At the Crossroads: Interwar Architecture in Japan

The author team of the creative group Okolo presents an expanded version of the exhibition At the Crossroads: Interwar Architecture in Japan in the social hall of the Semlerova rezidence. The exhibition was first created earlier this year for the Winternitzova vila. It is based on Štěch's own research in Japan and detailed photographic documentation, combined with the graphic design and exhibition architecture of his colleagues Matěj Činčera and Jan Klos.

The display presents a range of examples of interwar Japanese modernist residential architecture. Its central theme is the interweaving of Japanese building and cultural traditions with new avant-garde impulses arriving from Europe and the USA. All the houses on show are very different examples of Japanese modernism, in which the imagined clash and synthesis of East and West appear in various ways.

This follows from the country's overall historical development. The interwar period follows the earlier Meiji era (1868–1912), when the empire underwent rapid modernization with the support of Western powers. It was followed by the Taishō period (1912–1926) and then the long Shōwa era of Emperor Hirohito, who came to the head of state in 1926 and reigned until 1989. The interwar period is generally characterized on the one hand by Japan's aggressive imperial politics and on the other by the overall modernization and initial westernization of society and institutions.

In architecture, the first modernist pioneers began designing modern houses under the influence of European and American modernism as early as the 1920s. They included architects such as Sutemi Horiguchi, Iwao Yamawaki, Koji Fujii, and Kameki and Nobuko Tsuchiura. The influence of major figures was also important, such as Frank Lloyd Wright from the USA and Henri Rapin from France. The exhibition deliberately avoids the work of the Czech architects Jan Letzel and Antonín Raymond, whose significant activities in Japan are nonetheless somewhat better known in this country.

Several additional panels were created for the Semlerova rezidence, extending the theme of residential architecture to public and residential projects of early modernism and Art Deco.