SUMMARRY. Yoshiaki Sato

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1 SUMMARRY THE KANAGAWA PREFECTURAL GOVERNMENT HALL AND LOW-RANKING OFFICIAL ARCHITECTS IN TAISHO AND EARLY SHOWA ERA, VIEWING FROM HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE Yoshiaki Sato -Purpose of Research- This dissertation aims to research and evaluate things as follows, viewing from history of architecture. 1) the process of design competition and construction, the characteristics of style, concerning the being still used Kanagawa Prefectural Government Hall which was built in 1928 and regarded as the first Imperial Crown Style (TEIKAN-YOSHIKI), 2) whole life of architect Karo Obi who got the first prize in the design competition of the Kanagawa Prefectural Government Hall, 3) the careers and works of low-ranking official architects who worked for the Kanagawa Prefectural Government in Taisho and early Showa Era, especially just after the Great Kanto Earthquake, 4) the other important persons and architects with their works related to the abovementioned items. Chapter 1; History of the Kanagawa Prefectural Government Hall, (First to Third) The first Kanagawa Prefectural Government Hall was built in 1866 as the Yokohama branch office of the Tokugawa shogunate magistrate s Kanagawa office. After the Meiji Restoration, this building was owned by the new government and finally became the Kanagawa Prefectural Government in 1873, after being named the Yokohama Court and the Kanagawa Court. Through the end of Tokugawa shogunate to the beginning of Meiji Era, Shogunate magistrate s office (BUGYOSHO), Army Division (CHINDAI) and Court of Justice (SAIBANSHO) were synonym terms. So examples misused these terms were often seen in publications. Now we can see this first Hall by pictures and color woodblock prints which taught us that this Hall was the first public building of the Imitated European Style (GI-YOFU). The constructor of this first Hall was FUKAMIYA, Matsuemon Kawai who was one of four members as formal contractors designated by the Kanagawa magistrate s office. Kawai was not a master of carpenters just like Kisuke Shimizu. He was only a i

2 merchant dealing groceries. This fact meant that in confused society like the end of Tokugawa shogunate age, reliable contractor was not necessarily a master of carpenters and primitive modern general contractors were naturally formed. This first Hall was burned down in 1882, so the Kanagawa Prefectural Government bought the Yokohama Customs House as the second Hall from the Finance Ministry which was three-storied brick building and designed by R.P. Bridgens. The outward appearance of this Hall can be seen by pictures but inside details were unknown. At the end of Meiji Era, this Hall became too old and small for public use, then the Governor Kohei Sufu decided to reconstruct. This hall was taken down to pieces which were sold by bidding. The Hotel Bosuiro in Omori-town Ota-ward is known as using some these pieces of stairs, and the main gate still remains in the Kawaguchis entrance, Seya-ward Yokohama-city. The third hall design was entrusted to Yorinaka Tsumaki who was a Finance Ministry architect, and a free architect Oto Endo. But they say that these two architects had to resign by taking responsibility of defective temporary Hall construction in Yamasita-cho Park (Yokohama Park). Then designers of the third Hall were changed to Tokuma Katayama and Kozaburo Kigo who were the Imperial Household Ministry architects. I have a hypothesis that in background of this change there existed a friction between Governor Sufu who was from Yamaguchi (CHOSHU) and the group of Tsumaki and Nagazane Soma. Tsumaki s old family was shogunates subject and Nagazane Soma who was from Hikone and the president of the Yokohama Specie Bank, intended to build the statue of his old master Naosuke Ii. The third Hall was completed in 1913, and called as the most magnificent Renaissance Style building in Japanese municipal government Halls. Kozaburo Kigo was the chief architect in designing of this Hall. Because of the location which this Hall was next to the Port of Yokohama, the entrance of Japan, he had to pay attention the dignity of Japan Empire and diplomatic appearance. This Hall was utterly destroyed by the Great Kanto Earthquake of Chapter 2; The fourth Kanagawa Prefectural Government Hall In order to reconstruct new Hall, they discussed the site and possibility to reuse a wreck, and finally decided to construct a new Hall in same site expanding to buy post office premise. At first, official architects led by Matazo Naritomi who belonged to Civil Engineering Division of Home Affairs Department were going to design a new Hall, and famous architects Shinichiro Okada and Tachu Naito were invited as advisory staffs. In August 1925, they fished designing and made the perspective public and the budget of ii

