mid-century....... japonisme? :: part three

"'Young architects, forget Rome, go to Japan!' exclaimed Walter Gropius after his return to Cambridge from the Far East in the early 1950s." 1

But many had al- ready gone. In 1930 Richard Neutra was invited to speak in Japan, as he was considered one of the best suited modern architects to indicate the way of adapting Japan's age-old building techniques.

"The synthesis of Eastern and Western accomplishments in building... involved the integration of two seemingly dichotomous elements -- Nature and geometric structural forms. The importance of bringing the two together, Neutra said, was introduced to him early in his career." 1

"As the Japanese have already successfully turned the 'Buddhist universe' into architecture, the West gradually discovered their achievements in visual arts, architecture and later in philosophy as well.

Frank Lloyd Wright, Adolf Loos, Gerrit Rietveld, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe and many others took inspiration from Japanese building heritage in creating modern architectural space of the West." 4

The Case Study Houses were experiments in American residential architecture sponsored by John Entenza's (later David Travers') Arts & Architecture magazine, which commissioned major architects of the day, including Richard Neutra, Raphael Soriano, Craig Ellwood, Charles and Ray Eames, Pierre Koenig and Eero Saarinen, to design and build inexpensive and efficient model homes for the United States residential housing boom caused by the end of World War II and the return of millions of soldiers.

The program ran intermittently from 1945 until 1966. The first six houses were built by 1948 and attracted more than 350,000 visitors. While not all 36 designs were built, most of those that were constructed were built in Los Angeles; a few are in the San Francisco Bay Area, and one was built in Phoenix, Arizona. A number of them appeared in the magazine in iconic black and white photographs by architectural photographer Julius Shulman. 2

Charles and Ray Eames' contribution to this experiment included their own home. With its open plan and its integration of structure with landscape, the Eames house translated into high-tech forms the democratic ethos Frank Lloyd Wright had earlier explored in his prairie houses. With the Eameses, as with Wright, the Japanese influence is pronounced, evident not only in the simple, tatami matlike rhythm of walls, floors and ceilings, but also in the attempt to displace Western ideas of art with the Eastern art of living. 3

These houses epitomized the nature of "mid-century modern" architecture.

"As a romantic tendency colors the modern architecture of Frank Lloyd Wright, a classic predisposition flavors that of Philip Johnson.

In Johnson's work every element is placed in symmetrical response to some other and each bears a close and logical relationship to the total design...

Less evident, but no less important a Japanese charac- teristic, is the use of a standard unit of measure throughout the residence. It determines the proportional relations of house parts in the same way that the ken assures the Japanese builder of pleasing visual effects." 1

We have seen both outright attribution and denial of attribution to inspiration from the Japanese.

"Johnson, however, had political theories of his own. He laid out his position on race in an article for the Examiner titled 'A Dying People?' He opened the article by warning that Americans were failing to reproduce in sufficient quantities, predicting deserted ghost towns and a massive population decline. Midway through the article, however, Johnson displaced population decrease in absolute terms with a decrease in the population of the white race, writing: 'This decline in fertility, so far as scientists have been able to discover, is unique in the history of the white race.'

The decline Johnson was predicting would be only among whites, the non-whites apparently not worthy of consideration as part of the population. 'In short,' Johnson wrote, 'the United States of America is committing race suicide.' Only by thinking in the broader terms of the greater good of the race could whites save it:

…by their lack of will to live and grow, [Americans] themselves accelerate the already rapid decline in births. I have heard many educated men talk in this way: --Well if we are not the fittest to survive, nature will wipe us out. The Japanese may be more fit to survive. Remember Darwin.--" 5

Remember Darwin indeed. The hatred is not new. The spread of ideas is not new. The need for time to accept and to own what is new: these are build into our very genes.

For better and worse.

mid-century....... japonisme? :: part one

From the time of the Columbian Exposition in Chicago in 1893 with the Japanese "Ho-o-Den" display, the famous American architect Frank Lloyd Wright was influenced in some ways by Japanese art. Wright reported that he found Japanese art "nearer to the earth . . . than any European civilization alive or dead."

