Design and Disaster Kon Wajiro’s Modernologio Edited by Jilly Traganou & Kuroishi Izumi Design and Disaster: Kon Wajiro’s Modernologio Jilly Traganou and Kuroishi Izumi, editors and exhibition curators Published on the occasion of the exhibition Disaster and Design: Kon Wajiro’s Modernologio Exhibition Location: Arnold and Sheila Aronson Galleries, Sheila C. Johnson Design Center, Parsons The New School for Design Exhibition Dates: March 13-March 27, 2014 Mehdi Salehi, exhibition designer Hayashi Natsuki, graphic designer Dora Sapunar, editorial assistant Rachel Smith, editorial assistant Acknowledgments The exhibition was made possible through the generous support of The Japan Foundation, New York, the School of Art and Design History and Theory at Parsons The New School for Design (New York), and the School of Cultural and Creative Studies of Aoyama Gakuin University (Tokyo). We are thankful to all the above, and also to the Kon Wajiro Archive and the Kōgakuin University Library (Tokyo) for providing digital iles of exhibited work. Throughout the text and bibliography the names of Japanese persons are in Japanese order, surname irst. ISBN: 978-0-9915463-0-5 Design and Disaster: Kon Wajiro’s Modernologio Jilly Traganou, Kuroishi Izumi “Design and Disaster: Kon Wajiro’s Modernologio” explores Kon Wajiro’s (1888-1973) visual observations of material practices in Tokyo after the devastating 1923 Earthquake—particularly drawing from his work Modernologio (kōgengaku) and from his surveys of “barracks” (makeshift structures for earthquake recovery). Kon Wajiro studied design in Japan in the early 20th century, and worked closely with ethnographers, designers and artists. In the 1920s, after extensive experience studying rural Japan with ethnographer Yanagita Kunio (1875-1962), Kon turned his focus to the realm of urban life. The exhibition emphasizes Kon Wajiro’s urban ethnography, as well as its signiicance as a designbased methodology of recording material change in post-disaster conditions through a wide lens, that spans from the realm of urban and domestic space to fashion. Chronologically, the exhibition material derives from Kon’s immediate postearthquake response, his recording of material culture changes in Ginza and the slum areas of Tokyo in the modernization period after the earthquake, as well as a selection of Kon’s own design work produced in the 1930-40s. It is signiicant that Kon Wajiro’s thinking emerged during an era wherein various design ields (from architecture and interior design to graphics and furniture design) were studied in conjunction with one another, rather than as separate disciplines. Today numerous educational institutions of 2 design are trying to re-establish this integrative approach. 5_1 The exhibition poses questions about how to record and analyze change in social and material culture at times of crisis, and how these records can be utilized by designers as agents of recovery. Kon Wajiro’s work was impelled by the need to comprehend the rapid social and material changes that occurred after the 1923 disaster in Tokyo. This period of transition resonates with changes that Japan is undergoing today, after the triple disaster of March 2011 (earthquake, tsunami and nuclear accident in the Tohoku area). If in the early 20th century Japanese society’s transition was towards modern, westernized and consumer-oriented lifestyles, today we notice a reverse turn. Namely, a reconsideration of the consumerist way of life and the energy consumption practices that Japan has adopted in the last 150 years. Today, these questions are universally pertinent, given conditions of climate change, and global iscal and social crisis. Designers will see in Kon Wajiro a forerunner in the use of ethnography as a design tool that had no parallel in the western world. Kon’s minute recording of material culture, produced after careful observations and supplemented by statistical measurements, is a sophisticated tool for detecting and comprehending the patterns of human life (Kuroishi, 1998, 2000). A parallel objective of the exhibition is to look at Kon’s methodology as an educational resource. This entails a presentation of student work produced in classes at Parsons and Aoyama Gakuin University, and the hosting of pedagogical engagements during the length of the exhibition. A Brief Biography of Kon Wajiro Kon Wajiro was born in Hirosaki, Aomori Prefecture. He is known as the founder of modernologio, a school of thought that involved the documentation of modern life in Tokyo as it rapidly developed into a metropolis