Photos by Andrew Barrie

Tokyo National Museum (Honkan)

In the second of a series of architecture tours, Andrew Barrie examines the museums of Ueno Park, standing monuments to Japan's architectural heritage

The museums of Ueno Park constitute a "living history" of post-Meiji Restoration Japanese architecture; the park's buildings include representatives of almost every important period in its 120-year development.

On the site now occupied by the National Museum (1) once stood the Imperial Household Museum (1882), designed by the English architect Josiah Conder. Conder came to Japan at the invitation of the Meiji Government to design and supervise the construction of important buildings and to set up a Western-style system of architectural education.

The Museum of Horyuji Treasures

Conder taught the first generation of Japanese architects, one of whom was Tokuma Katayama, designer of the adjacent Hyokeikan (2). The intention of these young architects was to use the materials and techniques of the West to create an architecture with "Japanese spirit and Western knowledge." Despite this desire, many of their buildings directly imitated the neo-classical styles that were current in Europe at the time - in the case of the Hyokeikan, French neo-baroque.

By the 1930s, Japan's increasingly militarized and radically nationalist government demanded that major buildings be designed in a "Japanese taste." In 1931 a competition was held for the design of an Imperial Museum to replace Conder's building, which had been destroyed in the 1923 Great Kanto Earthquake. The jury choose a design by Hitoshi Watanabe, and a museum that is a key example of what became known as the "Imperial Crown" style, in which massive tiled roofs and other "oriental" elements are plonked onto spare, chunky, and usually symmetrical facades.

In post-war Japan, the obstacles to the rapid spread of Western-style Modernism were pushed aside. However, architects retained a strong desire to synthesize modern technology and design with traditional Japanese forms, without reverting to the overtly decorative approach of the nationalists. A particularly influential figure in this effort was the French architectural genius Le Corbusier. Several leading Japanese architects had worked in Corbusier's Paris office before the war. In the 1950s, he was invited to Japan to design the National Museum of Western Art (3), the design being executed by Maekawa, Sakakura and Yoshizaka - all former Corbusier employees. Maekawa extended the NMWA to the rear in 1979, and a gallery for special exhibitions was recently added beneath the forecourt.

Across from the NMWA stands the Tokyo Metropolitan Festival Hall (4), one of Kunio Maekawa's most outstanding designs. The reinforced concrete structure, the rough unfinished surfaces and the bold geometric forms all indicate the influence of Le Corbusier. However, the proportions of the building and the spatial quality of the foyers evoke traditional Japanese forms. This subtle blending was the hallmark of Japan's best buildings of the era, bringing them international attention and marking the maturation of a modern Japanese architecture.

The National Museum of Western Art

The Gallery of Oriental Treasures (5) by Yoshiro Taniguchi is another, later example of the blending of international Modernism with traditional Japanese forms. This building uses a massive reinforced concrete post-and-beam structure, an approach employed in many public buildings in the 1950s and '60s. While evocative of the wooden structural systems of traditional building, the structural elements of the building also become a form of ornament.

The new Museum of Horyuji Treasures (8) was designed by Yoshio Taniguchi - the son of the architect of the Gallery of Oriental Treasures - and eloquently demonstrates the shift that has taken place in a generation. Japan's architects no longer feel obliged to pay homage to their country's formal traditions (although many still do), tending to see global architectural culture and trends as a far more important influence on their work than any local stylistic or historical debates. Taniguchi's extremely refined and elegant building is the product of a global stream of development that has its roots in the work of Le Corbusier and the pure, cubic forms of "International Style" Modernism. The building's most uniquely Japanese quality is the astonishing accuracy and attention to detail that has been achieved in its construction. Note, for example, how the joints in the lobby wall panels align perfectly with joints in the flooring.

Virtually the only period of Japanese architecture not represented at the park is the Metabolist architecture of the 1960s and 1970s. From many places in the park, however, you can look west across the pond and spot the Christmas tree-like outline of the Hotel Sofitel, designed by Kiyonori Kikutake. Although built late in Kikutake's career, this building closely follows some of his early, Metabolist-era schemes.