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Home , Architect, Imperial Crown Style, Japanese architecture, Japanese art, Japanese carpentry, Rokumeikan

The Tectonics of Japanese Style Architect and in the Late Period

Cherie Wendelken

U tntil recently, the wooden of the mod- to the modernization and integration of the indus- ern period and the role of the carpenter in the tries. That contact temporarily blurred the boundaries development of modern between architect, , and master builder and had 28 have not been carefully studied.' The literature on late lasting consequences for the definition of Japanese nation- nineteenth- and early twentieth-century architecture has al identity in architecture. tended to emphasize two important concerns: first, the gen- Collaboration between building professionals also esis of a newly imported Western architectural raised questions of professional identity. In Europe and the and its developmental progress on Japanese soil; and sec- United States, as in , debates about styles, their asso- ond, the transformative effects of this new profession that ciated meanings, and their relative quality were part of the involved the mastery of Western building technology and discourse of nineteenth-century , but in Japan what has been called "the problem of style."2 However, in the self-conscious questioning of stylistic and formal con- the broader built environment of Meiji Japan, there was no vention was accompanied by discussion of the nature of abrupt break with the building practices of premodern architecture as distinct from mere building. The somewhat Japan. Meiji-era was overwhelmingly execut- naive-sounding debates in the late Meiji period over the ed by carpenters using methods and materials not unlike role of the architect-was he engineer or artist?-can also those used in the late period (1600-1868). In both be understood as early modern Japanese architects' public and private sectors during the first half of the Meiji attempts at self-definition vis-a-vis past building tradi- period, the master carpenter and the architect were paral- tions.3 The new profession its expertise and its role as lel and even rival professionals working in similar capaci- distinct not only from that of the engineer but also from the ties but in different materials. Traditionally trained master tradition-bound world of the master carpenter. Within carpenters acted not only as craftsmen, but as pro- Japan, the differences in working methods and technical fessionals and the equivalent of structural . They expertise between architect and carpenter were as signifi- continued to have an important role even in the construc- cant as the differences between Japan and the West. tion of national monuments as long as the Meiji govern- Today the architectural symbol of the cultural climate ment's K6bush6, or Department of Construction, sponsored of the late Meiji era is the Shrine and Temple style, or sha- traditional construction. jiyo, which appeared in the 1890s. It is conventionally In this context changes in education, building tech- understood as the reflection of a heightened awareness of nology, and the political climate during late Meiji period, national identity. However, like the Nihon Kangyo from the 1890s into the twentieth century, constitute an Bank (fig. 1) were not new in the landscape in the 1890s, important transitional period when architects acquired but were new as products of the architectural profession. some of the traditional builders' technical expertise in the They were different because they were understood not sim- use of wood. Thus they were the first who had not only the ply as Japanese buildings but as a self-consciously Japan- desire but the skill to manipulate the traditional building ese style of architecture in an increasingly eclectic age. vocabulary to create a new Japanese architecture that was During the early years of the , for- both national and modern. The wide range of activities eign institutional programs, construction technologies, and engaged in by academy-trained architects beginning in the architectural styles had been imported together as part of 1890s marks an important time of contact between the tra- the nation-building program of the new regime. Since ditional master builder and the academy that was critical many of the newly created public and commercial institu-

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This content downloaded from 160.39.4.185 on Tue, 05 Jul 2016 15:05:29 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms 29

FIG. 1 Tsumaki Yorinaka, Nihon Kangy6 Bank, , 1899. No longer extant.

tions had been based on European models, it is not sur- style. Although later moved to Chiba prefecture, the Nihon prising that many of the buildings that housed these insti- Kangy6 Bank was originally built across from the tutions-post offices, palaces, ministries, and schools- , the European-style reception hall designed were modeled on European .4 European engineers by Josiah Conder (1852-1920) in 1883 (see Toshio Watan- and architects had been invited to practice the modern abe's article on the Rokumeikan in this issue of Art Jour- building and to help establish them in Japan. nal ).7 It was therefore not only an architectural rebuttal to By the early 1880s Japanese architects trained by foreign the westernizing sentiment of the Rokumeikan era, but a teachers were being retained by the Meiji government to very literal and deliberate upstaging of the Rokumeikan's design versions of the eclectic revival styles popular in urban presence and its prominence as a cultural symbol for Europe. These, employing stone or masonry technol- modern Japan. The Japanese appearance of these and other ogy, represented a fundamental departure from the timber- shajiyo buildings, such as hotels and prefectural offices, is based building practices of pre-Meiji Japan.5 usually understood to reflect the more nationalistic climate In the late 1880s a newly reorganized central govern- of late Meiji, and the questioning of the earlier uncritical ment called for an ideological return to Japanese antiquity adoption of European styles by Japanese architects (as opposed to modeling the West) as a guide to remaking enthused by the architectural culture of Europe. By the late Japan's institutions and strengthening its national identity. 1880s the Japanese architectural community had gotten During this same period from the end of the 1880s to the beyond a monolithic understanding of European style to an turn of the century, a new, self-consciously Japanese style increasingly sophisticated and detailed discourse on style of architecture appeared. The Shrine and Temple style in architecture, some of which centered on the appropriate (shajiyo) was the creation of a new generation of architects, use of revival styles then popular in Europe, such as Queen the first to be trained in Japan by Japanese teachers.6 As Anne, Neoclassical, or Gothic.8 The few extant Shrine and the name suggests, these buildings took their formal inspi- Temple-style buildings remain important as early examples ration from premodern shrines and temples. The upturned of the quest for national identity in , a eaves, cusped , and tiled roofs that characterized the central issue in critical debate and in architectural design Shrine and Temple style were intended to resemble those for generations to come.9 of ancient religious monuments. The ancient shrines and temples of the and The Nara Prefectural Office, designed by Nagano area had become increasingly important in late

