Japanese Architecture for High School Students

by Aki Ishida

Background Information. The lesson teaches the primary principles behind Japanese architecture by using films, photographs and hand-on craft as tools for learning. Seeing people inhabit and use buildings within the context of Japanese films provide an opportunity to identify, study and understand architectural elements which are unique to the Japanese culture. Two films are suggested for viewing: Equinox Flowers (Haganbana) from 1958 directed by Yasujiro Ozu shows a typical middle class home and a traditional-style Kyoto inn from the era, and an Academy Award winning Departures (Okuribito) from 2008 directed by Yojiro Takita shows the similar architectural elements in a contemporary setting. The students will then be introduced to photographs of recent works by Japanese architects and be asked to identify and analyze how traditional Japanese architecture is translated into a contemporary language for the current society. Finally, the students will construct models of sliding paper screens out of basswood and tracing paper. By experimenting with materials and light, they will learn about the importance of light and shadow and about the flexibility in space use that result from the sliding screens.

Learning Goals.

Standards. Common Core Standards
College and Career Readiness Anchor Standards for Reading

• Standard 1.  Read closely to determine what the text says explicitly and to make logical inferences from it; cite specific textual evidence when writing or speaking to support conclusions drawn from the text.
• Standard 4.  Interpret words and phrases as they are used in a text, including determining technical, connotative, and figurative meanings, and analyze how specific word choices shape meaning or tone.
• Standard 7.  Integrate and evaluate content presented in diverse formats and media, including visually and quantitatively, as well as in words.

College and Career Readiness Anchor Standards for Speaking and Listening

• Standard 2.  Integrate and evaluate information presented in diverse media and formats, including visually, quantitatively, and orally.
• Standard 5.  Demonstrate understanding of figurative language, word relationships, and nuances in word meanings.

Key Concept.  

Essential Question.  

Primary Source.  

Thought Questions.  

Activities

Focus Activity Ideas. Have a pair of students research and collect images of the following and give a PowerPoint presentation. A Japanese Touch for Your Home has helpful information for instructors. See Reference section below.

• Tatami (rice straw mat flooring)
• Shoji and fusuma (sliding paper screens/partitions)
• Engawa (veranda at perimeter of homes)
• Genkan (entryway to a house where the shoes are taken off)
• Oshiire and other storage (closet)
• Ofuro (Japanese bath)

Questions:

1. What are the materials used and how are they crafted?
2. What are the rituals associated with each element?
3. How do these architectural elements contribute to ways of living that are different from your own?

 

Main Lesson Activity Ideas.
Activity 1
Read and discuss pages 1 to 26 in the book In Praise of Shadows by Junichiro Tanizaki. View the film Departures (Okuribinto) by director Yojiro Takita, with a particular emphasis on Chapters 1, 11 and 12 (1:33 to 1:39), which take place in traditional Japanese tatami rooms with sliding shoji screens.

1. Identify the terms defined in activity #1 above. Tatami and shoji will be seen throughout the film. There are a few scenes which take place in a bath, ofuro, which in this film is a public bath separated by gender.
2. In In Praise of Shadows, Tanizaki writes “…the texture of Chinese paper and Japanese paper gives us a certain feeling of warmth, of calm and repose….Western paper turns away the light, while our paper seems to take it in, to envelope gently, like the soft surface of a first snowfall.” 1   In the encoffinment scenes of the film Departures, how do you think the material of paper affect the atmosphere? How do you think the scenes would be affected if the walls were opaque and heavy?
3. Tanizaki further writes: And so it has come to be that the beauty of a Japanese room depends on a variation of shadows, heavy shadows again light shadows – it has nothing else…The hue may differ from room to room, but the degree of difference will ever so light; not so much a difference in color as in shade, a difference that will seem to exist only in the mood of the viewer.2  In the encoffinment scenes throughout the film and the couple’s house in Chapter 11, discuss how the qualities of light and shadow are affected by the architectural elements. What materials are the buildings made out of, and what colors are they? How do you that Tanizaki’s quote applicable to the scenes in this film?

Activity 2
Japanese architecture is distinguished by its fluid relationship between interior and exterior. The distinction between walls and doors, which often slide, are often blurred. Engawa (veranda) serves as an extension of the interior space in which to enjoy the outdoors.  View chapters 18 and 20 of the film Equinox Flower (Higanbana) by Yasujiro Ozu and discuss how these phenomena are depicted in the film.