in the early Showa period (1926-1989). Kon also contributed valuable research in the study of traditional folk dwellings (minka), which he produced as a member of the research group Hakubōkai, led by Yanagita Kunio, the father of Japanese ethnography. Kon studied graphic design (zuan) at Tokyo Fine Arts University. During his career he taught architecture at Waseda University (1920-1959), and produced diverse design projects that ranged from graphics to furniture and architecture. Kon’s drawing style owes both to the visual languages of his contemporary avant-garde, and to his training in the Tokyo Fine Arts University, which was strongly inluenced by the Arts and Crafts movement. The zuan-ka approach which he studied at Tokyo Fine Arts University did not focus on drawing for the purpose of faithful reproduction of nature. It used drawing as a means of grasping the phenomena of the real world through observation, in order to develop a greater expressive capacity for abstraction in design (Kuroishi, 2011). Through extensive documentary ieldwork undertaken with minute scrutiny, Kon drew important lessons for his own design practice, while leaving a large visual record of the material practices of his contemporary society: from fashion and interior design to body postures and walking styles in the new urban locales of Tokyo. For Kon, these were the material expressions of the large societal changes that occurred in Japan after the Tokyo earthquake, and were thus valuable for comprehending these broader changes. After the earthquake, Kon and Yoshida Kenkichi (1897-1982), a fellow student from the Tokyo School of Fine Arts, started the Barrack 3 Decoration Company (Barakku s shokusha), in collaboration with a group of artists and designers known as Forefront Company (Sent sha) (including painters Nakagawa Kigen and Kanbara Tai, and decorators tsubo Shigechika, Asuka Tetsuo and Yoshimura Jir ), most of whom had studied in the design department of the Tokyo School of Fine Arts. The group’s purpose was to decorate the interiors and exteriors of the commercial temporary structures, erected in the wake of the earthquake, known as barracks (barakku). Barrack decoration provided the group with monumental canvases, and became a means to both tie their work closely to everyday life, and to shape people’s experience of their urban environment (Weisenfeld, 230). At the end of the 1930’s, Kon built experimental housing to assist those living in areas with heavy snowfalls, and designed cooperative workspaces for villages in six prefectures of the northern part of Honshu, Japan’s main island. Following World War II, he pioneered new ields of academic study, including Lifestyle Studies (Seikatsu-gaku) and Clothing Research (Fukusō-kenkyu). Kon’s interest in diverse ields was rooted in how he spent his life: traveling between cities and villages, observing a wide range of lifestyles with an open mind, seeking to work with others to create new life systems, that would be better adapted to people’s needs. Exhibition Overview 1. Kon Wajiro’s Urban Ethnography The exhibition presents sketches and photographs by Kon Wajiro and his team members after the Great Kanto Earthquake of 1923. The selected artifacts reveal the multiplicity of the material aspects of human activity that Kon recorded in post-1923 Tokyo. They derive from his observations of the city’s exterior and interior spaces, and span characteristic locales of urban modernity, such as Ginza, as well as slums on the city’s periphery. 4 Immediate Post-Earthquake Response—Barrack Survey, 1923 In the months after the earthquake, Kon, Yoshida, other members of the Barrack Decoration Company as well as Kon’s students, visited the areas where earthquake-refugees tended to congregate. These included Ueno Park, the Onarimon area of Shiba Park, Shiba Atagoshita, the Tameike area of Akasaka and Hibiya Park. 1_4 There, Kon and Yoshida witnessed the act of living and the creation of shelter in their most fundamental states. The day after the earthquake, people who had lost their homes began salvaging timber spared by the lames to use as posts and beams for simple new dwellings. Kon and Yoshida’s irst activity was observing. With camera, pencil and notebook in hand, they wandered through the ruins, recording their observations of temporary shelter construction. They photographed and sketched the barracks of temporary living, as well as the new places of business that began to appear in ramshackle structures in the central commercial districts of Tokyo. As Kon wrote in 1924, “These black, red and blue