....The Thomas Hardy House in Wisconsin, was done in a Japanese style. 1 [While] Wright freely acknowledged an important 
philosophical debt to Japanese art, and to the wood­
block print in particular, he consistently rejected 
suggestions that Japanese architecture had any direct 
impact on his work. Throughout his career Wright maintained that he found in Japanese culture
 not the inspiration which many suspected, but 
merely confirmation of many of his own 'organic'
 design principles. English Arts and Crafts architect C. R. Ashbee observed that "The Japanese influence is very clear. Wright is obvi­
ously trying to adapt Japanese forms to the United States, 
even though the artist denies it and the influence must be 
unconscious. 2

As early as 1878, when Morse returned from Japan with photographs of buildings, he began a series of popular lectures that culminated at MIT in 1882, at just about the time that H.H. Richardson's style began to change.

Explicit and direct references to Morse's Japan, with compelling visual correspondences of Richardson's railroad stations to images in Morse's collection, is not surprising in view of other connections between Richardson's office and the Japanese vogue of the day. Morse's book was dedicated to William Sturgis Bigelow, who was the son of Richardson's client and a leading authority of Japan. 3

Excellent examples of bungalows with a Japanese character can be found in the works of the brothers Charles Sumner and Henry Mather Greene. Their basis of design was formulated from influences of H.H. Richardson, with whom they once had a slight association. 4

The Greenes set out to California in 1893 to visit their parents in Pasadena. Along the way they [also] attended the Colombian Exposition in Chicago. There they saw Japan's official exhibit, a re-creation of the Ho-O-Do of Byodo-In, a Buddhist Temple of the Fujiwara period. 5

Bernard Maybeck was at the 1893 Columbian Exhibition (400 years since Columbus "discovered America") in Chicago as well, helping to create the building that represented California.

Is it surprising that buildings of some architects of that moment are compared to Shinto Shrines in Ise? A collection of buildings, a collection of similarities. The connection is obvious. Oh, and Richardson? I don't know if he was there, but i do know he was from Chicago!

the library table

i came across this extraordinary frank lloyd wright library table in one of my books and i was in awe of it. the metropolitan museum of art, in new york city, was credited for having it in their collection so i went there and found it... and more.

the table is from wright's francis w. little's house (top image) and a shot of the house's fully recon- structed, in the museum, little house living room was there as well.

the site says, "The Frank Lloyd Wright Room was originally the living room of the summer residence of Frances W. Little, designed and built between 1912 and 1914 in Wayzata, Minnesota, a suburb of Minneapolis. The room epitomizes Wright's concept of "organic architecture," in which the building, setting, interior, and furnishings are inextricably related. The house is composed of a group of low pavilions interspersed with gardens and terraces, which, in plan, radiate from a central symbolic hearth.

The Frank Lloyd Wright Room also exemplifies one of Wright's most important contributions to modern architecture: the idea of spatial continuity. Low over- hanging roofs and geometric window "grilles" with stylized plant motifs once linked the interior visually and spatially to the wooded site overlooking Lake Minnetonka. The living room itself is not merely a single, enclosed volume but a series of horizontal levels surrounded by glass, which allows the interplay of natural light and the rich, earthy tones that Wright employed throughout the room." 1

as the style looked so clearly japan-influenced, i suddenly remembered that one of the earliest americans to go to japan, edward morse (here and here), had actually written and illustrated a book called "japanese homes and their surroundings." that book is completely online as well.

this book is stunningly charming and interesting: "Within twenty years there has gradually appeared in our country a variety of Japanese objects conspicuous for their novelty and beauty, — lacquers, pottery and porcelain, forms in wood and metal, curious shaped boxes, quaint ivory carvings, fabrics in cloth and paper, and a number of other objects as perplexing in their purpose as the inscriptions which they often bore.

Most of these presented technicalities in their work as enigmatical as were their designs, strange caprices in their ornamentation which, though violating our hitherto recognized proprieties of decoration, surprised and yet delighted us. The utility of many of the objects we were at loss to understand; yet somehow they gradually found lodgment in our rooms, even displacing certain other objects which we had been wont to regard as decorative, and our rooms looked all the prettier for their substitution.

