Maebashi Galleria is the latest in the string of revitalisation projects involving an impressive roll call of top international and Japanese architecture, design and art scene names, that are putting Maebashi in mountainous Gunma prefecture, northwest of Tokyo, firmly on the country's creative map. (Image credit: Shinya Kigure) Maebashi Galleria by Akihisa Hirata ‘Begin by studying the shoin style.' Yet Yoshimura spent his career at the heel of one of Europe’s great architects of the time, learning how to fuse shoin principles with rationalist and modernist thinking. Shofuso, then, is the child of a historic connection between Eastern and Western cultures, and a hinge between nationalist tradition and internationalist modernity. ‘If you want to study Japanese architecture, don’t study the sukiya style,' he once said. Shofuso Japanese House and Gardens, a shoin house (a type of traditional Japanese residential architecture) subtly infused with modernist details, was built in Japan in 1953 by the Tokyo-based architect Junzo Yoshimura, before being shipped to America’s East Coast for a 1954 outdoor exhibition titled ‘The House in the Museum Garden' at New York’s Museum of Modern Art. Shofuso, which moved to Philadelphia in 1957, is an expression of Yoshimura’s interpretations of the Japanese classical shoin-zukuri style of architecture. (Image credit: The Japan America Society Of Greater Philadelphia) Shofuso House by Junzo Yoshimura ‘They were primarily interested in a clean modern aesthetic, and the choice of cast concrete is a stereotypical construction method in Japan because of typhoon and earthquake requirements’, says Juergen Riehm, lead architect on the project and partner at 1100 Architect. The architects had previously completed another commission for the couple in Naha City, so they were familiar both with native construction methods, materials available and the traditional, yet contemporary tastes of their clients. The couple who commissioned the house, an art dealer who is originally from Ikema and her husband, an engineering entrepreneur, reside permanently in Naha, Okinawa island, and had always dreamed of having a retreat in Ikema. Built of concrete to withstand extreme weather, the architects detailed the home with traditional Japanese materials to soften its edges. On the secluded island of Ikema, part of the Okinawan archipelago in the East China Sea, 1100 Architect has recently completed a cliff-top home looking out to sea. (Image credit: Shinichi Sato) Ikema House by 1100 Architect
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