This content downloaded from 160.39.4.185 on Tue, 05 Jul 2016 15:05:29 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms struction methods and of the dimensioning system called kiwariho.11 Significantly, they involved the collaboration of both master carpenters and academy-trained architects. The contact of young architects with master builders in the Imperial University began as part of a curriculum change in the late 1880s. Until that time, architectural education had focused on courses in modern construction technology and Western-style design. Ito Chiita (1867- 1954), Sekino Tadashi (1869-1938), Oe Shintar6 (1879- 1935), and Takeda Goichi (1872-1938) are among those architects now associated with the Shrine and Temple style. Not coincidentally they were also students of Kigo Kiyoyoshi (d. 1915), an influential master carpenter employed by the Imperial Household, who taught the first FIG. 2 Meiji Palace, Tokyo, showing Josiah Conder's proposal for courses in Japanese architecture at the Imperial Universi- the reception hall to the right, 1886. Imperial Household Agency; from Onogi, Meiji Yofu Kyutei. ty beginning in 1889. The scope of Kigo's activities as builder, educator, and scholar is remarkable, and his name is associated with a long list of important projects. His pre- tion and the restored monarch.l0 In the West as in Japan, sent obscurity is perhaps due to his status as master 30 much nineteenth-century architecture was historicist in builder rather than architect.12 spirit; the Shrine and Temple style was an alternative to Kigo was no ordinary carpenter: his family had long imported European revival styles, one of distinctly Japan- served as master builders for the Imperial Household, act- ese character. Since European-style buildings in masonry ing as and general contractors for the palace. In continued to be built throughout the Meiji period, building true Meiji antiquarian fashion, the Kigo family claimed in the manner of temples and shrines was no longer mere association with the Imperial Household as far back as the construction but a symbolic act: the deliberate creation (794-1185). During the , the Kigo of a native revival style based on ancient monuments. family seems to have taken a subsidiary role to the ruling Regional politics played a role in what later became a Tokugawa clan's own carpenters, the Nakai family based in national style in architecture. Nagano's Nara Prefectural Kyoto. The Kigo were responsible for repair, maintenance, Office was among a number of projects that were part of the and minor construction at the Imperial Palace, but it was prefecture's effort to create a traditional Japanese identity the Nakai who supervised the 1790 reconstruction of the in contrast to modern Tokyo. palace, and, after a fire, the reconstruction of the same In plan, most Shrine and Temple-style buildings buildings in 1855. The extant mid-nineteenth-century were not distinct from European-style buildings with simi- buildings are thought to be similar to the designs of 1790, lar programs. Nonetheless, the shajiyo was more than a which were based on available documentary and pictorial style. The term described buildings for modern institutions evidence of the original Heian buildings.13 This project built in wood yet designed by academy-trained architects. shows that a historicist awareness in architectural design These buildings were formally and structurally related to was not an innovation of the late nineteenth century, but traditional architecture. Architects reverted to timber as an was present in the elite projects of master builders early as appropriate material at a time when they were being the eighteenth century. trained to introduce modern construction methods, and as The Kigo family moved with the Imperial Household a result called on the skills of master carpenters. to Tokyo after 1868. As imperial carpenters their identity The full significance of the period that saw the naturally centered on their involvement with palace-build- appearance of the Shrine and Temple style can only be ing and the style of the Kyoto palace. From the early Meiji understood, however, by looking beyond stylistic history period, the Kigo family also built shrines and other struc- and beyond the usual focus on such architect-designed tures in Tokyo, including the early buildings at Kuniyoshi new construction. Many of the same men who originated Shrine in 1872. Their most significant Tokyo project started this first self-consciously national style also designed and in 1873 after a fire destroyed most of the structures on the built State shrines, recreated long-lost monuments shogun's Edo (now Tokyo) castle site that had served as the from antiquity, and were instrumental in Japan's nascent imperial palace after the restoration. Kigo Kiyoyoshi com- architectural preservation program. They supervised the pleted the Kari Kyuden (temporary palace) of timber at first restorations of historic buildings and wrote some of the Akasaka by 1881. Its style was based on the reconstructed first modern histories of Japanese architecture. All of these Kyoto palace with the addition of cusped entrance gables activities required a knowledge of traditional timber con- characteristic of grand Edo residences, but with hybrid inte-

