The Japanese House since 1945 at MAXXI Rome

A new exhibition at the MAXXI museum in Rome explores the evolution and significance of the Japanese home. Pictured, Roof House by Tezuka Architects (Takaharu + Yui Tezuka) completed in 2001.

(Image credit: Katsuhisa Kida/FOTOTECA)

By Harriet Thorpe

last updated 7 October 2022

Tracing the development of residential architecture in Japan since 1945, a new exhibition opening today at MAXXI in Rome brings together the projects by over 30 Japanese architects. Alongside works by filmmakers and artists, ‘The Japanese House: Architecture & Life after 1945’ explores the relevance of the home to the cultural landscape of the nation and beyond.

Unable to masterplan larger housing schemes due to the country's dire postwar economy, local architects defined the decades following 1945 in Japan by creating smaller, single dwellings that were built and demolished at equal rates. Life-sized representations of fragments from milestone pieces of architecture, such as the now demolished House U by Toyo Ito and Shigeru Ban’s temporary emergency shelter structures, provide insight into the range of projects from that time.

*Leek House by Terunobu Fujimori, completed in 1997.*

Soon, family homes became the building blocks of Japan’s iconic urban landscape; hybrid vehicles of the developing relationship between tradition and modernity. Kenzo Tange’s 1951 modularly structured Wooden Houses were based around the tatami room and its central position in the traditional Japanese home. The timber structures, built with indigenous wood, remain loyal to the country's traditions, while experimenting with modernity. Similarly, Kiyonori Kikutake’s stilted concrete Sky House from 1958, combined shapes from nature with contemporary architectural engineering. Homes such as these pioneered the domestic space as a progressive philosophical zone.

Curated by Pippo Ciorra, MAXXI's senior curator of architecture, the exhibition was born from an idea of Kenjiro Hosaka, curator of the National Museum of Modern Art in Tokyo, and Yoshiharu Tsukamoto, co-founder of Atelier Bow-Wow. It also includes alternative representations of residences from the period, such as videos and manga, switching up the perspective from architect, to dweller, to dreamer, and finding a way to exhibit the complex creative relationship between the Japanese house and popular culture.

House NA by Sou Fujimoto Architects in Tokyo, Japan, completed in 2011.

O House by Hideyuki Nakayama completed in 2009

Pony Garden by Atelier Bow-Wow. Courtesy of Atelier Bow-Wow — Pony Garden by Atelier Bow-Wow.

Moriyama House by Office of Ryue Nishizawa, completed in 2005.

INFORMATION
’The Japanese House: Architecture and Life after 1945’ is on view until 26 February 2017. For more information, visit the MAXXI Rome website

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Harriet Thorpe is a writer, journalist and editor covering architecture, design and culture, with particular interest in sustainability, 20th-century architecture and community. After studying History of Art at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) and Journalism at City University in London, she developed her interest in architecture working at Wallpaper* magazine and today contributes to Wallpaper*, The World of Interiors and Icon magazine, amongst other titles. She is author of The Sustainable City (2022, Hoxton Mini Press), a book about sustainable architecture in London, and the Modern Cambridge Map (2023, Blue Crow Media), a map of 20th-century architecture in Cambridge, the city where she grew up.