We found it difficult to formulate the principles upon which such art was based, and yet were compelled to recognize its merit. Violations of perspective, and colors in juxtaposition or coalescing that before we had regarded as in-harmonious, were continually reminding us of Japan and her curious people. Slowly our methods of decoration became imbued with these ways so new to us, and yet so many centuries old to the people among whom these arts had originated. Gradually yet surely, these arts, at first so little understood....

The first sight of a Japanese house, — that is, a house of the people, — is certainly disap- pointing. From the infinite variety and charming character of their various works of art, as we had seen them at home, we were anticipating new delights and surprises m the character of the house; nor were we on more intimate acquaintance to be disappointed. As an American familiar with houses of certain types, with conditions among them signifying poverty and shiftlessness, and other conditions signifying refinement and wealth, I was not competent to judge the relative merits of a Japanese house.

The first sight, then, of a Japanese house is disappointing; it is unsubstantial in appearance, and there is a meagreness of color. Being unpainted, it suggests poverty; and this absence of paint, With the gray and often rain-stained color of the boards, leads one to compare it with similar unpainted buildings at home, — and these are usually barns and sheds in the country, and the houses of the poorer people in the city. With one's eye accustomed to the bright contrasts of American houses with their white, or light, painted surfaces; rectangular windows, black from the shadows within, with glints of light reflected from the glass; front door with its pretentious steps and portico ; warm red chimneys surmounting all, and a general trimness of appearance outside, which is by no means always correlated with like conditions within, — one is too apt at the outset to form a low estimate of a Japanese house.

An American finds it difficult indeed to consider such a structure as a dwelling, when so many features are absent that go to make up a dwelling at home, — no doors or windows such as he had been familiar with; no attic or cellar; no chimneys, and within no fire-place, and of course no customary mantle; no permanently enclosed rooms; and as for furniture, no beds or tables, chairs or similar articles, — at least, so it appears at first sight.

One of the chief points of difference in a Japanese house as compared with ours lies in the treatment of partitions and outside walls. In our houses these are solid and permanent; and when the frame is built, the partitions form part of the frame-work. In the Japanese house, on the contrary, there are two or more sides that have no permanent walls. Within, also, there are but few partitions which have similar stability; in their stead are slight sliding screens which run in appropriate grooves in the floor and overhead. These grooves mark the limit of each room.

The screens may be opened by sliding them back, or they may be entirely removed, thus throwing a number of rooms into one great apartment. In the same way the whole side of a house may be flung open to sunlight and air. For communication between the rooms, therefore, swinging doors are not necessary. As a substitute for windows, the outside screens, or shoji, are covered with white paper, allowing the light to be diffused through the house." 2

we have looked at this before (here and here and here and here, etc.), but it bears repeating. every single one of the points in the met's description of wright's contributions was written about nearly 30 years earlier in morse's descriptions of japanese homes. and we know too that mackintosh, maybeck, and greene & greene were influenced thusly as well.

it's all a beautiful thing to see, don't you think?

japonisme & buddhism • part I

and i begin again, but this series will wrap itself inextricably with the previous, a story of wright, and dow, and fenollosa, and, well, we'll see where it leads us. i see there has been far too little about fenollosa up to now, other than this, which is important, so i'll be remedying that. let's start building the connections....

"In 1871, as the infant Wright was already constructing with colored blocks, Mrs. O'Leary's cow kicked over a lantern, starting the Great Chicago Fire that destroyed the city. When young draughtsman Wright arrived in 1887, Chicago was the booming de facto capitol of America's west. Chicago needed to rebuild and had the money to do it. The city was a 'perfect storm' of architectural thought and development.

"On his fourth day looking for work, surviving (he claimed) on ten cents worth of bananas, Wright found work in the office of Joseph Lyman Silsbee, one of Chicago's most respected architects. In a contemporary photo of Silsbee's living room a 'kakemono' painting hangs by the hearth. This may have been Wright's first exposure to Japanese art.

Even more fateful, Ernest Francisco Fenollosa, America's foremost expert on Japanese art, decorated by the Emperor Meiji himself, was Silsbee's cousin. Fenollosa stayed with Silsbee on trips home. At some point Wright met Fenollosa, later recalling:

"'When I first saw a fine print it was an intoxicating thing. At that time Ernest Fenollosa was doing his best to persuade the Japanese people not to wantonly destroy their works of art.... On one of his journeys home he brought many beautiful prints, those I made mine were the narrow tall decorative form hashirakake -- these I appreciate today more than I did then.'