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This content downloaded from 160.39.4.185 on Tue, 05 Jul 2016 15:05:29 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms riors to accommodate Western furniture and decoration.14 The construction of a permanent Imperial Palace became the subject of heated debate between state archi- tects and carpenters associated with the Imperial - hold into the late 1880s. Josiah Conder, (1854-1911), and other prominent architects submitted a series of designs for reception halls based on European palace models. All were separate pavilions intended to connect-as shown in the proposal by Josiah Conder (fig. 2)-to a residential palace in wood with floors, to be designed by Kigo's staff.'5 In 1887 it was decided to give Kigo responsibility for the entire palace, which was to be built of wood in the familiar palace style. The date certainly suggests a connec- tion between Kigo's commission and a political change, FIG. 3 Kigo Kiyoyoshi, plan for the Meiji Palace, Tokyo, 1887. Imperial Household Agency; from Onogi, Meiji Yofu Kyutei. since this was the year of 's resignation as for- eign minister and the end of the Rokumeikan era of head- long . The recorded reason for the decision cited the technical superiority and safety of traditional 1893.18 Like the eclectic architecture of the day, such 31 wood construction in times of earthquake, and Kigo's privi- comprehensive interiors not only encapsulated but appro- leged knowledge of palace architecture as a master builder priated history, legitimizing and authenticating the Meiji associated with the imperial family. Ostensibly practical, regime by presenting it as the inevitable culmination of this reasoning also served the new political program.16 Japan's past. Although the Meiji Palace did not survive Differences between the palace designs submitted by World War II, its creation marks an occasion when the tide architects and by the Imperial Household carpenters of change was temporarily reversed: prominent state archi- underscore the divergences, not only in style but in plan- tects negotiated design decisions with master carpenters, ning and building methods, between architect and carpen- who finally prevailed. ter. The plans submitted by Conder and other European In 1889, the year after the completion of the Meiji architects were symmetrical, with carefully designed Palace buildings, Kigo offered the first course in Japanese facades that produced a monumental frontality. Their architecture at the Imperial University. Tatsuno Kingo, one schemes displayed a comprehensive spatial geometry and of the participants in the Meiji Palace project and later the subjected the program to an overall organizational logic. In head of the Department of Architecture at the Imperial contrast, Kigo and his staff of master builders laid out University, explained why these courses began then with spaces and circulation based on adjacencies of use and the following story. During Tatsuno's stay in England his structural exigency-a series of local decisions resulting mentor, architect Anthony Burges, asked him about the in an irregular plan (fig. 3). Their organizational logic was ancient architectural monuments of Japan. Tatsuno, not overall geometry but north-south orientation and the ashamed that he was unable to answer, decided to institute relationship of interior rooms to outside courtyard and gar- courses on the history of Japanese architecture upon his den spaces, a mode typical of residential planning in the return to Japan. Architectural historian Inaba Nobuko has premodern era.17 recently pointed out, however, that Tatsuno's meeting with In the end, the residential section of the palace was Burges took place almost four years before Kigo began tatami-floored and contiguous to the public halls, as it had teaching at the university, and that Kigo's appointment was been in the Kyoto palace and in the residential quarters of more likely owing to his triumph in the Meiji Palace pro- the great castles of the Momoyama and Edo periods ject.19 The final design of the palace signals the beginning (1568-1868). The public halls of the new palace were like of the movement to educate architects in the history and the earlier ones at the Kari Kyuden, with parquet-floored practice of Japanese construction. interiors to support Western furniture. The interior was to The crediting of Burges for this change in the intel- be decorated by the head of the newly created Imperial lectual climate constitutes yet another myth of origins in Museum, who was to choose important objects of art from the reevaluation of Japanese tradition. A conservative revi- the full span of Japanese history for placement in the sion could be received as progress because the interest of reception rooms. This recapitulative historical program the foreign expert constituted a kind of mandate. In that recalls the interior decoration of another building created anecdote, Burges parallels the role attributed to Ernest as a national symbol, the Ho-O-Den designed by Kuru Fenollosa (1853-1908) in the appreciation of Japanese Masamichi for the Columbian Exposition at Chicago in art, and later to (1880-1938) in the apprecia-

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This content downloaded from 160.39.4.185 on Tue, 05 Jul 2016 15:05:29 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms profound effect on architectural history as well as historicist design. Kigo's student Ito worked closely with him on these field surveys and other projects. One of the most important figures in Meiji architecture, he made significant contribu- tions as a , historian, preservationist, and theoreti- cian. Ito's graduation thesis on Horyuji, "Horyuji kenchikuron" (An architectural theory of Horyuji), was published in Kenchiku Zasshi in 1893. Ito proposed that the entasis (the tapering of the upper ends of the columns) of the main hall at Horyuji, as well as the proportions of the hall, were evidence of a trans-asian connection between the temples of Japan and those of ancient Greece (fig. 4). Ito's theory long remained a standard part of the architectural curriculum, and has only recently been reconsidered.25 Its enduring importance can be understood in terms of the

