Kunio Maekawa is an architect who designed and built his...

Kunio Maekawa is an architect who designed and built his own house, The Maekawa House, in 1941(Reynolds, 2001). Since the war was going on, he was only able to construct his home with limited materials (Reynolds, 2001). Nevertheless, he was still able to incorporate the traditional Japanese architecture with influences of the western style. The Maekawa House is considered to be modern because of the introduction it had of a different type of design in Japan (Reynolds, 2001). Maekawa obtained the traditional wood construction and spacious garden; he added the living/dining room in the center of the house. The bedroom was in the back corner of the house for privacy reasons, and the other rooms were design on both sides of the living room†¦show more content†¦He was drawn by the English Arts and Crafts Movement and chose to write about John Ruskin’s essay, â€Å"Seven Lamps of Architecture.† Maekawa was intrigued by how Ruskin defined the architectural detail of a rchitects’ work. This made him more interested to find out what architecture was (Maekawa, 1984). He visited projects around Tokyo, and even got the chance to see Frank Lloyd Wright’s Imperial Hotel but was disappointed by the lack of information (Maekawa, 1984). He read an architectural journal, Architectural Forum, and was not fascinated because there was no information of the design or the aesthetics. It seems magazines in the 1920’s were somewhat conservative (Maekawa, 1984). Maekawa entered Tokyo Imperial University in 1925 to pursue his architecture education and it was there when he was able to be exposed to the European trends (Maekawa, 1984). He learned about the Western and Japanese architectural history and took field trips to shrines and temples (Maekawa, 1984). He graduated from Tokyo Imperial University in 1928 (Maekawa, 1984). He was then eluded by Europe’s modernism where he later pursued his belief of modernism in Paris by working under, the well-known architect, LeCorbusier (Maekawa, 1984). The first exposure that Maekawa had of LeCorbusier was when he read a report of LeCorbusier’s Ville Contemporain (Maekawa, 1984)e. Due to the recession in Japan in 1927, Maekawa needed to look elsewhere to obtain a job,