The introduction into Japan of Buddhism in the sixth century was a catalyst for large scale temple building using complicated techniques in wood. Influence from the Chinese T'ang and Sui Dynasties led to the foundation of the first permanent capital in Nara. Its checkerboard street layout used the Chinese capital of Chang'an as a template for its design. A gradual increase in the size of buildings led to standard units of measurement as well as refinements in layout and garden design. The introduction of the tea ceremony emphasised simplicity and modest design as a counterpoint to the excesses of the aristocracy.
During the Meiji Restoration of 1868 the history of Japanese architecture was radically changed by two important events. The first was the Kami and Buddhas Separation Act of 1868, which formally separated Buddhism from Shinto and Buddhist temples from Shinto shrines, breaking an association between the two which had lasted well over a thousand years and causing, directly and indirectly, immense damage to the nation's architecture.
Second, it was then that Japan underwent a period of intense Westernization in order to compete with other developed countries. Initially architects and styles from abroad were imported to Japan but gradually the country taught its own architects and began to express its own style. Architects returning from study with western architects introduced the International Style of modernism into Japan. However it was not until after the Second World War that Japanese architects made an impression on the international scene, firstly with the work of architects like Kenzo Tange and then with theoretical movements like Metabolism.
General features
The roof is the dominant feature of traditional Japanese architecture.
Much in the traditional architecture of Japan is not native, but was imported from China and other Asian cultures over the centuries, with such constancy that the building styles of all the Six Dynasties of China are represented. Japanese traditional architecture and its history are as a consequence dominated by Chinese and Asian techniques and styles (present even in Ise Shrine, held to be the quintessence of Japanese architecture) on one side, and by Japanese original variations on those themes on the other.
Partly due also to the variety of climates in Japan and the millennium encompassed between the first cultural import and the last, the result is extremely heterogeneous, but several practically universal features can nonetheless be found. First of all is the choice of materials, always wood in various forms (planks, straw, tree bark, paper, etc.) for almost all structures. Unlike both Western and some Chinese architecture, the use of stone is avoided except for certain specific uses, for example temple podia and pagoda foundations.
The general structure is almost always the same: posts and lintels support a large and gently curved roof, while the walls are paper-thin, often movable and in any case non-carrying. Arches and barrel roofs are completely absent. Gable and eave curves are gentler than in China and columnar entasis (convexity at the center) limited.
The roof is the most visually impressive component, often constituting half the size of the whole edifice. The slightly curved eaves extend far beyond the walls, covering verandas, and their weight must therefore be supported by complex bracket systems called tokyō, in the case of temples and shrines. Simpler solutions are adopted in domestic structures. The oversize eaves give the interior a characteristic dimness, which contributes to the building's atmosphere. The interior of the building normally consists of a single room at the center called moya, from which depart any other less important spaces.
Inner space divisions are fluid, and room size can be modified through the use of screens or movable paper walls. The large, single space offered by the main hall can therefore be divided according to the need. To the contrary, some walls can be removed and different rooms joined temporarily to make space for some more guests. The separation between inside and outside is itself in some measure not absolute as entire walls can be removed, opening a residence or temple to visitors. Verandas appear to be part of the building to an outsider, but part of the external world to those in the building. Structures are therefore made to a certain extent part of their environment. Care is taken to blend the edifice into the surrounding natural environment.
The use of construction modules keeps proportions between different parts of the edifice constant, preserving its overall harmony. On the subject of building proportions, see also the article ken).
Even in cases as that of Nikkō Tōshō-gū, where every available space is heavily decorated, ornamentation tends to follow, and therefore emphasize, rather than hide, basic structures.
Being shared by both sacred and profane architecture, these features made it easy converting a lay building into a temple or viceversa. This happened for example at Hōryū-ji, where a noblewoman's mansion was transformed into a religious building.
Prehistoric period
The prehistoric period includes the Jōmon, Yayoi and Kofun periods stretching from approximately 5000 BCE to the beginning of the eighth century CE.
During the three phases of the Jōmon period the population was primarily hunter-gatherer with some primitive agriculture skills and their behaviour was predominantly determined by changes in climatic conditions and other natural stimulants. Early dwellings were pit houses consisting of shallow pits with tamped earth floors and grass roofs designed to collect rainwater with the aid of storage jars. Later in the period, a colder climate with greater rainfall led to a decline in population, which contributed to an interest in ritual. Concentric stone circles first appeared during this time.