FIG. 4 Ito Chuta, comparison of Greek temple columns with Hdryuji columns, likely reason for its genesis: the article effected a theoreti- 1893; from "Hbryuji no Kenchikuron," Kenchiku Zasshi. cal integration of Ito's training in Western and design with his simultaneous involvement in Japanese tion of modernity in Japanese architecture.20 The anecdote architecture and architectural history as Kigo's student. 3 also masks the dominance of the master carpenter in the Whether the proposed linkage with Greek civiliza- palace project and other public projects of the time. Kigo's tion originated with Ito, or, as recently suggested, with for- lectures have been devalued by some scholars as dealing eign scholars such as Fenollosa, it enhanced the status of not with Japanese architectural history at all, but rather the Japanese architectural patrimony both in Japan and in with kiwariho, the techniques of traditional timber con- the Western world. In Japan and in Europe, this was an age struction.21 But perhaps Kigo was influential precisely of much theoretical writing on the links between East and because he taught kiwariho. He was not trained as an histo- West.26 At the same time, the treasures of the Shosoin were rian, and although little is known of the content of his lec- celebrated as symbols of the cosmopolitanism of the tures, it is clear from his surviving notes and the work of Tempyo period (710-794), when Chinese influences- his students that he taught not a distant past history but a themselves much enriched by borrowings from Central and living tradition of design and construction.22 Western Asia-infused Japanese culture. For Ito, Greece Following his appointment to the faculty of the Impe- was the source of the neoclassical Western design tradition rial University, from 1889 to 1891 Kigo and his students in which he was being trained. The Greek orders were still conducted detailed field surveys of thirty-eight shrines and an important part of European design vocabulary, and Ito temples in the Nara and Kyoto area.23 Some of these stud- proposed to fashion a similar set of orders based on Japan- ies were the basis for a series of articles beginning in 1889 ese antiquity.27 Japanese tradition already pos- in Kenchiku Zasshi (Architecture magazine), then the pri- sessed the conventions of a proportioning system and a set mary publication of the architectural profession. The mea- of design elements, familiar to Ito from the classes taught sured drawings Kigo and his students produced were by Kigo. Ito's study of Horyuji thus can be seen as a natur- eventually used not only in the classroom but in prepara- al effort to integrate these two traditions. tion for preservation legislation and in actual restoration One the most interesting architectural projects of the work. Kigo and his students worked on the ancient Bud- late Meiji period began soon after the publication of Ito's dhist temples of Horyuji, T6daiji, and Byodoin, but the Horyuji article, combining historical study, contemporary majority of the sites they surveyed were important Shinto carpentry, architectural design, and modern city planning. shrines of no great antiquity.24 The extensive program of Kigo and Ito became involved in the design and construc- shrine building and reconstruction that continued through tion of Heian Shrine, an ambitious edifice that was to the 1890s related to the establishment of State Shinto. become a structural metaphor for the Meiji Restoration Kigo's survey of historic and other shrine buildings can be (fig. 5). Kigo's field surveys and other studies had given seen not so much as an exercise in academic history, but as him an understanding of ancient construction beyond a an effort to record and codify models for shrines and other conventional knowledge of Meiji carpentry. His experience buildings to be designed by himself and his students. The and his reputation as a master of palace architecture made material they collected also formed an important resource him a logical choice to design a reconstruction of the long- for the designation and repair of monuments that followed lost Heian palace in Kyoto. the passage of the first national legislation in 1897. The city of Kyoto had suffered greatly during the years The collaboration of architects and carpenters had a just before and after the Restoration. The departure of the

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This content downloaded from 160.39.4.185 on Tue, 05 Jul 2016 15:05:29 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms FIG. 5 Kigo Kiyoyoshi and Ito ChOta, Heian Shrine, Kyoto, restoration, 1895; from Murai Yasuhiko, Zusetsu Heiankyo.

emperor and the impoverishment of Buddhist temples exac- change in scale was not thought to compromise the authen- 33 erbated a general economic decline. By the late 1880s a ticity of the design. Temporary sheltered scaffolding, used newly formed municipal government was eager to redefine during construction, also functioned as an armature for the Kyoto as a scenic and historic city. The emergence of new meticulous and somewhat experimental assemblage of a Kyoto was planned around the celebration of the eleven novel wooden structure. This project, completed in 1895, hundredth anniversary of its founding and the city's hosting was one of the first examples of Japanese architecture exe- of the Fourth National Industrial Exhibition in 1895. A new cuted by an architect trained at the Imperial University. civic center was to be built on land that had once belonged The collaboration of architects and carpenters was facilitat- to the Kaga, a former daimyo family, at Okazaki on the east- ed by the vocabulary of sophisticated representational tech- ern side of the city. The centerpiece of this project was to be niques, including scale models and complex drawings, that a reconstruction of a part of the main hall of the Imperial had long been part of carpentry practice, and not very dif- Palace as it was thought to have been in the Heian period.28 ferent from the drawings produced by modern architects.30 To design the Heian Shrine, Kigo and It6 worked As Ito's first responsibility after his graduation, it placed from two main sources: the overall building layout and him in the difficult position of supervising carpenters older many structural details were taken from Heian-period nar- and more experienced than himself. Ito's quest for historical rative scrolls, particularly a seventeenth-century copy of authenticity was questioned by older carpenters who con- the late twelfth-century Nenju gyoji scroll. To this was sidered themselves more experienced and better able to added their knowledge of the proportions, form, and judge the quality of the design. The uneasy relationship joinery of extant historic buildings in the Kyoto and Nara between master carpenter and architect continues to some area. Toshodaiji, a in Nara, has been extent in the present day. identified as a source based on a comparison of Kigo and Contemporaneously with this project, another Kigo Ito's design sketches and field survey notes. The working student, Takeda, was asked to produce working drawings drawings for the reconstruction, done by local carpenters and supervise the construction of the timber-built Nihon according to conventional practice, illustrate the level of Kangyo Bank in Tokyo.31 The bank had been designed by skill in drawing and design possessed by Meiji carpenters. German-trained Tsumagi Yorinaka (1859-1916), but Ito then edited those drawings, flattening the vertical pro- Takeda had the advantage of training from a master car- portions to approximate those of more ancient buildings, penter. Neither a conventionally trained carpenter nor an and eliminating what he judged to be overly ornate con- architect without training in would temporary detail (fig. 6). Although the Meiji period is often have had Takeda's fluency in manipulating the conventions viewed as a time of decline in traditional arts, the carpen- of timber construction. Takeda's later career included a ters of the day had more sophisticated and more number of buildings that demonstrate his sustained inter- refined methods than their ancient predecessors, as well as est in rethinking traditional timber prototypes to accommo- a taste for ornate form and decoration.29 date modern programs, although he quickly turned his The final design was estimated to be a reduced-scale attention to residential design. version of the original Heian structure, a shrinkage made to The training of young architects in wood construction accommodate budgetary and material constraints. Yet the also had an important effect on the work of historic preser-

