By Jordan Ogg
Some of the most influential examples of modern and contemporary domestic architecture are being celebrated in The Japanese House at the Barbican Centre in London. Focused on the period from the end of the Second World War to the present day, the exhibition highlights the special role of the house and the home in the culture and lives of people from the island nation.
The destruction of Tokyo and other cities during the War brought about an urgent need for new housing. The single family home emerged as the main structure for experimentation, with architects seeking to establish a new design language that synthesised tradition with modernism.
The 1970s brought an interest in enclosed houses which served as bulwarks against the increasingly polluted and overpopulated city. Then came the 1980s and the economic excess of the Bubble-era, with architects responding by designing lightweight structures that were open to the world.
Recent developments have delivered tech-influenced solutions to living in the world’s largest metropolis, alongside a preference for seeing the home as a space for personal fantasy and creative nurturing.
Inviting visitors “not just to consider Japanese architecture, but to experience it”, Jane Alison, the Barbican’s Head of Visual Arts, notes the universal appeal of the show: “the focus on ‘house’ is always a particular joy, as we all relate to the way in which intimate, domestic architectural spaces are lived in.”
The centrepiece is a full reconstruction of the Moriyama House, a 2005 work by celebrated architect Ryue Nishizama regarded as one of the most important house designs of the 21st century. It contains ten individual units, each separated by a garden. Inside are hundreds of objects that belong to the house’s owner Yasuo Moriyama, described as “a 21st century urban hermit”, to help visitors experience what it feels like to live there.
Part of the exhibition is given over to a new commission by Terunobu Fujimori, a practicing architect and historian known for his eccentric style. He has designed his biggest ever teahouse, complete with a thriving garden. With a hand-charred timber exterior and a white plaster interior the structure contrasts with the contemporary minimalism of the Moriyama House to show the importance of the handmade, the material and the fantastical in Japanese design.
Other highlights include Kazuo Shinohara’s Tanikawa Villa (1974), with its soil-floored interior; the Arimaston Building (2005-), a house that former Butoh dancer Keisuke Oka has been building by hand over 15 years, one 70 square-centimetre block of concrete at a time; and Kiyonori Kikutake’s Sky House (1958), a single-room concrete structure suspended in the air.
The Japanese House: Architecture and Life after 1945 runs to 25 June 2017.