houses with their roofs—sometimes light, sometimes heavy but, often peculiar—are quite remarkable. Architects should take note of people’s ingenuity” (Kon, 1927). During this period, Kon also formed the Barrack Decoration Company. Post-Earthquake Urban Changes—Modernologio, 1925 Soon after the earthquake, Kon assembled some of the members of the Barrack Decoration Company, his students of Waseda and other Universities, and members of publishing houses, such as Chuōkoron. They began carrying out a survey of the mores and customs of the Ginza district of Tokyo, a major urban locale in the city, known as an epicenter of modernity of early Showa Japan. They named this study modernologio, an engagement that developed as an extension of their observations of temporary shelters. In addition to Ginza, Kon and Yoshida conducted their surveys in other changing areas of Tokyo, such as the slum of Honjō-Fukagawa, suburbs like Koenji and Asagaya, Hibiya and Inokashira parks, the environs of Waseda and Keio Universities, and the commercial districts of Ueno and Asakusa. 5_8 Kon explained modernologio as an effort to record the transformation of Tokyo’s landscape and lifestyle, in response to the acceleration of capitalism after the disaster. Results of the modernologio studies were exhibited to popular acclaim in an exhibition titled Research (Modernologio) Exhibition [Shirabemono (kōgengaku) ten], held at the Kinokuniya bookstore in Shinjuku from October 15 to 21, 1927. 5 2. Kon Wajiro’s Design Work in Film In 1935, Kon Wajiro received a commission from the Japanese government to improve the operation of local communities’ mutual-help system in farming areas of Tohoku. Kon proposed a modular storage system design (goso), which could be adapted easily according to the needs of each community. The design employed local carpentry techniques and readily available materials. It was realized in the period 1935-41. Theses humble storage houses are emblematic of Kon’s approach. His designs derived from his on-site observation of people’s lifestyles, the environment and ev- eryday building technologies. Kon’s experience of in-depth observations of rural houses, barracks and modern urban lifestyles led him to advocate for a new approach to architecture (different from that of modernism), which uniied rational production systems with options for user-intervention. Kazuhiko Kon’s ilm “Storage Houses and Memory of Kashiwagi Yama Area” (Onshi-goso to Kashiwagi yama no kioku) (2011), presents one of these storage houses in Kashiwagi, including interviews with local residents. 3. Pedagogy Inspired by Kon Wajiro Memory Maps: Kesennuma Before and After 3.11 Aoyama Gakuin University Student Work: SDSD (Spatial Descriptions of Social Diversity) Students: Abe Koyuki, Hayashizaki Ai, Nakajima Yukika, Kobayashi Yusei Faculty: Kuroishi Izumi After the triple disaster of 2011, Professor Kuroishi Izumi’s laboratory at Aoyama Gakuin University started conducting extensive ieldwork in Kesennuma, a coastal town of Tohoku, that was heavily affected by the earthquake and the tsunami that hit the area. By interviewing local inhabitants in the disaster area, and observing how they are sup6 porting and creating their everyday lives after the disaster, students are trying to understand the invisible human relationships that construct local society, as well as the community’s historical, social and cultural identity. With this, students are suggesting that, instead of thinking about the rehabilitation of the disaster from top-down and technical approaches, we should rather focus on understanding people’s lifestyle and memories of the predisaster era, through a historical and interview-based approach that derives from direct engagements with the community. Project 1 shows the maps of the most severely damaged areas, before and after the disaster, revealing how the everyday living world vanished and a new landscape emerged. Resilience in People’s Lifestyle: Finding Locus in the Culture of Food and Home Aoyama Gakuin University Student Work: SDSD (Spatial Descriptions of Social Diversity) Students: Matsudo Keidai, Yokose Megumi, Mitome Natsumi, Someya Asami Faculty: Kuroishi Izumi This project extends the idea of Kon Wajiro’s modernologio from a study of observation to a practice of revitalization. By conducting interviews and surveys, the project attempts to reconstruct the setting of residents’ lost houses. It also proposes ways to re-connect with the almost vanished local context by focusing on the area’s food culture. These works bring to the surface the social and