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This content downloaded from 160.39.4.185 on Tue, 05 Jul 2016 15:05:29 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms FIG. 6 Kigo Kiyoyoshi and Ito Chuta, design for the reconstruction of the Heian Palace based on a study of narrative scrolls and textual description, 1895. Kyoto City Hall, Kyoto Municipal Government. 34

vation, a field that developed out of modern historical Another legacy of the close collaboration of archi- awareness. In 1897, just two years after the completion of tects and carpenters at restoration sites at the turn of the the Heian Shrine, the Koshaji Hozon Ho (Law for the pro- century was the invention of kaitaishiri (complete disman- tection of ancient shrines and temples) was passed. This tling and repair). Its purpose, to restore monuments to their law provided the first public funding for the restoration of form at the time of initial construction, was predicated on historic buildings, and many of the men discussed above the belief that a building's historicity-and, by extension, participated in the early restorations. The stated objective its structural integrity-was located in this initial form. of the preservation program was the preservation of ancient Kaitaishari was intended not only to repair but also, in the shrines and temples (koshaji). Protected monuments were process, to cleanse structures of stylistic and structural thereby limited to those religious structures, with the stip- impurities resulting from later alterations.34 In premodern ulation that they must be at least four hundred years old Japan wooden structures had been routinely dismantled in and have some form of national importance. The impor- order to move them from one site to another, but large- tance of temples and shrines (shaji) as national symbols scale dismantling for the purpose of academic restoration had already been reflected in the creation of the shajiyo.32 was a new idea. Restorative reconstruction was favored in However, shrine buildings and other structures with asso- nineteenth-century Europe as well, but in Meiji Japan the ciations to the emperor, or otherwise of national signifi- erasure of recent alterations to historic buildings had a cance, were exempted from the age requirement. For powerful ideological connotation, often amounting to erad- instance Nikk6 T6sh6gu, built in the early seventeenth ication of an Edo-period legacy in favor of a return to an century and already with substantial private endowment imagined form of antiquity. In this sense kaitaishari was a for repairs, was named an important national shrine. Oe, compelling metaphor for the political Restoration itself, another graduate of the Tokyo Imperial University, worked and was practiced to purify the ancient shrines and monu- on this restoration from the turn of the century into the ments that were appropriated as national symbols. Both 1930s. Oe's mandate seems to have extended to erasing written history and the physical patrimony thereby became some of the more salient examples of Buddhist iconogra- constructs of Meiji-period values. phy at the shrine, a continuation of the early Meiji govern- Kigo Kiyoyoshi is associated with the first large- ment initiative to separate the two and to scale restoration and the largest complete dismantling and establish a purified State Shinto. It remains unclear just repair to date, at the T6daiji Great Buddha Hall.35 His col- how much of what we see today at Nikko is a product of laborator, the German-trained engineer-architect Tsumagi, Oe's redesign, but the results were criticized by priests as eventually took over the project, and as in the other pro- neither restoration nor repair, but redesign.33 This criti- jects described, the contributions of carpenter versus cism exemplifies the extent to which the early study of architect remain unclear. As at the Heian Shrine, a shel- Japanese architecture, and even its restoration, was not tered scaffolding was built at Todaiji, here to protect and academic history but mastery of a living tradition. support not experimental construction but the meticulous

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This content downloaded from 160.39.4.185 on Tue, 05 Jul 2016 15:05:29 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms FIG. 7 Structural section of Great Buddha Hall, Todaiji, Nara, repair completed 1911; from Report on the repairs to the Great Buddha Hall at T6daiji.