3 construction (315 million yen) was approved by the assembly. The new Governor Zenjiro Horikiri who succeeded from Chotaro Kiyono in September withdrew this design and decided to hold the open design competition. Toshikata Sano became a chairman of judges and the closing date was June 10, applications were submitted and Karo Obi got the first prize by the design which had the tower modified from Buddhism five-storied pagoda. The specifications of this competition followed those of design competition in the Diet building and the Osaka Prefectural Government Hall, but the most different point was that there was no list of each room floor space and only line drawing papers on the scale of 1:300 were given to applicants in the case of Kanagawa. Toshikata Sano said We collected outward forms in this competition in the ceremony speech of completion held in1928. This fact taught us that the competition of the Kanagawa Prefectural Government Hall didn t aim to gain good plan but only good outward form, especially the shape of tower. Toshikata Sano was invited to the Construction Office of the Kanagawa Prefectural Government Hall as an advisory staff, then the former adviser Okada had to resign soon. He instructed both aspects in structure and design. In the final design, the height of the tower was shortened, the outer walls were decorated with scratched tiles which showed an influence of Frank Lloyd Wright, and the inside ornaments were mainly adopted Buddhism imaginative flowers (HOSOGE). Moreover, Sano told the press, The tower and entrance are so full of Japanese tradition taste that I feel the new building which I really designed is born. In 1931, owing to the Emperor Showa s direct advice, the mission of the Ministry of the Imperial Household visited the Kanagawa Prefectural Government Hall. This fact might strengthen Sano s confidence to eclecticism architecture reflecting Japanese tradition. After completion of this Hall, the Nagoya City Hall, the Aichi Prefectural Government Hall and the Shizuoka Prefectural Government Hall were constructed under influence of Toshikata Sano, and now these buildings are called Imperial Crown Style. Chapter 3; Karo Obi who got the fist prize in the competition and some other applicants Karo Obi was born at Gochoda, Kabuto-village, Kitakoma-county, Yamanashi Prefecture May 20, 1898, as the son of farmer. His ancestor family was one of groups country samurais, the vassal of the Takeda Family who governed Yamanashi (KAI-NO-KUNI). His father Kotaro went to Kofu and made a success in managing a tailor s shop. In elementary school age, Karo Obi showed great talents in composition and painting, and his teacher evaluated him as even a genius. iii

4 He passed entrance examination of the Nagoya industrial college one year later after graduation of Kofu junior high school. In 1921, he graduated the college and was employed as an architect by the Electricity Bureau in Tokyo City Government. He bought a house in Kichijoji and lived there with his parents. In 1926, he applied and got the first prize in the competition of the Kanagawa Prefectural Government Hall. Owing to his father s advice, he modified the tower of this building from Buddhism Five-storied pagoda and named his application cryptogram as To from his fiancee s name Toki. His close friend Taro Matsuoka helped Obi to draw application plan. Since October 1926, he started working for the Kanagawa Prefectural Government, but only three months later he resigned the Government and managed the construction of Matsuzakaya Ueno-Store for two years which his teacher Teiji Suzuki designed. After completion of Matsuzakaya, he started managing the private design office. In 1930, he took part in the design competition of Assembly Hall for Soldiers and his plan was selected as one of fine works. After this competition, he said that his theme in designing was how to coordinate between Japanese tradition and contemporary frameworks. World War occurred and under the depression, Obi was employed by Japan Housing Corporation (JUTAKU-EIDAN). After War, this corporation was forcibly dismissed by GHQ. Then Obi once worked for the general contractor and soon left this company. Then he restarted managing the design office. Now we can see only two works by Obi, the first one is the Iogi facility of water purification plant completed in 1932 and the second one is the Memorial Hall of forest given by Emperor in Kofu city completed in He had a son and two daughters and passed away by cerebral infarction in December Almost all applicants who gained the prize in the design competition of the Kanagawa Prefectural Government Hall were nameless. Kensuke Aiga who gained the second prize 1 played an active part in the old Manchuria. Kameki Tsuchiura who got the third 1 prize became the famous modernism architect later, but at this time he was nameless. But his applied design was converted into the Okura annex building in Ginza later. Takeshi Yasui who got the third 2 prize was three years behind Obi in the same college. He was employed by the Tokyo City Government, and worked for the school construction division, ad hoc bureau of architecture. Later, he left the Tokyo City and was employed by the Daiichi Bank in Yasui joined the Koji Nishimura s design office from the beginning who was a senior coworker in the Daiich Bank. In 1934, the design competition of the Shizuoka Prefectural Government Hall was held and Yasui applied and got the first prize by iv

