The need to rebuild
Japan after World War II proved a great stimulus to Japanese architecture, and within a short time, the cities were functioning again. However, the new cities that came to replace the old ones came to look very different. The current look of Japanese cities is the result of and a contributor to 20th and 21st century architectural attitudes. With the introduction of Western building techniques, materials, and styles into
Meiji Japan, new steel and concrete structures were built in strong contrast to traditional styles. Like most places, there is a great gap between the appearance of the majority of buildings (generally residences and small businesses) and of
landmark buildings. After
World War II, the majority of buildings ceased to be built of wood (which is easily flammable in the case of earthquakes and bombing raids), and instead were internally constructed of steel. (Low-rise residential structures, however, are still constructed primarily of wood.) High visibility landmark buildings also changed. Whereas major pre-war buildings, such as the
Wako,
Tokyo Station,
Akasaka Palace, and the
Bank of Japan were designed along European classical lines, post-war buildings adopted the "unadorned box" style. Because of earthquakes, bombings, and later redevelopment, and also because of Japan's rapid economic growth from the 1950s until the 1980s, most of the architecture to be found in the cities are from that period, which was the height of
Brutalist Modern architecture generally.
However, since around the early 1990s, the situation has slowly started to change. The 1991 completion of the postmodernist
Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building was perhaps a tipping point in skyscraper design. Hot on its heels was the
Yokohama Landmark Tower. In 1996 came the much-loved
Tokyo International Forum, which besides a unique design, sported a landscaped area outside for people to relax and chat. More recently, in 2003,
Roppongi Hills was opened, which borrowed ideas from previous ground-breaking designs and furthered them. The new area of
Shiodome, completely redeveloped since the late 1990s, is an excellent place to see a group of postmodern and European-style buildings, away from the usual jumble of '60s-era anonymous rectangular prisms. Still, despite this slow but continuing trend in contemporary Japanese architecture, the vast majority of suburban areas still exhibit cheap, uninspired designs.
The best-known Japanese architect is
Kenzo Tange, whose
National Gymnasiums (1964) for the
Tokyo Olympics emphasizing the contrast and blending of pillars and walls, and with sweeping roofs reminiscent of the
tomoe (an ancient whorl-shaped heraldic symbol) are dramatic statements of form and movement.
Japan played some role in modern
skyscraper design, because of its long familiarity with the
cantilever principle to support the weight of heavy tiled temple roofs.
Frank Lloyd Wright was strongly influenced by Japanese spatial arrangements and the concept of interpenetrating exterior and interior space, long achieved in Japan by opening up walls made of
sliding doors. In the late twentieth century, however, only in domestic and religious architecture was Japanese style commonly employed. Cities sprouted modern skyscrapers, epitomized by
Tokyo's crowded skyline, reflecting a total assimilation and transformation of modern Western forms.
The widespread urban planning and reconstruction necessitated by the devastation of
World War II produced such major architects as
Maekawa Kunio and
Kenzo Tange. Maekawa, a student of world-famous architect
Le Corbusier, produced thoroughly international, functional modern works. Tange, who worked at first for Maekawa, supported this concept early on, but later fell in line with postmodernism, culminating in projects such as the aforementioned Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building and the Fuji TV Building. Both architects were notable for infusing
Japanese aesthetic ideas into starkly contemporary buildings, returning to the spatial concepts and modular proportions of
tatami (woven mats), using textures to enliven the ubiquitous
ferroconcrete and steel, and integrating gardens and sculpture into their designs. Tange used the cantilever principle in a pillar and beam system reminiscent of ancient imperial palaces; the pillar—a hallmark of Japanese traditional monumental
timber construction—became fundamental to his designs.
Fumihiko Maki advanced new
city planning ideas based on the principle of layering or cocooning around an inner space (oku), a Japanese spatial concept that was adapted to urban needs. He also advocated the use of empty or open spaces (ma), a Japanese aesthetic principle reflecting
Buddhist spatial ideas. Another quintessentially Japanese aesthetic concept was a basis for Maki designs, which focused on openings onto intimate
garden views at ground level while cutting off sometimes-ugly skylines. A dominant 1970s architectural concept, the "metabolism" of convertibility, provided for changing the functions of parts of buildings according to use, and remains influential.
A major architect of the 1970s and 1980s was
Isozaki Arata, originally a student and associate of Tange's, who also based his style on the Le Corbusier tradition and then turned his attention toward the further exploration of geometric shapes and cubic silhouettes. He synthesized Western high-technology building concepts with peculiarly Japanese spatial, functional, and decorative ideas to create a modern Japanese style. Isozaki's predilection for the cubic grid and
trabeated pergola in largescale architecture, for the semicircular vault in domestic-scale buildings, and for extended barrel vaulting in low, elongated buildings led to a number of striking variations. New Wave architects of the 1980s were influenced by his designs, either pushing to extend his balanced style, often into mannerism, or reacting against them.
A number of avant-garde experimental groups were encompassed in the New Wave of the late 1970s and the 1980s. They reexamined and modified the formal geometric structural ideas of
modernism by introducing metaphysical concepts, producing some startling fantasy effects in architectural design. In contrast to these innovators, the experimental poetic minimalism of Tadao Ando embodied the
postmodernist concerns for a more balanced, humanistic approach than that of structural modernism's rigid formulations. Ando's buildings provided a variety of light sources, including extensive use of glass bricks and opening up spaces to the outside air. He adapted the inner courtyards of traditional
Osaka houses to new urban architecture, using open stairways and bridges to lessen the sealed atmosphere of the standard city dwelling. His ideas became ubiquitous in the 1980s, when buildings were commonly planned around open courtyards or plazas, often with stepped and terraced spaces, pedestrian walkways, or bridges connecting building complexes. In 1989 Ando became the third Japanese to receive France's prix de l'académie d'architecture ,an indication of the international strength of the major Japanese architects, all of whom produced important structures abroad during the 1980s. Japanese architects were not only skilled practitioners in the modern idiom but also enriched postmodern designs worldwide with innovative spatial perceptions, subtle surface texturing, unusual use of industrial materials, and a developed awareness of ecological and topographical problems.
The Japanese asset price bubble of the late 1980s fostered a great deal of innovative and experimental architecture, but following the economic crash in the early 1990s, Japanese architecture has tended toward more minimal and humble approaches. This is exemplified by the work of architects such as Kazuyo Sejima and Atelier Bow-Wow