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dismantling, radical repair, and reassembly of a historic Japan, interest in the use of timber for institutional build- monument in a critical state of decay. Eventually it was ings waned among Japanese architects, who returned to the decided to use imported Shelton steel trusses in the recon- belief that it was outmoded and hazardous.39 Interest in a struction of the Great Buddha Hall's main span (fig. 7). Japanese-style architecture did not fade, but efforts shifted This decision has been ascribed to scarcity of both large to the replication of the forms and details of wood con- timber and skilled carpenters.36 struction in reinforced concrete. The notion of Japanese Just a few years earlier, however, Kyoto carpenters style was still linked to the literal forms of traditional con- had commanded sufficient skill to construct the intricately struction. When ferroconcrete-based Japanese-style archi- detailed Heian Shrine; the same year an enormous wooden tecture developed in the first decade of this century, the Founder's Hall at Higashi Honganji was built that rivaled collaboration of architects, engineers, and carpenters was the Great Buddha Hall in scale.37 The decision to use Shel- still necessary. The ferroconcrete Kyoto Takashimaya ton steel trusses at Todaiji was probably made by Tsumagi, Department Store of 1911 was designed and built by a who had designed the Nihon Kangyo Bank. His integration prominent carpenter within Takenaka Komuten, a carpen- of Western technology with a traditional structure can be try workshop that was fast becoming a modern design-and- seen in relation to his earlier collaboration with Takeda on build-style construction firm. Higashi Honganji, the Kyoto the Nihon Kangyo Bank. Where his earlier design for the temple complex whose enormous Founder's Hall had been bank had employed traditional materials and forms, here a built of wood in 1895, undertook the construction of a historic building was being rebuilt with a modern steel Main Hall in ferroconcrete in 1911-15 (fig. 8). structure, more evidence of the integration of technologies Even in the first decade of this century, these pro- and trades that was to continue into the postwar period. jects utilized the design and construction supervision Kaitaishari required the new academic knowledge of skills of old carpenter families rather than academy- ancient structures, as well as hands-on knowledge of tradi- trained architects.40 For a time, the elite carpenters of the tional construction processes. Although carpenters late Meiji era defined a new role for themselves as rival remained important to the process, in the late Meiji a new design professionals in the new materials, taking advan- professional emerged, the architect-conservator. The first tage of their closer connection to the construction industry person associated with this role in Japan is Sekino, another and its practices. By exploiting their knowledge of struc- of Kigo's students at the Imperial University, who became a tural detail, master carpenters took the lead, in collabora- supervising technician for . He is responsi- tion with structural engineers, in a new kind of Japanese ble for a number of important contributions to the field of style. That collaboration further exemplifies the modern- restoration practice in Japan, and his systematic approach ization and integration of the building trades into the twen- to timber conservation has had international influence.38 tieth century. Architects such as Oe and Ito soon took up In the early twentieth century, especially after news the use of ferroconcrete in Japanese-style design, which by of the 1906 San Francisco earthquake and fire reached the 1930s was called the teikan yoshiki-the Imperial

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This content downloaded from 160.39.4.185 on Tue, 05 Jul 2016 15:05:29 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms 3: 3*:.

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FIG. 8 Ito Hirazaemon, drawings for the construction of Main Hall, Higashi Honganji, Kyoto, 1911-15; from Hatsuda, Kindai wafui kenchiku.

Crown Style associated with the pre-World War II years. Notes I would like to thank Inaba Nobuko of Japan's Agency for Cultural Affairs for shar- By the late Meiji period architects (and, by exten- ing sources on Kigo Kiyoyoshi. Prof. Hiroyuki Suzuki of Tokyo University and sion, architectural historians) had become familiar with Master Carpenter Fumio Tanaka of Maki Construction offered valuable critical comments kiwarih6, the traditional dimensioning system used in tim- 1. Muramatsu Teijiro, in Nihon kindai kenchikushi saiko (The history of mod- ber construction; a number of elite carpenters had rede- ern Japanese architecture reconsidered) (Tokyo: Shinkenchikusha, 1977), fined themselves as designers within a rapidly modernizing includes a historical outline and summary biographies of 101 important figures in architectural history, including only two carpenters at the very beginning of the construction industry; and a new professional, the archi- Meiji period. Ten years later the same author turned his attention to many anony- tect-conservator, had appeared to assume stewardship of mous carpenter-built wood residences, hotels, and other buildings considered to be modern and Japanese in style (referred to as kindai wafu) in Kindai wafu historic buildings. Although Kigo and other traditionally kenchiku (Modern Japanese-style architecture) (Tokyo: Shuppankai, educated carpenters had been instrumental in training 1988). One of the best surveys of extant buildings from 1868 to World War II focuses most attention on Western-style buildings. Nihon kindai kenchiku soran: these new professionals, they were essentially transitional Kakuchi ni nokoru Meiji Taisho Showa no tatemono (Survey of modern Japanese figures. By the end of the Meiji period, traditionally trained architecture: Extant buildings from Meiji, Taisho, and Sh6wa) (Tokyo: Architectur- master builders had been largely replaced by university- al Institute of Japan, 1980). 2. David Stewart, The Making of Modern Japanese Architecture (Tokyo: K6dan- educated architects, engineers, and academics. Gradually sha, 1987), 33-62. the master builder became less important as a designer 3. In 1894 the architect Ito Chuta (1867-1954) wrote an essay in Kenchiku Zasshi stressing that, in Japan as in the West, architecture should be considered and construction supervisor and was increasingly relegat- one of the fine arts rather than a branch of engineering. The Department of Archi- ed to on-site carpentry. tecture at the Imperial University had already been placed within the School of Engineering, which remains the norm in Japan today. Ito's and other early essays Ironically, the skills and knowledge that Kigo impart- on the nature of architecture are collected in Fujii Shoichiro and Yamaguchi ed to his students ultimately enabled them to assume posi- Hiroshi, eds., Nihon kenchiku sengen bunshu (Collected manifestoes in Japanese architecture) (Tokyo: Shokokusha, 1973). See also Jonathan Reynolds, "Maekawa tions and responsibilities once held by state carpenters such Kunio" (Ph.D. diss., University of Michigan), 45-48. as himself. Important Japanese architects, embracing his- 4. Eleanor Westney documents the development of Meiji public institutions toricist design, also applied themselves to historical study, based on European models in Imitation and Innovation: The Transfer of Western Organizational Patterns to Meiji Japan (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, preservation, and reconstruction. These developments of the 1987). late Meiji period not only reflected nationalist sentiment and 5. See Ardath W. Burks, The Modernizers: Overseas Students, Foreign Employees and Meiji Japan (: Westview Replica Editions, 1985). For a recent discussion stylistic change, but also signaled a tectonic shift-the inte- of foreign architects and engineers in early Meiji, see Dallas Finn, Meiji Revisited: gration and redefinition of the building professions in the The Sites of Victorian Japan (New York: Weatherhill, 1995); Koshino Takeshi pro- vides a well-illustrated survey of early Western-style Meiji architecture in Kaika no course of industrialization-and the waning of the authority katachi (The form of the Restoration), vol. 2 of Nihon no kenchiku: Meiji, Taisho, of the master carpenter. _ Showa (Japanese architecture: Meiji, Taisho, Showa) (Tokyo: Sanseido, 1979).

