At the Crossroads: Interwar Architecture in Japan

The creative team of the Okolo group presents an expanded version of the exhibition At the Crossroads: Interwar Architecture in Japan, which was created earlier this year for the Winternitz Villa, in the Semler Residence's social hall. The exhibition is based on Štěch's own research in Japan and detailed photographic documentation, combined with graphic design and exhibition architecture by his colleagues Matěj Činčera and Jan Kloss.

The exhibition presents diverse examples of interwar Japanese modernist residential architecture, whose main theme was primarily the intertwining of Japanese building and cultural traditions with new avant-garde impulses coming from Europe and the USA. All the represented houses are very different examples of Japanese modernism, in which the metaphorical clash and synthesis of East and West are manifested in various ways.

This stems from the country's overall historical development. The interwar period follows the previous Meiji era (1868–1912), when the empire experienced rapid modernization with the support of Western powers. This was followed by the Taishō period (1912–1926) and then the long Shōwa era of Emperor Hirohito, who came to power in 1926 and ruled until 1989. The interwar period is generally characterized on the one hand by Japan's explosive imperial policy and on the other hand by the overall modernization and initial Westernization of society and institutions.

In the field of architecture, the first modernist pioneers began designing modernly conceived houses under the influence of European and American modernism as early as the 1920s. These included architects such as Sutemi Horiguchi, Iwao Yamawaki, Koji Fujii, or Kameki and Nobuko Tsuchiura. The influence of great personalities such as Frank Lloyd Wright from the USA or Henri Rapin from France was also important. The exhibition deliberately avoids the work of Czech architects Jan Letzel and Antonín Raymond, whose significant activities in Japan are, after all, more known in our country.

Several additional panels were created for the Semler Residence, expanding the theme of residential architecture into the realm of public and residential realizations of early modernism and art deco.