WINDOW RESEARCH INSTITUTE

Of Homes and Windows in the 20th Century: In Conversation with Ken Tadashi Oshima, the Curator of Living Modernity: Experiments in Housing, 1920s–1970s

…es in how windows are used in Japan compared with other countries? The concept of the modern house can be observed in the classical paradigm…

Single casement window

A window with a sash hinged to one side of the frame opening outward or inward by pivoting around the hinges. See also casement window.

Barred window

…y and privacy. In traditional Japanese architecture these grilles were often made of bamboo and designed in various lattice patterns. In the…

Swiss Window Journeys: A Conversation between Andrea Deplazes, Laurent Stalder, and Momoyo Kaijima

…me kind of connection between Japanese and Swiss culture here? MK: In Switzerland a window is the result of the process of carving out or p…

A Conversation with Leth & Gori

…or this house was traditional Japanese architecture. Faced with the challenge of ensuring that the house would last for an extraordinarily l…

Issue 14: A Window for Standing Still—Fieldoffice Architects, Paomagudao Park

… springs were dug there under Japanese rule and it now bustles with tourists every weekend as a spa town an hour away from Taipei by car. It…

01│Antoni Gaudí: A “Sensible Architect”

…frequently spotlighted in the Japanese media. Images of his church are even featured in ads for package tours to Spain. I should note that p…

Architecture in Motion

… Oguni Dome The Oguni Dome is Japan’s first large-scale wooden building exceeding 3000 square meters. It was an unprecedented project that v…

Shoei Yoh’s “Light Architecture”

…chnological innovation behind Japan’s first “building conceived as a mass of glass” while I mused on how Yoh’s concept of non-architecture t…

Shoei Yoh: Architecture of Light, the Real, and Monism

…avenly realms on earth; or in Japanese rustic teahouses where shitajimado [exposed lath windows] convey the ever-changing expressions of nat…

Issue 13: Democracy Under Canopies (Fieldoffice Architects)

…nstruction from the period of Japanese control intending to place a bu…

Terunobu Fujimori│008: The Ribbon Window of the Karuizawa Summer House—The Modernists’ Dream, Realized in Japan

…ric buildings from all across Japan one at a time. The subject of the eight installment is the Karuizawa Summer House which architect Antoni…

“Shoei Yoh: A Journey of Light” Symposium to be held at the AIJ Hall on September 7, 2024

… seven-part article series by Japanese and Canadian researchers aimed at advancing international discourse on Yoh’s work. The articles…

“Shoei Yoh: A Journey of Light” Symposium Report

…l (Architectural Institute of Japan Tokyo). Centered around the theme of “light” this event was organized as part of an ongoing initiative l…

Talk Event Report: Swiss Window Journeys Speakers: Momoyo Kaijima, Chie Konno, Fumiko Takahama, Mio Tsuneyama

…he Architectural Institute of Japan. The event was held to celebrate the publication of Swiss Window Journeys Architectural Field Notes a su…

From Interiors to Non-Architecture

…d of at the time. In fact the Japanese field of interior design itself was still in its formative years in the 1960s when Yoh began his desi…

The Ingot Coffee Shop: Building as a Mass of Glass

…exactly the same time here in Japan: the Ingot Coffee Shop (1977) by Shoei Yoh. Born around the same time the architects Foster and Yoh both…

The Diversity of Windows in Kiyonori Kikutake’s Serizawa Literary Center (Serizawa Kojiro Memorial Museum)

…970 right in the midst of the Japan World Exposition in Osaka which began in March. By then Kikutake had already emerged as the darling of t…

A Culmination of Sutemi Horiguchi’s Aperture Designs: The Tokoname City Municipal Ceramics Research Institute (Tokoname Tounomori Research Institute)

…tion. Tokoname ware is one of Japan’s six historic ceramic traditions …

The Windows of Tomoya Masuda’s Naruto Cultural Center: A Faintly Bright Louvered Space

…r: to realize a distinctively Japanese architecture using reinforced concrete. While Japanese architectural discourse shifted from tradition…

The Windows of the Diffendorfer Memorial Hall and University Chapel at the International Christian University (ICU): Preserving, Passing On, And…

…tural Design Office. DOCOMOMO Japan listed the D Hall in 2017 and the Chapel in 2020. A year later in 2021 the national government designate…

A Conversation with Silke Langenberg

… after her initial studies at Japanʼs Womenʼs University and completed her post-graduate program at the Tokyo Institute of Technology in 200…

The Windows of the Cachat Buvette in Evian｜Jean Prouvé’s Windows #4

…ground floor. Comparable to a Japanese balneotherapy spa (tōjiba) the building was built as a facility to promote the health benefits of Evi…

Issue 12: A Small Church for the Indigenous (Taitung)