historical infrastructure of urban everyday life—Kon’s fundamental intention with his survey of modern socio-material phenomena. identity, comparing Kesennuma and Red Hook, an area affected by Hurricane Sandy in 2012. In June 2013, they participated in the Red Hook Festival with a mobile performative installation, titled “CommuniTea.” This was part of an effort to connect communities around the globe that are both recovering from and at risk for future large-scale disasters. This project was inspired by Kon Wajiro’s response to disaster, and particularly his Barrack Decoration Company. Combining the typology of the temporary shelter and the traditional Japanese teahouses, the installation was the setting for a performer, who invited visitors one-by-one to listen to stories from Tohoku, and share their experiences from the period of Hurricane Sandy. “CommuniTea” engaged fundamental questions related to belonging, identity and displacement by natural disasters, as well as the politics of emergency assistance, crisis preparedness and humanitarian aid. CommuniTea Parsons The New School for Design, School of Art and Design History and Theory Authors Students: Sarah Farah, Hayashi Natsuki, Anze Zadel Faculty: Jilly Traganou In January 2013, three students of Jilly Traganou’s class “Japanese Design and Urban Culture from the Edo to post 3.11 Japan” visited Kesennuma with Professor Kuroishi and students of her laboratory. Upon return to New York the students began studying the notion of place- Jilly Traganou is Associate Professor in Spatial Design Studies at Parsons The New School for Design, New York. Kuroishi Izumi is Professor at the School of Cultural and Creative Studies, Aoyama Gakuin University, Tokyo. 7 Kon Wajiro’s Writings With Introductory Notes by Kuroishi Izumi 1 In September, 1923, Tokyo was almost completely destroyed by a huge earthquake. Kon organized the Barrack Decoration Company, a group dedicated to the construction of temporary structures—“barracks”—built in the aftermath of the earthquake. The group’s designs drew inspiration from sources as diverse as avant-garde painting, rococo and organic natural forms. Members of the company undertook the decoration of barracks, but Kon’s work so directly confronted the stereotypical view of ornament in the modern architectural discourse that a group of young modernists, Bunriha Architectural Society (Bunriha Kenchikukai), immediately challenged him. Through the succeeding debates, Kon tried to clarify the conlicts between his beliefs surrounding decoration and ornament in architecture and the modernist ideas of Bunriha. Kon’s ideas about decoration and ornament were inspired by two sources: First was the Arts and Crafts movement, with which he gained familiarity when carrying out studies of rural houses. As Owen Jones described in his “Grammar of Ornament,” the Arts and Crafts movement upheld, in addition to a preference for naturalistic art, the belief that beauty in art resulted from the artist’s ability to take pleasure in the dificulty of work, and that ornament should be the result of reinement according to peoples’ usage of the objects. The second source came from the European avant-garde movement that exerted strong inluences in the arts of Japan at that time. Sharing the early ideas of the European avant-garde, Kon and other members of Barrack Decoration Company tried to reexamine the meanings and expressions of art in society. They endeavored to express direct sensation through dynamic forms, as well as destroy categorical divisions and conventional ideas about the creation of art. Kon also shared the European avant-garde’s preoccupation with the social, stemming from his personal involvement in the improvement of Japanese peoples’ living conditions since the 1910’s. Having a strong humanistic standpoint, Kon was opposed to the overly institutionalized and engineering-oriented understanding of architecture, as well as to modernist notions of architecture privileging “pure-form.” Kon’s uniied usage of the notions of ornament and decoration shows his characteristic understanding of the essence of art as “something our daily lives require on the surface of things,” through which man perceives and experiences the meaning and beauty of objects and the world. (Kuroishi Izumi) 8 An Excerpt from Kon Wajiro’s “An Analysis of Decorative Art” (Sōshoku geijutsu no kaimei), published in Kenchiku shinchō 5:2 (1924) Bunriha members seem to understand architecture as follows: the material form directly affects people’s minds, and is to be created as such. They ind added