1. Identify the terms defined in activity #1 above. You will find tatami, shoji, fusuma, engawa and genkan.
2. In the film, identify architectural elements that make the transition from inside to outside fluid. What do you notice that are different from American houses?
3. How is the experience of the interior space affected by having walls that are thin and movable? How would the experience be different than a western house in which the walls are thick and heavy?
4. In Chapter 20, the father is seen relaxing on the veranda of the inn where he is spending the night. How is this space similar and dissimilar to an American porch? What type of activities and experience would this space induce? 
5. In Chapter 20, a wooden lattice screen which separates the garden from the next door neighbor’s house can be seen in the background. How is this similar and dissimilar to ways in which Americans interface with neighbor’s houses, and how do you think it will affect your relationship with the neighbors?

Activity 3
Henry Plummer in his book Light in Japanese Architecture says the following about the use of lattice screens:

In their effort to break down and ventilate walls, for selective movements of air as much as light, the Japanese invented a wide array of permeable screens that could sift and disperse, rather than channel the oncoming rays….Beyond its practical benefits of diffusing harsh light, and playing with inside and outside, the stickwork added wonderfully ambiguous features to the store of mystery and introspective feeling so distinct in Japanese architecture. As light trickles through and gets caught in a screen, the wall disintegrates into an airy substance that is half-matter and half-spirit. 3

The photographs linked to below of Japanese homes and buildings exhibit qualities described in this quote using traditional building language and materials. Carefully look at the building materials and techniques used by contemporary Japanese architects, and describe how the phenomena described by Plummer are evident in these examples.

1. Wooden lattice and woven grass hanging screens at a house in Kyoto.
2. Translucent glass, as shown here, is often used in Japanese buildings to give privacy while allowing daylight to come in.
3. White Chapel in Osaka by Jun Aoki. His use of translucent screen, in this case using a modern material of steel rings, is similar to the ways in which traditional wood screens or lattices are used to filter daylight and provide privacy
4. Louis Vuitton Ginza Namiki by Jun Aoki. The use of translucent material, in this case alabaster stone, in a grid arrangement is similar to shoji screens

In works by the following architects, have the students search for photographs that best exemplify contemporary translations of traditional wooden screens and effect on light as described by Plummer above.

1. Kengo Kuma
2. Toyo Ito

Notes:
1 Junichiro Tanizaki, In Praise of Shadows (Stony Creek: Leete's Island Books, 1977) 10.
2 Tanizaki, 18-19.
3 Henry Plummer, Light in Japanese Architecture (Tokyo: a + u, 1995) 174.

Summative Activity Ideas. Make rice paper screens with basswood and tracing paper following these instructions. Discuss the following questions.

1. How are these screens different from the walls and doors in your house?
2. How would living in a house with thin, movable partitions be different than the way you live now? 
3. As you move the lamp closer and farther away from the screens, what happens? Try placing an action figure or a cut-out of a human figure in front of the screen, and move the lamp. What happens to the shadows as the light source moves? How about if the figure moves?

Resources.
General Survey and Theory Books on Japanese Architecture
Isozaki, Arata. Japan-ness in Architecture. Cambridge: MIT Press, 2006.

Plummer, Henry. Light in Japanese Architecture. Tokyo: a + u, 1995.

Tanizaki, Junichiro. In Praise of Shadows. Stony Creek: Leete's Island Books, 1977.

Yagi, Koji. A Japanese Touch for Your Home. Tokyo: Kodansha International, 1982.

Young, David & Michiko. The Art of Japanese Architecture. Tokyo: Tuttle, 2007.

Monographs & Websites on Contemporary Japanese Architects
Botond, Bognar. Kengo Kuma: Selected Works. New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 2007.

Dal Co, Francesco. Tadao Ando: Complete Works. London: Phaidon, 1997.

Perez Rubio, Augustin. SANAA Houses: Kazuyo Sejima + Ryue Nishizawa. Barcelona: Actar, 2007.

Kengo Kuma: http://www.designboom.com/eng/interview/kuma.html

Kengo Kuma: http://www.kkaa.co.jp/E/main.htm

Jun Aoki: http://www.designboom.com/eng/interview/jun_aoki.html
 
Films
Equinox Flower (Higanbana). Dir. Yasujiro Ozu. Shochiku, 1958. DVD.

Departures (Okuribito). Dir. Yojiro Takita. Shochiku, 2008. DVD.

Dreams. Dir Akira Kurosawa. Warner Brothers, 1990. DVD.