During the Yayoi period the Japanese people began to interact with the Chinese Han Dynasty, whose knowledge and technical skills began to influence them. The Japanese began to build raised-floor storehouses as granaries which were constructed using metal tools like saws and chisels that began to appear at this time. A reconstruction in Toro, Shizuoka is a wooden box made of thick boards joined in the corners in a log cabin style and supported on eight pillars. The roof is thatched but, unlike the typically hipped roof of the pit dwellings, it is a simple V-shaped gable.
The Kofun period marked the appearance of many-chambered burial mounds or tumuli (kofun literally means "old mounds"). These are thought to have been influenced by similar mounds in Korea. Early in the period the tombs, known as "keyhole kofun" or zenpō-kōen kofun (前方後円古墳?, lit. square in front, circular in back old tomb-mound), often made use of the existing topography, shaping it and adding man-made moats to form a distinctive keyhole shape, i.e. that of a circle interconnected with a triangle. Access was via a vertical shaft that was sealed off once the burial was completed. There was room inside the chamber for a coffin and grave goods. The mounds were often decorated with terracotta figures called haniwa. Later in the period mounds began to be located on flat ground and their scale greatly increased. Among many examples in Nara and Osaka, the most notable is the Daisen-kofun, designated as the tomb of Emperor Nintoku. The tomb covers 32 hectares (80 acres) and it is thought to have been decorated with 20,000 haniwa figures.
Towards the end of the Kofun period, tomb burials faded out as Buddhist cremation ceremonies gained popularity.
Late Showa period
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| Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum, Hiroshima |
After the war and under the influence of the Supreme Commander of the Allied Powers, General Douglas MacArthur, Japanese political and religious life was reformed to produce a demilitarised and democratic country. Although a new constitution was established in 1947, it was not until the beginning of the Korean War that Japan (as an ally of the United States) saw a growth in its economy brought about by the manufacture of industrial goods. In 1946 the Prefabricated Housing Association was formed to try and address the chronic shortage of housing, and architects like Kunio Maekawa submitted designs. However it was not until the passing of the Public Housing Act in 1951 that housing built by the private sector was supported in law by the government. Also in 1946, the War Damage Rehabilitation Board put forward ideas for the reconstruction of thirteen Japanese cities. Architect Kenzō Tange submitted proposals for Hiroshima and Maebashi.
In 1949, Tange's winning competition entry to design the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum gave him international acclaim. The project (completed in 1955) led to a series of commissions including the Kagawa Prefectural Office Building in Takamatsu (1958) and Old Kurashiki City Hall (1960). At this time both Tange and Maekawa were interested in the tradition of Japanese architecture and the influence of local character. This was illustrated at Kagawa with elements of Heian period design fused with the International Style.
National Museum of Western Art, Tōkyō
In 1955, Le Corbusier was asked by the Japanese government to design the National Museum of Western Art in Tōkyō. He was assisted by his three former students: Maekawa, Sakakura and Takamasa Yoshizaka. The design was based upon Le Corbusier's museum in Ahmedabab, and both of the museums are square and raised on piloti.
Due largely to the influence of Tange, the 1960 World Design Conference was held in Tōkyō. A small group of Japanese designers who came to represent the Metabolist Movement presented their manifesto and a series of projects. The group included the architects Kiyonori Kikutake, Masato Ōtaka, Kisho Kurokawa and Fumihiko Maki. Originally known as the Burnt Ash School, the Metabolists associated themselves with idea of renewal and regeneration, rejecting visual representations of the past and promoting the idea that the individual, the house and the city were all parts of a single organism. Although the individual members of the group went in their own directions after a few years the enduring nature of their publications meant that they had a longer presence overseas. The international symbol of the Metabolists, the capsule, emerged as an idea in the late 1960s and was demonstrated in Kurokawa's Nakagin Capsule Tower in Tōkyō in 1972.
In the 1960s Japan saw the both the rise and the expansion of large construction firms, including the Shimizu Corporation and Kajima. Nikken Sekkei emerged as a comprehensive company that often included elements of Metabolist design in its buildings.
During the 1960s there were also architects who did not see the world of architecture in terms of Metabolism. For example Kazuo Shinohara specialised in small residential projects in which he explored traditional architecture with simple elements in terms of space, abstraction and symbolism. In the Umbrella House (1961) he explored the spatial relationship between the doma (earth-paved internal floor) and the raised tatami floor in the living room and sleeping room. This relationship was explored further with the House with an Earthen floor (1963) where a tamped-down earthen floor was included in the kitchen area. His use of a roof to anchor his design for the House in White (1966) has been compared with Frank Lloyd Wright's Prairie Houses. Shinohara explored these abstractions as "Three Styles", which were periods of design that stretched from the early sixties to the mid seventies.
