Kazuo Shinohara: Traversing the House and the City

One of the greatest and most influential architects of Japan's postwar generation, Shinohara Kazuo (1925-2006) has remained virtually unknown outside the small community of devoted followers. As one of the leaders of architectural movement Metabolism, Shinohara achieved cult- figure stature with sublimely beautiful, purist houses that break away from Japan's postwar suburban architecture.Perhaps the most iconic of Shinohara's works, House of White (1964-66), rearranges a familiar design palette: a square plan, a pointed roof, white walls, and a symbolic heart pillar-to give the almost oceanic spaciousness through abstraction. The underlying formalism in Shinohara's architecture-its basic explorations of geometry and color-lends his work a poetic quality that fuses simplicity and surprise, the ordered and the unexpected.This volume brings together new scholarship from the foremost specialists on Shinohara and Japan's modern architecture. New perspectives and historical frameworks range from the development of the small house as a building type in postwar Japan to Shinohara's engagement with French critical theory.Hitherto unpublished archival drawings and personal travel photographs by Shinohara complement the essays. AUTHOR: Seng Kuan holds a PhD in architectural history from Harvard University and teaches at Harvard Graduate School of Design and the Chinese University of Hong Kong. SELLING POINTS: Kazuo Shinohara (1925-2006) was a Japanese architect who developed a cult following for his purist houses. He helped develop the architectural movement, Metabolism which is characterized by pure white spaces and megastructures. One of his most well known buildings is House of White. This book brings together new scholarship from the foremost specialists on Shinohara. This book deals with Japanese modern architecture which is very influential around the world. This volume includes previously unpublished archival drawings and personal travel photographs of Shinohara. 150 illustrations

SENG KUAN holds a PhD in architectural history from Harvard University and teaches at Harvard Graduate School of Design and the Chinese University of Hong Kong.

Kazuo Shinohara (1925-2006) is one of the greatest and most influential architects of Japan's postwar generation. He created sublimely beautiful, purist houses that have reconfigured and enriched our understanding of domesticity, tradition, structure, scale, nature and the city. The underlying formalism in Shinohara's architecture lends his work a poetic quality that fuses simplicity and surprise, the ordered and the unexpected. More than anyone else, he laid the foundations for the rigor and vitality of architecture in Japan today. Shinohare himself divided his creative work into four styles. In placing his later, institutional scale works of his fourth style, which have been overlooked until now, alongside the iconic houses of his earlier career, this book establishes the architect's insistence on the equivalation between the house and the city. New scholarly essays, interviews with clients and collaborators, and translations of Shinohara's key texts are complemented by previously unpublished archival drawings and personal travel photographs by Shinohara. The volume reframes his architectural achievements in terms of his oeuvre as a whole and situates them in the broader cultural and social context in Japan and globally.

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