ornament to be unnecessary. They also seem to believe that music is a series of sounds and that architecture is the placement of material objects in a given space. I am not aware of their opinion about barracks, which are artifacts created with maximum inancial restraint. Bunriha members, however, act as if they are destined to accomplish the above-mentioned idea. Many of the post ofice buildings by Yamada Mamoru exemplify solutions to such aesthetic problems. In his works, we can clearly see an approach to architecture which is inspired by poetry and music. However, I want to examine under what conditions they conceived their ideas of poetry and music in architecture. After all, their idea of architectural beauty is abstract and universal, superimposed on a concrete physical presence. The composition of lines, the volume of masses, their distributions, the play of light on them, the force and the simplicity of the forms, and rhythmical, musical, poetic beauty are the themes and objectives of their designs. Indeed, this purist mindset is a heavenly place—one accessible to only the most talented artists. 4_8 In order to appreciate the beauty of a naked body we have to reject decoration. The architectural body cannot have dresses on. However, if we understood decoration from a broader perspective we might be able to add to the naked architectural body something commonly called decoration, in order to highlight its basic meaning. The irst viewpoint rejects decoration in order to protect the purity of architectural form. The second one appreciates the capability of decoration to express dramatic emotions on the surface of architectural form. The irst viewpoint also recognizes the pure beauty in the architectural structure. 9 The second tries to extend the notion of architectural beauty. Of course, Bunriha members take the irst standpoint and I take the second. … We are now trying to liberate the methods of decorative expression as much as possible, and to make their evocations as complex as possible. For example, in interior design, we try to express social phenomena—the reality of people’s lives, everyday activities, their emotions and their changes—on walls and ceilings through luid, sensitive forms. I want to make people accept them without any explanation, in order to perceive and enjoy them spontaneously in their daily environments. I believe the work of decoration is to ill people’s living spaces with dignity. This expression of decoration may contradict the idea of primal beauty of architecture. However, can we discard it from our lives? Many of us ind that the experience of human perception is stimulated by the decorative patterns of rococo style, and begin our examination of decoration from there. In other words, we feel delicate sounds in the most complicated curving decoration, which is hated by architects, and is the most dificult to simplify into geometrical forms. Our effort may raise the antipathy of other architects, who never listen to our explanations. Decoration is at times harmonious and at times independent from the rhythms of architectural composition. In any case, decoration is something we demand to be on the surface of the 10 material in our living world. I have been working on the idea of the absolute pattern, which is not a pattern added onto materials but the direct expression of the human mind through lines and colors, in order to express people’s lifestyles in their living space. When you see a person sitting, you may want to express his personality, his emotions and moods in that space through patterns on the wall behind him. As a painter expresses his perception on the canvas, we should be allowed to do something similar on the wall of a room. 4_2 (right) People usually call the production of beautiful colors and harmonized patterns decoration, but I think that such formal approaches lead to merely ephemeral expressions, and are not the real work of decoration. I think the work of decoration is to express the real and practical ways of people’s life. (Translated by Kuroishi Izumi, irst published in Round01: Jewels (2006) 2 Kon Wajiro’s understanding of architecture as the “active” intermediary between man and the world informed his signature interpretations of architectural space and form. Along with his Barrack Decoration Company, Kon applied these ideas to his modernologio survey, in order to discover the phenomenological interrelationship between people, things and their social environment. Kon’s project, assumedly inluenced by European and American theories of phenomenology and pragmatic