A former employee of Kenzo Tange was Arata Isozaki who was initially interested in the Metabolist Movement and produced innovative theoretical projects for the City in the Air (1961) and Future City (1962). However he soon moved away from this towards a more Mannerist approach similar to the work of James Stirling. This was particularly striking at the Oita Branch for Fukuoka Mutual (1967) with its mathematical grids, concrete construction and exposed services. In the Gunma Prefectural Museum (1971–74) he experimented with cubic elements (some of them twelve metres to a side) overlaid by a secondary grid expressed by the external wall panels and fenestration. This rhythm of panelling may have been influenced by Corbusier's detailing on the Museum of Western Art in Tōkyō.
Japanese cities where they lack European-like piazzas and squares often emphasise the relationship of people with the everyday workings of the street. Fumihiko Maki was one of a number of architects who were interested in the relationship of architecture and the city and this can be seen in works like Ōsaka Prefectural Sports Centre (1972) and Spiral in Tōkyō (1985). Likewise, Takefuma Aida (member of the group known as ArchiteXt) rejected the ideas of the Metabolist Movement and explored urban semiology.
Rokkō Housing 1, Kōbe
In the late seventies and early eighties Tadao Ando's architecture and theoretical writings explored the idea of Critical regionalism - the idea of promoting local or national culture within architecture. Ando's interpretation of this was demonstrated by his idea of reacquainting the Japanese house with nature, a relationship he thought had been lost with Modernist architecture. His first projects were for small urban houses with enclosed courtyards (such as the Azuma House in Ōsaka in 1976). His architecture is characterised by the use of concrete, but it has been important for him to use the interplay of light, through time, with this and other materials in his work. His ideas about the integration of nature converted well into larger projects such as the Rokkō Housing 1 (1983) (on a steep site on Mount Rokkō) and the Church on the Water (1988) in Tomamu, Hokkaidō.
The late eighties saw the first work by architects of the so-called "Shinohara" school. This included Toyō Itō and Itsuko Hasegawa who were both interested in urban life and the contemporary city. Itō concentrated on the dynamism and mobility of the city's "urban nomads" with projects like the Tower of Winds (1986) which integrated natural elements like light and wind with those of technology. Hasegawa concentrated on what she termed "architecture as another nature". Her Shōnandai Cultural Centre in Fujisawa (1991) combined the natural environment with new high-tech materials.
Highly individualist architects of the late eighties included the monumental buildings of Shin Takamatsu and the "cosmic" work of Masaharu Takasaki.Takasaki, who worked with the Austrian architect Günther Domenig in the 1970s shares Domenig's organic architecture. His Zero Cosmology House of 1991 in Kagoshima Prefecture constructed from concrete has a contemplative egg-shaped "zero space" at its centre.
Japanese interior design
Japanese interior design has a unique aesthetic derived from Taoism, particularly Zen Buddhism, specific religious figures and the west. This aesthetic has in turn influenced western style, particularly Modernism.
Traditional Japanese aesthetic
What is generally identified as the Japanese aesthetic stems from ideals of Taoism, imported from China in Ancient times. Japanese culture is extremely diverse, as evidenced by the difference between Noh theatre and Kabuki theatre. Despite this, in terms on the interior, the generally identified aesthetic is one of simplicity and minimalism.
The specific idea that a room’s true beauty is in the empty space within the roof and walls came from Laozi, a philosopher and the founder of Taoism, who held to the “aesthetic ideal of emptiness”, believing that the mood should be captured in the imagination, not so heavily dictated by what is physically present.
Impermanence is a strong theme in traditional Japanese dwellings. The size of rooms can be altered by interior sliding walls or screens called shoji. Cupboards built smoothly into the wall hide futons which pull out at night, allowing more space to be available during the day. The versatility of these dwellings becomes more apparent with changes of seasons. In summer, for example, exterior walls can be opened to bring the garden and cooling breezes in. The minimal decoration also alters seasonally, with a different scroll hanging or new flower arrangement. The Japanese aesthetic developed further with the celebration of imperfection and insufficiency, characteristics resulting from the natural ageing process or obscuring effect. Shintoism, the indigenous religious tradition of Japan, provides a basis for the appreciation of these qualities, holding to a philosophy of appreciation of life and the world. Sei Shōnagon was a trend-setting court lady of the tenth century who wrote in ‘The Pillow Book’ of her dislike for “a new cloth screen with a colourful and cluttered painting of many cherry blossoms”, preferring instead to notice “that one’s elegant Chinese mirror has become a little cloudy". Her taste was not out of place in the ancient Japanese court and in the twelfth century, a retired Buddhist monk, Yoshida Kenkō, exerted his influence on Japanese aesthetic sensibility resulting from his philosophy of life. He asked, “Are we to look at cherry blossoms only in full bloom, the moon only when it is cloudless? ...Branches about to blossom or garden strewn with faded flowers are worthier of our admiration.”The incomplete is also praised by Kenkō, “uniformity and completeness are undesirable”. Underpinning or complimenting these aesthetic ideals, is the valuing of contrast; when imperfection or the impoverished is contrasted with perfection or opulence, each is emphasised and thus better appreciated.