FALL 1996

This content downloaded from 160.39.4.185 on Tue, 05 Jul 2016 15:05:29 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms 6. For a review of the changes in architectural design in the late Meiji period 19. Inaba, "Kigo Kiyoyoshi no Teikoku Daigaku," 111-12. see Inagaki Eizo, Nihon no kindai kenchiku: Sono seiritsukatei (The formation of 20. Inoue Shoichi, in Horyuji-e no seishinshi (The moral history of Horyuji) modern Japanese architecture) (Tokyo: Kajima Shuppankai, 1979), vol. 1; and (Tokyo: Kobundo, 1994), emphasizes the importance of the role that Ernest Fenol- Fujimori Terunobu, Nihon no kindai kenchiku (Modern architecture of Japan) losa and other foreign scholars played in the Meiji-period evaluation of Horyuji. (Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten, 1993), vol. 1. Yet in Tsukurareta Katsura Rikyu shinwa (The constructed myth of Katsura) 7. See Muramatsu Teijiro, Kindai wafu kenchiku (Modern Japanese-style (Tokyo: Kobundo, 1992), he minimizes the originality of Taut's evaluation of Kat- architecture) (Tokyo: Kajima Shuppankai, 1988), 152-53. sura in the 1930s. 8. Stewart, Making of Modern Japanese Architecture, 33-62, discusses the 21. For example, Ota Hirotaro, in Kenchikushi no sendatsutachi (The develop- introduction of the Queen Anne and other European revival styles to Japan; Fuji- ment of Japanese architectural hjistory) (Tokyo: Shokokusha, 1983), 9-19, men- mori, Nihon no kindai kenchiku, vol. 1, chap. 8, reviews the yoshiki ronso, the crit- tions Kigo in passing, stating he did not teach architectural history, and focuses on ical debate over architectural style in late Meiji. the contributions of Kigo's well-known student Ito Chata. 9. In the late Meiji period the notion of Japanese style in architecture was 22. See Inaba, "Kigo Kiyoyoshi no Teikoku Daigaku," 115-18. specifically linked to the historicist notion of an architecture based on "ancient 23. Inaba, "Kigo Kiyoyoshi ga Meiji nenkan shashu, sakusei shita Nihon shrines and temples" (koshaji). By the 1920s the prototypes for Japanese style had kenchikugaku kanren shiryo" (Research materials on historic Japanese architec- secularized and broadened to include references to castle and tea architecture. ture compiled in the Meiji period by Kigo Kiyoyoshi), Nihon Kenchiku Gakkai Through the 1930s, Japanese style in architecture and the decorative arts was dis- Keikakukei Ronbun Hokokusho 413 (July 1990): 151-59. cussed using the term Nihon shumi (Japanese taste) that referred, among other 24. A detailed inventory of the buildings Kigo and his students surveyed is things, to the ferroconcrete-based teikan yoshiki () discussed found in Inaba, "Kigo Kiyoyoshi ga Meiji nenkan shiisha," 153, 156. in Stewart's Making of Modern Japanese Architecture, 111-12. Today the most 25. Inoue, Horyuji no Seishinshi, 5-20. widely used term to describe Japanese-style architecture is stylistically the most 26. See, for example, James Fergusson, History of Indian and Eastern Archi- 37 nonspecific, wafu kenchiku, a term that also originated in the 1920s in the context tecture (London: John Murray, 1891), 709-10; and Ralph Adams Cram, Impres- of hybridized residential design. sions of Japanese Architecture (1905; reprint, New York: Japan Society, 1930), 32. 10. For a study of the role of religious and moral traditions in the emergence of 27. See Inoue, Horyuji no Seishinshi, 5-69. nationalist ideology in late Meiji, see Carol Gluck, Japan's Modern Myths: Ideolo- 28. See Murai Yasuhiko, Zusetsu Heiankyo (The illustrated Heiankyo) (Tokyo: gy in Late Meiji, esp. 102-56. Kobunsha, 1994), 38-41; a detailed analysis of the design process is given in 11. Carpentry practices were handed down in manuals that outlined a complex Inaba, "Heian Jingu" (Master's thesis, Tokyo Institute of Technology, 1987). system of structural proportioning, in conventions for the detailing of complex 29. See Inaba, "Heian Jingu," passim. joinery, and in pattern books for the design of interiors and building elements. 30. For a collection of pre-Meiji carpenters' drawings that include site plans, William Coaldrake discusses kiwariho in The Way of the Carpenter: Tools and structural details, and building sections, see Kokuritsu Minzoku Hakubutsukan, Japanese Architecture (New York: Heibonsha, 1989), 23-28; the subject is treated Kozu ni miru Nihon no kenchiku (Japanese architecture seen in old drawings) in detail in Waga kuni daiku no kosaku gijutsu ni kansuru kenkyu (Research on the (Tokyo: Shibundo, 1989). building techniques of the carpenters of our country) (Tokyo: Rodo Kagaku 31. See Muramatsu, Kindai wafu kenchiku, 152-53; and Fujimori, Nihon no Kenkyujo Shuppanbu, 1984). kindai kenchiku 2:15-18. 