philosophy, appears as one of the earliest examples of these theories’ application in practice. In the following, Kon elucidates his ieldwork exploration of architectural and urban spaces in relation to their material expression. Kon recorded furniture, objects, tools, souvenirs and other artifacts which illed the interiors of peoples’ living spaces, and included precise physical descriptions and histories of the objects. In focusing on objects and their arrangements in domestic interiors, he came to deine architectural space as a stage for life’s events, thus accumulating historical resonance and the ability to represent peoples’ social and personal lives. Opposed to the notions of architecture, propagated by modernist architects during this period in Japan, Kon expanded the idea of architectural space from a ixed to a luid entity for the movement of daily life—namely the interaction between man and the world. With his studies of post-earthquake constructions, in his Barrack Survey, and the application of phenomenology in modernologio, Kon framed architecture as a humanistic discipline dependent on people’s individual and social experience. (Kuroishi Izumi) 11 An Excerpt from Kon Wajiro’s “Examination of the Household of a Newly Married Couple” (Shinkatei no shinamono chōsa) in Modernologio (1930) 4_3 (left) If you were to examine all the belongings of a person, you would be able to see the characteristics and tendencies of that person. His belongings make up the background of his life. There is an issue with working in such a way. People prefer to hide their inner world and they dislike having it examined by others. They recognize privacy as a human right, and make it their fundamental law without examining whether it is a primal or a progressive one. There are many who require privacy in their houses, without considering that there are various types and natures of privacy in our lives. 12 I think our contemporary material culture, which is gradually becoming universalized with the slogan of “culture of daily life” (bunka seikatsu), is at a stage which is similar with pre-naturalism in literature. Is there any exact measurement in the discussions of “culture of daily life”? After all, the ideas of “culture of daily life” are based on what is perceived as common sense. Their criteria re decided only through some rough estimation. The degree of comfort, the required spatial volume and number of household objects are based on common sense. It is believed that everyone has the same desires and sensibilities without a consideration for those who have different ones. Of course, such an approach had a certain effect on the improvement of our lifestyle, that was too-conventional. However, in order to conduct the social project of “life improvement” (seikatsu kaizen) we must try to establish a deeper and stronger foundation for it. In this work I am trying to further develop an anthropological method in order to record and examine comparatively our contemporary material culture. By examining the records of material culture, we should be able to see social customs and fashionable tendencies, as well as the differences between individuals in society. Then, individuals should be able to distinguish society’s diverse personae, and the trends of material culture, in order to prepare for their own way of living, unhampered by compulsions to imitate. For such projects in the study of material culture, I have been recording and describing every object in people’s living spaces in detail, trying to discover the differences between each individual. (Translated by Kuroishi Izumi, irst published in Round01: Jewels (2006) Selected Bibliography Fujimori, Terunobu. “Kaisetsu tadashii kōgengaku” (Commentary on True Modernologio). In Kon Wajiro, Fujimori Terunobu. Kōgengaku nyūmon (Introduction to Modernologio). Tokyo: Chikuma Shobō, Chikuma Bunko, 1987 (originally published in 1930), pp. 409-17. Kon, Wajiro. “Shinsai barakku no omoide” (Memory of Barracks After the Earthquake). Minzoku to kenchiku, 1927. Reproduced in Kon Wajiro zenshu, Vol. 4, pp. 299-336. Gill, Tom. “Kon Wajiro, Modernologist.” Japan Quarterly, 43.2 (1996):198-207. Kon, Wajiro, and Yoshida Kenkichi. Modernologio: Kōgengaku (Modernologio), Tokyo: Shunyōdō, 1930. Kawazoe, Noboru. Kon Wajiro: sono kōgengaku (Kon Wajiro: His Modernologio), Tokyo: Riburo Pōto, 1987. Kon, Wajiro. and Yoshida Kenkichi, Kōgengaku saishū: Moderunorojio (Modernologio Collection), Tokyo: Zōshigayamachi (tōkyōfu), Kensetsusha, 1931. Kon, Wajiro. “Soshoku geijutsu no kaimei” (An Analysis of Decorative Art), Kenchiku shincho 5:2 (1924). Kon, Wajiro. “Yake totan no ie” (A House With Burnt Iron Roof), in series “Barakku chōsa” (Barrack research), Chūo Kenchiku (1924): 24. Kon, Wajiro. “Barakku ni tsuiteno ichi-kousatsu” (An Essay on Barracks). Waseda kenchiku gakuho, December 1925. Reproduced in Kon Wajiro zenshu, Vol. 4, pp. 285-98. Kon Wajiro, Kon Wajiro zenshu (Kon Wajiro Collection), Vol. 1-9, Tokyo: Domesu Shuppan, 1971-72. Kuroishi, Izumi. “Kon Wajiro: A Quest for the Architecture as a Container of Everyday Life.” Ph.D. diss, University of Pennsylvania, 1998. 