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Chuorinkan and Kignae Houses in Tokoyo, Japan Essay

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Both the Chuorinkan house and the Koganei house are in the To kyo suburbs and were designed at about the same time. Though they differ structurally and visually, they represent one approach to the problems they involve. The starting points of both are deliberate quotations and reorganizations of architectural compositional elements that can be called representative of the early modern period. I have used the same kind of design approach in other works. For example quotations from motifs used by Le Corbusier and Charles Rennie Mackintosh are found in the interior of PMT Building No. 1 (JA, September, 1978). Project W and PMT Building No. 2 entail reorganizations of elements from Le Corbusier's La Roche-Jeanneret House in Paris. And the …show more content…

The coverings of the two houses are different, but both follow the basic modern architectural principles of free interior planning determined on the basis of function and facades independent of the interior. The discrepancy between planning and facade inevitably arises from the two demands imposed on houses today. First, from the outside they must symbolize the idea of «house.» Second, on the inside, they must be places for daily living. These two houses result from a process of evolving single spaces without annulling the basic contradiction inherent in the two demands.
The presence and absence of ornamentation markedly contrast the two houses. Stereotyped, uniplanar ornaments distinguish the Chuori n kan house. The double crisscross grilles in doors and windows are based on the supports of the punched aluminum rain sutters. Stripes in the exterior walls suggest columns. Inside circular and curved lines are repeated in the round window in the master bedroom and in the bench back and the round table in the I iving room. These designs are not quotations from any specific architecture but completely ordinary applications of stereotyped motifs.
Practically the only ornamental touch in the Koganei house is the horizontal strip windows. They are considered ornament in this case because they have transcended the personal style of Le Corbusier, who emp loyed them in his early period, and have become universally recognized symbols of the socalled international style. Elements

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