Traditional materials of the interior
Tatami is the basis of traditional Japanese architecture, regulating its size and dimensions. It originated in ancient Japan when straw was laid on bare earth as a softener and warmer. In the Heian Period (794-1185), this idea developed into moveable mats that could be laid anywhere in the house to sit or sleep on before becoming a permanent floor covering in the fifteenth century. Tatami is suitable for the Japanese climate in the way it allows air to circulate around the floor.
Bamboo is prominent and even expected in the Japanese house, used both for decorative and functional purposes. Bamboo blinds, sudare, replace shoji in summer to prevent excess heat inside and also offer greater ventilation. Country dwellings and farmhouses often use it for ceilings and rafters. The natural properties of bamboo, its raw beauty with the knots and smooth surface, hold to Japanese aesthetic ideals of imperfection, contrast and the natural.
The use of paper, or washi, in Japanese buildings is a main component in the beauty and atmosphere of the Japanese interior, the way variation of shadow combines to create a “mystery of shadows”. A range of papers are used for various purposes in the home.
Wood is generally used for the framework of the home, but its properties are valuable in the Japanese aesthetic, namely its warmth and irregularity.
Western influence
After the Meiji Restoration of 1868, Japan relations to Euro-American powers became more prominent and involved. This spilled into a broader interacting with the modern world, which in terms of interior design, resulted in the introduction of western style interiors, while the vernacular style came to be more associated with tradition and the past. The typical interiors found in Japanese homes and western homes in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries were vastly different with almost opposing attitudes to furniture, versatility of space and materials.
Many public spaces had begun to incorporate chairs and desks by the late nineteenth century, department stores adopted western-style displays; a new “urban visual and consumer culture” was emerging. In the domestic sphere, the manner and dress of inhabitants were determined by the interior style, Japanese or Western.
There was a push by bureaucrats for Japan to develop into a more “modern” (Western) culture. The modernising of the home was considered the best way to change the daily life of the people. Much of the reason for modernisation was a desire to “present a ‘civilised’ face to the world, thus helping to secure Japan’s position as a modern nation in the world order”. Even with governmental encouragement to transform the home, the majority Japanese people still lived in fairly traditional style dwellings well into the 1920s, partly due to economic situation in the early 1910s that meant western style was out of reach for the majority of people. It was also difficult to incorporate furniture into traditional dwellings due to their small size and intended flexible use of space, a flexibility made difficult to maintain when bulky furniture was involved; it was impractical, but aesthetically incongruent too.
Influence on the West
Some of the earliest influence on the west came in the form of Japanese art, which gained popularity in Europe in particular, in the latter part of the nineteenth century.In terms of architecture and interior design though, the influence on the west is much more centred on the United States of America.
Before the twentieth century, very little of the west’s knowledge of the Japanese building was gained in Japan. Instead it was gained through exhibitions the Japanese partook in such as the 1876 Centennial International Exhibition in Philadelphia.The early influence of such exhibitions was more in the creation of an enthusiasm for things Japanese instead of something more authentic. The result was exuberant Japanese decoration, the simplicity of Japanese design lost in the clutter of Victorian ostentation.
During the twentieth century though, a number of now renowned architects visited Japan including Frank Lloyd Wright, Ralph Adams Cram, Richard Neutra and Antonin Raymond. These architects, among others, played significant roles in bringing the Japanese influence to western modernism. Influence from the Far East was not new in America at this time. During the eighteenth and a large part of the nineteenth centuries, a taste for Chinese art and architecture existed and often resulted in a “superficial copying”. The Japanese influence was different however. The modernist context, and the time leading up to it, meant that architects were more concerned with “the problem of building, rather than in the art of ornamenting”. The simplicity of Japanese dwellings contrasted the oft-esteemed excessive decoration of the West. The influence of Japanese design was thus not so much that it was directly copied but rather, “the west discovered the quality of space in traditional Japanese architecture through a filter of western architectural values”. The culture that created traditional Japanese architecture is so far removed from western values philosophies of life that it could not be directly applied in a design context.
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