"Those 'hashirakake' turned Wright's thoughts eastward forever. 'The first prints had a large share I am sure in vulgarizing the Renaissance for me.'

"Wright soaked up Fenellosa's lectures on Japanese art and architecture: harmony with nature, simplification, honest use of materials, and minimal decoration. Wright wrote on Japanese houses, '... all ornament, as we call it, they get out of the way the necessary things are done or by bringing out or polishing the beauty of the simple materials used in making the building." 1

(in the following paragraph there is a link to a video of a garden; you think it will be too long, and then you'll beg it not to end.)

"When Wright went to Japan, he visited Shikoku, Nagoya and Kyoto. Wright declared the Shugakuin, a seventeenth-century imperial stroll garden in north Kyoto, as the world's greatest work of art. "All that was like an open book to me," he recalled of the garden's design, "and I knew how to read it. I could read every word in it.... It was a great educational experience." 1

1. Burbank, Jon. "Frank Lloyd Wright's Japanese legacy." World and I April 2006

the tokyo bibliophile

A largely unknown side of Frank Lloyd Wright emerged when he visited Japan: He developed into one of America's foremost ukiyo-e woodblock print collectors and dealers.

"When I first saw a fine print it was an intox- icating thing. At that time Ernest Fenollosa was doing his best to persuade the Japanese people not to wantonly destroy their works of art," Wright said. 1

japanese prints were to become a lifelong passion, inspiration, and source of income for him, but how did he learn so much about the prints in such a short time? the answer is shugio hiromichi. "Shugio Hiromichi (b. c. 1853) arrived in New York City in 1880. The Oxford-educated aristocrat moved easily in the city's artistic circles." 2

suggestions as to how the two men met vary from in japan, while wright worked on the im- perial hotel, chicago when shugio deli- vered a speech, at the cos cob colony where many japanists often gathered, or the tile club, or in boston, or, possibly, at the grolier club in new york. with both the advice and the connections of shugio, wright became one of the major purchas- ers of the woodblock prints in america.

New Yorkers were introduced to Japanese wood-block prints by Shugio Hiromichi, the director of the First Japan Manufacturing and Trading Company, a Japanese importer of porcelain and parasols. In 1889, Shugio curated the first significant show of ukiyo-e (“pictures of the floating world"), colorful wood-block prints and posters representing urban and natural pleasures, such as geisha in outdoor revelry or theater actors in costume.

These lyrical, contemplative prints inspired a host of turn-of-the-century painters. James Whistler, in particular, borrowed from the ukiyo-e abstract sensibility in his work, saying, “If the man who paints only the tree, or flower, or other surface he sees before him were an artist, the king of artists would be the photographer. It is for the artist to do something beyond this.” 3

the exhibitions at the grolier club, in 1889 and in 1896 (for which shugio wrote the catalogue and its introduction) were major influences on art in the u.s. "American impressionists derived their understanding of Japan not only from books and prints but also from Japanese friends." american impressionists met shugio at the cos cob colony, and at the aesthetic movement's tile club.

"The Tile Club was created as an informal fraternal order that met regularly to paint ceramic tiles and enjoy social camaraderie and the stimulation of their fellow artists. Over the years, The Tile Club expanded to include painters, sculptors, illustrators, architects, and even a few authors and journalists. Artists include Winslow Homer, J. Alden Weir, William Merritt Chase, Arthur Quartley, Twachtman, Weir, Robinson, and Augustus Saint-Gaudens. The art colonists patronized Shugio's emporium as well as those of his rivals (like Vantine's)." 4

no discussion of shugio hiromichi would be complete without mentioning the catalogue he prepared of the collection of convicted criminal t. e. waggaman. in his position of treasurer of washington d.c.'s catholic college, waggaman embezzled a million dollars -- 1905 dollars, then indulged his absolute obsession for asian arts. fortunately shugio was able to value and describe his collection, once waggaman was in jail, and therefor sell enough of his bounty to pay back much of what he owed.