13 Kuroishi, Izumi. Kenchiku-gai no shiso: Kon Wajiro ron (Ideas from the Exterior of Architecture: Kon Wajiro’s Ideas and Work). Tokyo: Domesu-shuppan, 2000. Kuroishi, Izumi. “Wajiro Kon: An Architect Who Envisioned Architecture as a Container of Everyday Life.” In Zenno, Yasushi and Jagan Shah (eds.), Round 1, Jewels. Tokyo: Acetate, 2006. Kuroishi, Izumi. “Visual Examinations of Interior Space in Movements to Modernize Housing in Japan c. 1920–40.” Interiors: Design, Architecture and Culture 2:1 (2011): 95-123. Kuroishi, Izumi. Kon Wajiro saishū kōgi (Collection of Lectures by Kon Wajiro). Tokyo: Seigensha, 2011, pp. 45-52, 55-56. Kuroishi, Izumi. “Kon Wajiro ni totteno Tohoku” (Kon Wajiro in Tohoku). In Kon Wajiro to Kōgengaku (Kon Wajiro and Modernologio), Tokyo: Kawade-shobo, 2013, pp. 153-59. 14 National Museum of Ethnology. “Modernologio Now: Kon Wajiro’s Science of the Present.” Osaka, 2012. (exhibition held in April 26 June 19, 2012 ) http://www.minpaku. ac.jp/english/museum/exhibition/ special/20120426kon/exhibition Nute, Kevin. Place, Time, and Being in Japanese Architecture. London: Routledge, 2004. Sand, Jordan. House and Home in Modern Japan. Cambridge, Massachusetts; London: Harvard University Press, 2003. Silverberg, Miriam. “Constructing the Japanese Ethnography of Modernity.” Journal of Asian Studies 51:1 (1992): 30-54 Weisenfeld, Gennifer. “Designing After Disaster: Barrack Decoration and the Great Kanto Earthquake.” Japanese Studies 18:3 (1998): 22946. Exhibited Works Immediate Post-Earthquake Response: Barrack Survey Section 1: Photographs of Barracks, 1923 1_1 Untitled Kon Wajiro Collection Earthquake refugee settlement on the grounds of the Imperial Palace, Tokyo, September 1, 1923 Photograph 1_2 Untitled Kon Wajiro Collection Ueno Park, September 20, 1923 Five Photographs 1_3 Untitled Kon Wajiro Collection Six Photographs 1_4 Untitled Kon Wajiro Collection Six Photographs Section 2: Sketches of Barracks, 1923 2_1 Untitled Kon Wajiro (Japanese, 1888–1973) Ink on paper 2_6 2_2 Untitled Kon Wajiro (Japanese, 1888–1973) Ink on paper 2_5 Untitled Kon Wajiro (Japanese, 1888–1973) Ink on paper 2_3 Untitled Kon Wajiro (Japanese, 1888–1973) Ink on paper 2_6 Untitled Kon Wajiro (Japanese, 1888–1973) Ink on paper 2_4 Untitled Kon Wajiro (Japanese, 1888–1973) Ink on paper 2_7 Untitled Kon Wajiro (Japanese, 1888–1973) Ink on paper 15 Post-earthquake Urban Changes: Modernologio Section 3: Ginza Fashion Survey, Mode of the Age, Modernologio, 1925 3_4 (top) Women’s Kimono (Plate#30) Kon Wajiro (Japanese, 1888–1973) Ink on paper; 3.6 x 7 in. (9.2 x 18 cm) 3_5 (botoom) Women’s Footwear (Plate#44) Kon Wajiro (Japanese, 1888–1973) Ink on paper; 1.7 x 3.5 in. ( 4.3 x 9 cm) 3_1 3_1 Index of the Report of Ginza Fashion Survey, 1925 Kon Wajiro (Japanese, 1888–1973) Ink on tracing paper; 8.7 x 7 in. (22 x 17.6 cm) 3_2 (top) Men’s Kimono (Plate#20) Kon Wajiro (Japanese, 1888–1973) Ink on paper; 3.1 x 6.4 in. (8 x 16.3 cm) 3_3 (bottom) Shoes (Plate#18) Kon Wajiro (Japanese, 1888–1973) Ink on paper; 5.4 x 7.8 in. (13.7 x 19.8 cm) 16 3_6 (top) Women’s Hairstyles (Plate#52) Kon Wajiro (Japanese, 1888–1973) Ink on paper; 2.4 x 5 in. ( 6.3 x 13 cm) 3_7 (bottom) Women’s Purses (Plate#60) Kon Wajiro (Japanese, 1888–1973) Ink on paper; 4 x 7.5 in. (10.2 x 19.2 cm) 3_8 (top) Men’s Eyeglasses (Plate#25) Kon Wajiro (Japanese, 1888–1973) Ink on paper; 3.4 x 4.2 in. ( 8.8 x 11 cm) 3_9 (bottom) Portables (Plate#28) Kon Wajiro (Japanese, 1888–1973) Ink on paper; 2.5 x 5.6 in. ( 6.4 x 14.5 cm) 3_10 (top) Women’s Shoes (Plate#51) Kon Wajiro (Japanese, 1888–1973) Ink on paper; 3.2 x 5.3 in. ( 8.3 x 13.6 cm) 3_11 (bottom) Portables (Plate#66) Kon Wajiro (Japanese, 1888–1973) Ink on paper; 1.5 x 3.8 in. (4 x 10 cm) 3_8 (top) Section 4: Interior Survey, Modernologio, 1925 Households 4_1 Household of a newly-married couple#1 House layout (left); entrance and home ofice (right), 1925 Kon Wajiro (Japanese, 1888–1973) Ink on paper and tracing paper; 11.5 x 14.7 in. ( 29.3 x 37.5 cm) 4_2 