Product Description
Japanese architecture’s commanding presence on the world stage can be traced to the struggles of earlier generations of Japan’s modernist architects. This first book-length study of Maekawa Kunio (1905-1986) focuses on one of the most distinctive leaders in Japan’s modernist architectural community. In a career spanning the 1930s to the 1980s, Maekawa’s work and critical writing put him in the vanguard of the Japanese architectural profession. Jonathan Reynolds illu… More >>
Maekawa Kunio and the Emergence of Japanese Modernist Architecture
The account in this book of Kunio serves as an appropriate symbol of 20th century Japanese architecture. Kunio’s career spanned World War 2. He designed numerous buildings before and after the war. (Plus during the war, too.)
The postwar photos show a very modernist approach, that would not have been out of place in Europe or the United States. The coverage of his projects is comprehensive. Including, naturally, his best known work, the Tokyo Metropolitan Festival Hall in 1957. The book gives this building extensive coverage, in both text and photos. A very clean design.
Reynolds did a lot of his research for this book by going to many of Kunio’s buildings. As indicated by the credits to numerous photos, taken by Reynolds.
Rating: 4 / 5