5 Imperial Crown Style. In 1943, he was employed by the Kajima Construction Company, and worked in mainly construction management section. After 1971, he worked for the Katayama design office as last job. He passed away in August, Chapter 4; Low-ranking official architects and works in Taisho and early Show Era Taisho and early Showa Era served bridge function in public buildings between classic style of bricks structure in Meiji Era and modern style of ferroconcrete structure. In Kanagawa Prefectural Government, official architects started using ferroconcrete and the Great Kanto Earthquake accelerated this tendency. These official architects were almost all low-rankings and graduates of the public vocational schools or the private vocational schools which were established after 1900 s. According to the archive The official report about persons who had rendered in revival from earthquake disaster, their status was quite unstable, as it were they were temporary employees. They were led by Matazo Naritomi who was a graduate of Saga Prefectural Vocational School. He managed the office work in the design competition of the Kanagawa Prefectural Government Hall. He worked for the Kanagawa Prefecture since 1913 to 1936, but his final status was still low-ranking official in spite of the fact that he was given the Architect s degree. His works included schools, police stations, weather station, social welfare hall, the Kanagawa Branch office of the Red Cross and other public buildings. In these works, we can find several styles such as secession, modernism, semi-western using Japanese tradition, but totally speaking they were brilliant architectural works uniting classic style and modernism. Chapter 5; (Additional), Imperial Crown Style (TEIKAN-YOSHIKI) The definition of Imperial Crown Style was established in recent years and many books pointed that the Kanagawa Prefectural Government Hall was the first one. Architectural Institute of Japan held the debate twice titling How to create national style of architecture in the future in The chairman, Kingo Tatsuno, said in the generalization of this debate, I am confident that the style of Japanese architecture will develop on the European style as the body covered with our traditional artistic ornaments. Chuta Ito and Toshikata Sano had a common idea to create a new style reflecting people s interest, nevertheless the process in their ideas to create new style was different from each other. In early Showa Era, ferroconcrete buildings which had eclecticism of semi-western style and were called Japanese taste buildings, were born from the design competition. The left-wing modernist criticized that these buildings were bourgeoisie s architecture v

6 and modernism buildings were newly-risen classes architecture. They overlapped their class struggle view of history on the thought of architectural style. This tendency continued even after World War. Imperial Crown Style doesn t have a clear criterion and unity. These buildings were intentionally upgraded from pattern (SHIKI) to style (YOSHIKI) by modernists. There existed the Japanese taste building such as the Dalian City Hall before the Kanagawa Prefectural Government Hall. Public buildings built in Manchuria are not characteristic Japanese style, because we can see many same style buildings in China. And I think that recent revival of architecture with ornaments which the modernists denied, leads to the revival of human nature. -Final Comment- Considering the establishing process of the forth Kanagawa Prefectural Government Hall and the official architects with their works in Taisho and early Showa Era, and other things related to above-mentioned, I believe that I could add the new information to the modern history of Japanese architecture. vi

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