Household of a newly-married couple#2 Living room (left); home decorations (right), 1925 Kon Wajiro (Japanese, 1888–1973) Ink on paper and tracing paper; 11.5 x 14.7 in. ( 29.3 x 37.5 cm) 4_3 Household of a newly-married couple#3 Inside of the closet (left); dining room and bedroom (right), 1925 Kon Wajiro (Japanese, 1888–1973) Ink on paper and tracing paper; 11.5 x 14.7 in. ( 29.3 x 37.5 cm) 4_4 Household of a newly-married couple#4 Cabinet (left); closet (right), 1925 Kon Wajiro (Japanese, 1888–1973) Ink on paper and tracing paper; 11.5 x 14.7 in. ( 29.3 x 37.5 cm) 4_5 Household of a newly-married couple#5 Kitchen, 1925 Kon Wajiro (Japanese, 1888–1973) Ink on paper and tracing paper; 11.5 x 14.7 in. ( 29.3 x 37.5 cm) Objects 4_6 Illustrations of what a woman in Fukagawa needs (with costs and department stores’ window signs), 1925 Kon Wajiro (Japanese, 1888–1973) Ink on tracing paper; 9.5 x 7.1 in. ( 24.2 x 18.2 cm) 17 4_7 Illustrations of what a man in Fukagawa wants (with costs), 1925 Kon Wajiro (Japanese, 1888–1973) Ink on tracing paper; 9.4 x 7.1 in. ( 24 x 18.1 cm) 4_8 Patterns of diapers, 1925 Kon Wajiro (Japanese, 1888–1973) and Kenkichi Yoshida (Japanese, 1897–1982) Ink on paper and tracing paper; 14.8 x 11.5 in. ( 37.6 x 29.3 cm) 4_9 Cracks of bowls at a cafeteria, 1927 Kon Wajiro (Japanese, 1888–1973) and Ozawa Shôzô (Japanese, ? - ? ) Graphite and ink on paper and tracing paper; 11.5 x 14.6 in. ( 29.3 x 37.1 cm) 4_7 Section 5: Public Realm Survey, Modernologio,1925 Body Postures, Dress and Movement 5_1 Social class composition of pedestrians in Futagawa, 1925 Kon Wajiro (Japanese, 1888–1973) Ink on tracing paper; 9.5 x 7.1 in. ( 24.3 x 18.2 cm) 5_2 Trail of a “modern girl” in Marunouchi building, 1927 Koike Tomihisa (Japanese, ? - ? ) Graphite, ink, and watercolor on paper and tracing paper; 15 x 11.5 in. ( 38.1 x 29.2 cm) 5_3 18 5_3 Uniform of waitresses at the cafe in Ginza from the Report of Ginza Fashion Survey, 1926 Kon Wajiro (Japanese, 1888–1973) and Kenkichi Yoshida (Japanese, 1897-1982) Print; 12.6 x 9.4 in. ( 32.2 x 24 cm) 5_4 Worn-out parts of junior high school boys’ clothing, 1927 Kon Wajiro (Japanese, 1888–1973) and Naozô Nagata (Japanese, ? –? ) In on paper; 14.8 x 11.5 in. ( 37.6 x 29.3 cm) 5_5 Variations of resting laborers, 19251926 Arai Mitsuo (Japanese, ?-?) Graphite and ink on tracing paper; 10.9 x 7.6 in. ( 27.7 x 19.5 cm) Traces, Objects and Animals 5_6 Study of dogs, Tokyo suburb Arai Mitsuo (Japanese, ?-?) 5_7 Traces of ants, measurement per 50 centimeters, 1925 Kon Wajiro (Japanese, 1888–1973) Ink on paper and tracing paper; 14.6 x 11.6 in. ( 37.2 x 29.5 cm) 5_8 Street merchants’ equipment, 1927 Arai Mitsuo (Japanese, ?-?) Ink on paper; 8.6 x 6.6 in. ( 22 x 16.8 cm) 5_9 Suicide Spots in Inokashira Park, 1925-1927 Kon Wajiro (Japanese, 1888–1973) Ink on tracing paper; 14.8 x 11.4 in. ( 37.7 x 29 cm) 5_6 Kon Wajiro’s Design Work in Film Section 6: Storage House, 1935-41; Film, 2011 6_1 Storage Houses and Memory of Kashiwagi Yama Area (Onshi-goso to Kashiwagi yama no kioku), 2011 Kon Kazuhiko with Kuroishi Izumi Video 19 Pedagogy Inspired by Kon Wajiro Section 7: Student Work 7_1 Memory maps, Kesennuma before and after 3.11 Students: Abe Koyuki, Nakajima Yukika, Hayashizaki Ai, Kobayashi Yusei Student work conducted by Kuroishi Izumi’s Laboratory at Aoyama Gakuin University, based on their volunteering activities and workshop participation in Kesennuma in 2012 and 2013. Project presented at “Gen-Fukei” (Original Landscape) Exhibition in ACL hall in Tokyo in Nov. 2013. Supported by the Research Institute of Aoyama Gakuin University, Obayashi Construction Research Fund. 7_2 Resilience in People’s Lifestyle: Finding Locus in the Culture of Food and Home Students: Matsudo Keidai, Yokose Megumi, Mitome Natsumi, Someya Asami Cover Images 4_1, 4_3, 4_4, 4_5 20 Student work conducted by Kuroishi Izumi’s Laboratory at Aoyama Gakuin University, based on their volunteering activities and workshop participation in Kesennuma in 2011, 2012 and 2013. Project presented at RiasArc Museum Kesennuma in 2013. Supported by the Tohoku Fund of the Ministry of Agriculture, Research Institute of Aoyama Gakuin University, GBFund by Association for Corporate Support of the Arts. 7_3 CommuniTea Students: Stephanie Farah, Hayashi Natsuki, Anze Zadel Student work conducted in “Japanese Design and Urban Culture from the Edo to post 3.11 Japan” class taught by Jilly Traganou, Parsons The New School for Design, Spring 2013. Project presented in the Red Hook Festival, June 2013. Supported by Urban Festival, The New School.