Modern Traditions

During Wednesday evening’s livestream hosted by the Japan Society, architects Kengo Kuma and Toshiko Mori explored the boundary between traditional and modern Japanese architecture, and how they have navigated these terms in their careers. The conversation was moderated by Japanese architectural scholars Botond Bognar, of University of Illinois Urbana-Champagne and Ken Tadashi Oshima, of University of Washington.

The specter of Frank Lloyd Wright hovered over the dialogue. Kuma recalled engaging with Wright’s architecture while studying in New York City in the 1980s. Wright’s work troubled his understanding of a binary between traditional and modern Japanese architecture—a distinction maintained by the profession at the time. Mori noted that while Wright was working on the Darwin D. Martin House in Buffalo—for which she designed a well-scaled glass-paned visitor center—he was traveling between the States and Japan, learning about Japanese architecture and building a collection of woodblock prints. Wright would draw upon traditional Japanese architecture, especially its craftsmanship, to create modern American architecture.

Mori and Kuma, both known for designs that engage modernist tenets such as expression of structure, blurring interior and exterior, delicate relationships with ground, have explored the relationship between American modernism and traditional Japanese architecture throughout their careers. The architects have each contributed to the modernist John Black Lee House in New Canaan, Connecticut—Mori in the form of a renovation in 1994 and Kuma with an addition in 2011. The three architects’ designs integrate the natural surrounding environment and are both modern and traditional. Bognar commented, “The building becomes landscape.”