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Japan Visual Arts
Architecture
With the introduction of Western building techniques,
materials, and styles into Meiji Japan, new steel and
concrete
structures were built in strong contrast to traditional
styles. Japan played some role in modern skyscraper design
because
of its long familiarity with the cantilever principle to
support
the weight of heavy tiled temple roofs. Frank Lloyd Wright
was
strongly influenced by Japanese spatial arrangements and
the
concept of interpenetrating exterior and interior space,
long
achieved in Japan by opening up walls made of sliding
doors. In the
late twentieth century, however, only in domestic and
religious
architecture was Japanese style commonly employed. Cities
bristled
with modern skyscrapers, epitomized by Tokyo's crowded
skyline,
reflecting a total assimilation and transformation of
modern
Western forms.
The widespread urban planning and reconstruction
necessitated
by the devastation of World War II produced such major
architects
as Maekawa Kunio and Tange Kenzo. Maekawa, a student of
worldfamous architect Charles LeCorbusier, produced thoroughly
international , functional modern works. Tange, who worked at
first for
Maekawa, supported this concept. Both were notable for
infusing
Japanese aesthetic ideas into starkly contemporary
buildings,
returning to the spatial concepts and modular proportions
of tatami
(sleeping mats), using textures to enliven the ubiquitous
ferroconcrete and steel, and integrating gardens and
sculpture into
their designs. Tange used the cantilever principle in a
pillar and
beam system reminiscent of ancient imperial palaces; the
pillar--a
hallmark of Japanese traditional monumental timber
construction--
became fundamental to his designs. Maki Fumihiko advanced
new city
planning ideas based on the principle of layering or
cocooning
around an inner space (oku), a Japanese spatial
concept that
was adapted to urban needs. He also advocated the use of
empty or
open spaces (ma), a Japanese aesthetic principle
reflecting
Buddhist spatial ideas. Another quintessentially Japanese
aesthetic
concept was a basis for Maki designs, which focused on
openings
onto intimate garden views at ground level while cutting
off
somtimes-ugly skylines. A dominant 1970s architectural
concept, the
"metabolism" of convertibility, provided for changing the
functions
of parts of buildings according to use, and remains
influential.
A major architect of the 1970s and 1980s was Isozaki
Arata,
originally a student and associate of Tange's, who also
based his
style on the LeCorbusier tradition and then turned his
attention
toward the further exploration of geometric shapes and
cubic
silhouettes. He synthesized Western high-technology
building
concepts with peculiarly Japanese spatial, functional, and
decorative ideas to create a modern Japanese style.
Isozaki's
predilection for the cubic grid and trabeated pergola in
largescale architecture, for the semicircular vault in
domestic-scale
buildings, and for extended barrel vaulting in low,
elongated
buildings led to a number of striking variations. New Wave
architects of the 1980s were influenced by his designs,
either
pushing to extend his balanced style, often into
mannerism, or
reacting against them.
A number of avant-garde experimental groups were
encompassed in
the New Wave of the late 1970s and the 1980s. They
reexamined and
modified the formal geometric structural ideas of
modernism by
introducing metaphysical concepts, producing some
startling fantasy
effects in architectural design. In contrast to these
innovators,
the experimental poetic minimalism of Ando Tadao embodied
the
postmodernist concerns for a more balanced, humanistic
approach
than that of structural modernism's rigid formulations.
And 's
buildings provided a variety of light sources, including
extensive
use of glass bricks and opening up spaces to the outside
air. He
adapted the inner courtyards of traditional Osaka houses
to new
urban architecture, using open stairways and bridges to
lessen the
sealed atmosphere of the standard city dwelling. His ideas
became
ubiquitous in the 1980s, when buildings were commonly
planned
around open courtyards or plazas, often with stepped and
terraced
spaces, pedestrian walkways, or bridges connecting
building complexes . In 1989 And became the third Japanese to receive
France's
Prix de l'Académie d'Architecture, an indication of the
international strength of the major Japanese architects,
all of
whom produced important structures abroad during the
1980s. Japanese architects were not only skilled
practitioners in
the modern idiom but also enriched postmodern designs
worldwide
with innovative spatial perceptions, subtle surface
texturing,
unusual use of industrial materials, and a developed
awareness of
ecological and topographical problems.
Data as of January 1994
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