the topic. Most books discussing twentieth-century Japanese architecture are monographs with little text, and, because of the realities of architectural publishing, these formats allow a less than critical view of their respective subjects. (2) Reynolds's hook is particularly valuable because almost half of his discussion concerns the years before 1945, and much of it the period from 1920 through the end of World War II. While very little was constructed during the inter-war years, Japanese architects continued to develop their ideas on paper, and important stylistic and conceptual shifts took place in the field. The emergence of a Japanese modernist architecture, naturally an important topic in any survey of the twentieth century, is addressed in few texts in either Japanese or English. (3)

In the book's introduction, Reynolds establishes his intent, not to offer a conventional biography, but to show through Maekawa Kunio's career how modernist architects fought for and eventually succeeded in establishing their approach as the norm. As the title suggests, the book is not solely about Maekawa: roughly one-quarter of the text and one-third of the illustrations deal with work by other architects. At the same time, Maekawa is clearly worthy of close study, as one of the few Japanese architects who played a significant role on the international stage. He worked in the offices of Le Corbusier and Antonin Raymond, became a close friend of Charlotte Perriand, employed Tange Kenzo at the beginning of his career, wrote influential texts promoting modernist architecture in the prewar period, and designed some of Japan's finest postwar buildings. Yet he remains little known, especially abroad, because of a dearth of published material on his work; Maekawa is even said to have actively prevented one monogra ph from being published. (4)

The book's first chapter begins in 1850--more than half a century before Maekawa's birth--with the introduction of Western "modern" architecture into Japan. In these early years, a "Western" architecture style was often employed for buildings whose cultural or functional types were also borrowed from abroad: the earliest modern building mentioned in Reynolds's text is a reverberatory furnace. The schism between indigenous practices and the profession of architecture became so complete that for a time many Japanese architects were almost entirely unaware of their country's architectural history. The artistic and theoretic goals of the profession of architecture emerged in the early years of the twentieth century, and several of Maekawa's professors played significant roles in this evolution. As Reynolds explains, Ito Chuta went so far as to name the field, maintaining that the word kenchiku (commonly used today) encompassed the art and technology of practice, while other terms used at the time tended to limit architecture to a technological sphere. Another of Maekawa's professors, Sano Riki, advocated the most up-to-date construction practices from around the world over too great a reliance on indigenous technologies. Sano may also deserve more credit for Maekawa's postwar commitment to innovative construction practices than Reynolds acknowledges.

Reynolds is at his best in this first chapter. He does an excellent job of summarizing the various definitions of architecture--and by extension, architectural values--debated in the profession's early years. As the economy slowed in the 1920s, architecture shifted to conceptual work produced by some of Japan's brightest young designers but consummated only in annual exhibitions and published drawings. In discussions of the Bunriha and Sousha movements (or in the later text on the 1960s Metabolists), Reynolds's fondness for hotheads trying to create a theoretically grounded architecture is one of the book's real delights. The innocent and vivid prose written by these recent graduates is reckless and over the top, but Reynolds's understated writing style acts as a perfect foil for the quotes he draws on, and the result is the most sparkling part of the book. Although not officially aligned with these groups, Maekawa, in his early years, was just such a hothead, albeit (unfortunately) not given to such overblow n prose; it is easy to imagine that this was Maekawa's initial attraction for Reynolds.

This discussion of the emerging profession is followed by a short description of Maekawa's childhood and family background; in light of Reynolds's desire to eschew a conventional biography, this seems unnecessary because it offers little that is unusual for architects of the period. Reynolds then discusses the interval Maekawa spent as an employee of Le Corbusier and makes clear that the Japanese architect was an alert pupil, not a slavish disciple, who learned from Le Corbusier's weaknesses as well as his strengths. While Le Corbusier's use of competitions to advance his career provided valuable lessons, the French architect's failures in affordable housing--the buildings often turned out to be expensive and unpopular--offered Maekawa a negative example that proved valuable in the years after World War II.

Representative Rebel? . - Reviews - Moekawa Kunio and the Emergence of Japanese Modernist Architecture - book review

Art Journal, Spring, 2003 by Dana Buntrock

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