20: Transnationalism and Japanese Architecture with Ken Oshima

““The California roll was invented outside of Japan...then it’s re-imported. That’s how that boomerang effect works.””

We discuss the complexities of practicing architecture and architectural history across cultures, nationalities, and aesthetic regimes with Ken T. Oshima, Professor of Architecture at the University of Washington, Chair of the Japan Studies Program, and recent President of the Society for Architectural Historians. Topics include: the Edo period, Antonin Raymond, Frank Lloyd Wright in Japan, the Post-War modernists, Japanese global architects.

Timestamp Outline

2:13 Ken’s CV: teaching, articles, Japan studies program…
2:37 Thread between M.Arch at Berkeley, Garden Cities in Japan paper, and PhD at Columbia
5:11 Chicago Architectural Biennial 2017 theme “Making New History” with curators Sharon Johnston and Mark Lee
9:16 MOMA exhibit on Frank Lloyd Wright as a global architect
9:34 Transnational vs global or international architects
12:56 Biography as a Japanese American
14:42 Scholarship for study in Japan and postwar Japanese houses
15:42 William Coaldrake professor on Japan, and FLW’s Japanese sources and room in the Metropolitan Museum
17:17 Ukiyo-e woodblock prints and modernist aesthetics
18:69 Katsura: Tradition and Creation in Japanese Architecture by Kenzo Tange
22:48 Edo period construction, tea ceremony, Ikebana flower arranging, Zen Buddhism and an aesthetic minimalism
24:23 1868 Meiji Restoration, the Iwakura Mission and a selective transnationalism
28:03 Japanese kimono tradition, Issey Miyake and transnational exchange in fashion
30:10 “For example with sushi, you wouldn't have the rolls only in Japan. The California roll was invented outside of Japan...then it’s re-imported; that’s how that boomerang effect works.”
33:05 Antonin Raymond and Josiah Conder as Japanese Architects?
39:17 Raymond’s Reader’s Digest Building after WWII in front of Imperial Palace
42:09 Lineage of architects: Kenzo Tange, Fumihiko Maki, Toyo Ito, etc
44:03 Non-Japanese architects’ work in Japan: FLW Imperial Hotel, Steven Holl Nexus Housing, Rem Koolhaas and Foreign Office Architects Yokohama ferry terminal
45:42 Transnational practice: Shigeru Ban and SciArch, Cooper Union, Arata Isozaki, John Hejduk, and the Centre Pompidou-Metz
49:55 The benefits and drawbacks of specialization in research and teaching
52:10 Book: International Architecture in Interwar Japan: Constructing Kokusai Kenchiku by Ken Oshima