Emerging Japanese Architects of the 1990s

Emerging Japanese Architects of the 1990s marks the debut in the West of works created by the first generation to reach architectural maturity in a post-war Japan of unprecedented prosperity.

Structures built since 1985 by six independent architectural firms are presented in the dynamic context of contemporary Japan through models, sketches, drawings, photographs, and video.

"Modern Japanese architecture is known in the West primarily through the activities of the three generations of architects active since the end of World War II," says Ms. Kestenbaum in describing the show. They were led by, respectively, Kenzo Tange, Arata Isozaki and Fumihiko Maki, and Tadao Ando.

Each generation has influenced the next, she says, and it is Ando, "the most successful in making the transition to commercial architecture," who has had the greatest impact on the architects represented in the exhibition.

"The fourth generation was born about 1950 and came of age in an extraordinarily prosperous Japan where architectural opportunities, particularly commercial ones, are abundant, a situation familiar as well to the many famous foreign architects currently working there. These are halcyon days."

Represented in the Columbia show will be Kiyoshi Sey Takeyama/AMORPHE, Norihiko Dan, Hiroyuki Wakabayashi, Hisashi Hara, Atsushi Kitagawara and WORKSHOP (Michio Kinoshita, Koh Kitayama, and Akio Yachida).

On view are three examples of projects by each architect, ranging from commercial structures to residences. Constructed in or near Tokyo, Kyoto and Osaka, they include a home for senior citizens, bars and restaurants, a complex of shops for children, a fashion center, a hotel, movie theaters, an apartment building, a glass art center and a fish market.

The architects exemplify great diversity in their education and work, from the Yale-trained Dan to the self-taught Wakabayashi, says Ms. Kestenbaum: "Their styles are sophisticated and complex, the product of a generation raised with equal access to Western and Japanese architectural traditions. "Although their works are primarily commercial, they still grapple with larger issues. Dan is concerned with the interaction of the building with its environment. Takeyama reifies the fragmentary nature of the post-modern metropolis in buildings that are themselves fragments of a non-existing larger whole. Wakabayashi, working in Kyoto, attempts to destroy staid conventions of Japanese beauty and bring dynamism, color, and excitement to architecture. WORKSHOP builds microcosmic worlds within architecture, designing scenarios in which to play out dramatic fantasies. Hara concentrates on the joy and childhood dreams of the client in creating houses. Kitagawara creates an abstract world inspired by surrealist texts."

A 20-minute video produced by William Word affords detailed views of six of the projects. To accompany the exhibition, there is also a 132-page illustrated catalog published by Columbia University Press and edited by curator Jackie Kestenbaum, featuring works and texts by the architects in the exhibition and an essay by Ms. Kestenbaum.

Sponsors of the exhibition, video, and catalogue are the Japan Foundation, OBAYASHI CORPORATION, Yamada Shomei Lighting Co., Ltd., PLUS Corporation, and Asahi Glass Co., Ltd.

Emerging Japanese Architects will be at the Canadian Center for Architecture in Montreal from April 15 to June 30, 1991.