…r high proportion compared to Japan’s stated rate of around 1%. Though neighboring countries their religious situations are quite diff…

The Window: A Journey of Art and Architecture Through Windows

This book is the official catalog of the exhibition titled The Window: A Journey of Art and Architecture Through Windows jointly held by Win…

“Window Behaviorology” is exhibited at VILLUM Window Collection, Denmark

…n’s new exhibition curated by Japanese architect Yoshiharu Tsukamoto (Atelier Bow-Wow) who has devoted many years to the study of windows an…

“Light is Light and Light”

…ere both designed for the 1st Japan Expo Toyama ’92 and the project files for each contain some material related to the other—which in the d…

A window with a memory

… in various places throughout Japan as well as through windows in people’s homes in Korea and the UK. Other Days Other Eyes: Windows from th…

Windows: Overlapping and passing through

…inking about in other words a Japanese window of black glass with a night scene exposure printed onto it and a French window covered in blac…

Shoei Yoh: A Journey of Light—Introduction

…ies written by researchers in Japan and Canada delves into Yoh’s archival materials to contemplate the light that the architect aimed to cap…

Windows of the Villejuif Temporary School｜Jean Prouvé’s Windows #3

…ō [Architectural Institute of Japan (Tokai Chapter): Summaries of Technical Lectures F-2: Architectural History/Design] (Architectural Insti…

The Windows of Hiroshi Hara’s Awazu House: Spaces of Light Illuminating the Darkness

…1929-2009) a leading post-war Japanese graphic designer. Self-taught in painting and design he received the Japan Advertising Artists Club A…

Issue 11: Joined Somewhere, Connected Throughout—Chen Chi-Kwan, Tunghai University Methodist Hall

…am of Takamasa Yoshizaka from Japan and Ching-Fong Lin from Taiwan won the 1952 competition to plan the school’s campus. While it̵…

A Home that Draws in Breezes from All Directions: The Fumiko Hayashi House

…teriors is ingrained in us in Japan. The writer Fumiko Hayashi also believed this when building her home asserting “it is crucial to draw in…

Terunobu Fujimori│007: The Shōji of the Rinshunkaku

…ric buildings from all across Japan one at a time. For the seventh installment he focuses on the shōji of the Rinshunkaku. Originally built …

Naruto Cultural Center

Virtual Tour

Completed after the architect’s passing this building is one of a cluster of works by Tomoya Masuda in the city of Naruto. Outwardly it exhi…

Chochikukyo

Virtual Tour

Located in the foothills of Mount Tennozan overlooking the headwaters of the Yodogawa River in Yamazaki Kyoto this residence is characterize…

Tokoname City Municipal Ceramics Research Institute (Tokoname Tounomori Research Institute)

Virtual Tour

…ory window that begins in the Japanese-style room and continues into the adjoining meeting room spanning the full bay between the reinforced…

Serizawa Literary Center (Serizawa Kojiro Memorial Museum)

Virtual Tour

Nestled within a coastal pine grove this building characterized by its four tower-like cores was built at the height of the Metabolist movem…

Summer House in Karuizawa

Virtual Tour

Relocated to Karuizawa Taliesin in 1986 this distinctive butterfly-roofed building was originally designed as a summer house and studio base…

ICU Diffendorfer Memorial Hall / ICU Chapel

Virtual Tour

The ICU Diffendorfer Memorial Hall has continuous windows with frames made of cast aluminum. The completion drawings reveal their intricate …

Aichi University of the Arts Lecture Building

Virtual Tour

This building extends 110 meters in the north-south direction establishing a strong axis at the heart of the campus. In the east-west direct…

Fumiko Hayashi Residence

Virtual Tour

…uare meters) this traditional Japanese-style home is filled with design elements that reflect the taste and preferences of its owner writer …

Migishi Atelier

Virtual Tour

This early work of Japanese wooden modernist architecture was built for the painter couple Kotaro and Setsuko Migishi. Despite undergoing mu…

The Prince Karuizawa

Virtual Tour

This pondside hotel consists of a 126-meter-long arced accommodation wing and a public wing. Each guest room features a large wall-to-wall p…

The Windows of the Komai House by W. M. Vories & Co.

…or with its gable roof of red Japanese clay tiles it is a medium-sized yōfū house with a footprint of 30-tsubo [94 square meters] two storie…

A Conversation with François Charbonnet (Made in)

… after her initial studies at Japanʼs Womenʼs University and completed her post-graduate program at the Tokyo Institute of Technology in 200…

Windows of the Aichi University of the Artsby Junzo Yoshimura and Akio Okumura:The Concrete Science of Living with Nature

…ve been shaped by. However in Japan I think there was a perception that the form is more important for architecture while the systems are so…