East-West Crossovers

The emergence of several Japanese architects and designers as prominent figures in current
practice in Europe and America reflects the growing internationalism of design practice. Earlier,
Western design had exerted its influence in Japan through such projects as Frank Lloyd
Wrights Imperial Hotel (1915-23) in Tokyo or Le Corbusiers Tokyo National Museum of
Western Art. Increased availability of publications and travel and study in Europe and the
United States made younger Japanese professionals more aware of modern design in the West.
The simplicity and logic of traditional Japanese architecture generated an affinity between
Japanese traditions and Western modernism.

Imperial Hotel, Tokyo by Frank Lloyd Wright

The Chikatsu-Asuka Historical Museum in Osaka, Japan (1994), by Tadao Ando (b. 1941) is at
once a minimalist work of modernism and a seemingly timeless cluster of spaces relating to the
ancient tombs that are the focus of the museums exhibits. Interior spaces are dark and
somber, their exposed concrete walls permitting play of light and shade, constantly changing
with the movement of the sun. The same architects Suntory Museum(1994) also at Osaka, is a
seafront structure with a great IMAX theater rising in a tapered cylinder drum from stepped
plazas leading down to the waterfront. Rectangular elements house a restaurant and a gallery
and contribute to the strongly geometric forms of the building.

Chikatsu-Asuka Historical Museum in Osaka, Japan by Tadao Ando

Suntory Museum, Osaka, Japan by Tadao Ando

In the Kirishima International

Concert Hall at Aiura, Japan (1994) by Fumihiko Maki (1928) and entry hall and foyer wrap
around the main auditorium with an entire glass wall giving views of the surrounding mountain
terrain. The main hall is leaf-shaped in plan, with balcony seating stepped down in terrace
platforms on either side of the central space. Walls are of natural wood, while the ceiling is
made up of triangular white panels placed together in an irregular arrangement that is visually
interesting and acoustically effective.
The necessity for compactness in contemporary urban life is nowhere more pressing than in
Japan, and architects there are constantly for ways to maximize the functionality of increasingly
smaller living spaces.
In 2002, Masaki Endo and Masahiro Ikeda (b. 1964) built
the Natural Ellipse House in a district of Tokyo which has a
lively street life twenty four hours a day. The house had to
both shield the residents from outside light and noise, and
do it on a plot of land not more than twenty feet across
and twenty feet deep. The resulting tower is formed of
twenty-four elliptical rings sheathed in white fiberreinforced polymer. The center of the building is a mesh
steel winding staircase that communicates with all five
floors. Each floor functions as a doughnut-shaped room,
and at the top is a tiny roof terrace with a glass floor that
allows light through to the rest of the house.

Just as Western influence have moved into the Japanese design world, a reverse flow of
Japanese design into Europe and America has become commonplace. Arata Izosaki (b. 1931)
has a striking presence in the United States. In his 4-story administrative center building for
Team Disney at Lake Buena Vista (1990) a variety of masses are grouped in seeming collision.
The selection of Yoshio Taniguchi (b. 1937) as the designer of a major reconstruction of New
Yorks Museum of Modern Art is another indication of the extent of internationalism in the
design fields.

Administrative Center Building, Team Disney

PRESERVATION