12. The details of Kigo Kiyoyoshi's career were unclear until his heirs' dona- 32. See Nishimura Yukio, "Kenzobutsu no hozon itaru Meiji zenki bunkazai tion of Kigo's personal library, drawings, and other family records to the Tokyo hogo gyosei no tenkai" (Architectural preservation and the protection of cultural Municipal Library in the late 1980s. Architectural historian Inaba Nobuko, now of properties during the early Meiji period), Nihon Kenchiku Gakkai Ronbun the Agency for Cultural Affairs, has researched and curated the collection; see Hokokusho 351 (May 1985): 38-47. Inaba Nobuko, "Kigo Kiyoyoshi no Teikoku Daigaku (Tokyo Teikoku Daigaku) 33. For a discussion of Oe's work at Nikko and information about practices at jugyo ni okeru Nihon kenchikugaku ni tsuite" (A study of Kigo Kiyoyoshi's lec- other early restoration projects, see Ota Hirotaro, Rekishitekifudo no hozon (The tures in Japanese architecture at the Imperial University), Nihon Kenchiku Gakkai conservation of historic landscapes) (Tokyo: Dai'ichi Hoki, 1982). Keikakukei Ronbun Hokokusho (Research Journal of the Architectural Society of 34. For a description of kaitaishari and a cultural history of the preservation Japan, Planning Division) 374 (April 1987): 111-21. program in Japan, see chap. 2 of my "Living with the Past: Preservation and Devel- 13. The reconstruction of the Kyoto palace, with emphasis on the opment in Modern Japan" (Ph.D. diss., Massachusetts Institute of Technology, used as sources, is discussed in Chino Kaori's "Kenchiku no naibu kukan to 1993). shohekiga: Seiryoden no shohekiga ni kansuru kosatsu" (Interior space and murals: 35. See Takahashi Masao, in "The Development and Training Programme for a consideration of the murals of the Seiryoden), vol. 16 of Nihon bijutsu zenshu: Conservation of Wooden Architectural Monuments in Japan," in Proceedings: Katsura Rikya to Toshogu (Survey of : Katsura Villa and Toshogu) ISCRP (Tokyo: ICCROM, 1983), 231-40. (Tokyo: Kodansha, 1989), 158-65. 36. For a description of the reconstructions and restorations of the Great Bud- 14. After the completion of the permanent palace at the Edo castle site, the dha Hall, see William Coaldrake, "The Architecture of Todaiji," in The Great reception hall of the Kari Kyuden at Akasaka was given as a gift to Ito Hirobumi, Eastern Temple (Chicago: Art Institute of Chicago Indiana University Press, 1986), who moved it to his estate outside of Tokyo. Only this reception hall, which became 33-47. the site of the conferences on the imperial constitution, has survived. Since a sub- 37. Nara Prefecture, "Todaiji Daibutsuden shari koji hokokusho" (Report of sequent move to a site behind the Meiji Shrine, it has been known as the Meiji repairs to the Great Buddha Hall at Todaiji) (Nara Prefecture, 1911). Kinenkan, or Meiji Memorial Hall. Though fallen into relative obscurity, it remains 38. A summary of Sekino's ideas and methods is available in English; Sekino important as the only surviving structure from the Meiji Palace. Tadashi, "The Conservation of Ancient Wooden Buildings in Japan," in Proceed- 15. The series of proposals for the Meiji palace is documented in Onogi ings: World Engineering Congress (Tokyo, 1929). Shigekatsu, Meiji Yofu Kyatei Kenchiku (Meiji Western-style palace architecture) 39. Hatsuda Toru, Kindai wafu kenchiku: Dento o tsutaeta sekai (Modern (Tokyo: Sagami Shobo, 1983), 44-52. Japanese-style architecture: The transmission of tradition) (Tokyo: Kenchiku 16. Ibid., 21-23. Chishiki, 1992), 142, 312. 17. See Hashimoto Fumio, Architecture in the Style: Japanese Feudal 40. See Okawa Mitsuo, "Shin Nihonshiki no kirameki" (The appearance of a Residences (Tokyo: Kodansha, 1981), for a discussion of grand residential architec- new Japanese style), in Hatsuda, Kindai wafu kenchiku, 132, 141-45. ture prior to Meiji. 18. The design of the Ho-O-Den was based on the Hoodo, the eleventh-centu- ry pavilion at the Byodoin in . The Ho-O-Den is noted in the history of moder American architecture as a possible influence on , the firm of Greene and Greene, and other architects in the late nineteenth century. A detailed CHERIE WENDELKEN teaches in the Department of Fine description of the Ho-O-Den is found in Okakura Kakuzo's pamphlet, The Ho-O- Arts, Harvard University. Her researchfocuses on the history Den (Phoenix Hall): An Illustrated Description of the Buildings Erected by the Japanese Government at the World's Columbian Exhibition (Chicago: K. Ogawa, of modern architecture in Japan and the history and theory of 1893), passim. architectural preservation.

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