was an architect and a historian of Japanese architecture, and an expert of '' sukiya-zukuri'' architecture. In addition to designing modern buildings, he designed buildings in ''sukiya-zukuri,'' and buildings that fused both modern architectural and traditional Japanese architectural motifs.

Biography

Early life

Horiguchi was born in

Gifu Prefecture is a Prefectures of Japan, prefecture of Japan located in the Chūbu region of Honshu. Gifu Prefecture has a population of 1,910,511 () and has a geographic area of . Gifu Prefecture borders Toyama Prefecture to the north; Ishikawa Prefecture ...

in 1895. During his teenage years, he explored Western-style painting (''yoga'') of the

Meiji period The was an era of Japanese history that extended from October 23, 1868, to July 30, 1912. The Meiji era was the first half of the Empire of Japan, when the Japanese people moved from being an isolated feudal society at risk of colonizatio ...

, working in a styles similar to Cézanne or

Fauvism Fauvism ( ) is a style of painting and an art movement that emerged in France at the beginning of the 20th century. It was the style of (, ''the wild beasts''), a group of modern artists whose works emphasized painterly qualities and strong col ...

. He was also an accomplished '' waka'' poet, and had several of his ''waka'' published in the prominent art journal ''ARS.'' He graduated from high school in 1917 and moved to Tokyo, where he enrolled in the architecture department of the Tokyo Imperial University (today

University of Tokyo The University of Tokyo (, abbreviated as in Japanese and UTokyo in English) is a public research university in Bunkyō, Tokyo, Japan. Founded in 1877 as the nation's first modern university by the merger of several pre-westernisation era ins ...

). After graduating in 1920, he pursued graduate work in the same department.

Early career

Bunriha

In February 1920, Horiguchi and fellow Tokyo Imperial University architecture students Yamada Mamoru, Ishimoto Kikuji, Morita Keiichi, Yada Shigeru, and Takizawa Mayumi founded the first modern architectural group in Japan: the Bunriha Kenchikukai (Japanese Secessionist Architectural Association). The group remained active from 1920-1928. In their emotional manifesto, they proclaimed their desire to break free from the artless, historicist Western architecture being practiced in early 20th century Japan. To do so, they imagined a new architecture that functioned as a dialectic between the past and the future, and Western and Eastern architecture. Group member's graduation thesis designs expressed some of these beliefs. Bunriha 分離派 is a translation of "secessionist school" or "secessionist movement." The selection of this name signaled the desire to connect themselves to the

Vienna Secession The Vienna Secession (; also known as the Union of Austrian Artists or ) is an art movement, closely related to Art Nouveau, that was formed in 1897 by a group of Austrian painters, graphic artists, sculptors and architects, including Josef Ho ...

, something they had heard about through the lectures of their professor Ito Chuta. The group elected not to use the English name, however, in order to maintain and assert its independent identity as a Japanese architecture movement. Many of the group's early designs remained unbuilt, but the creative ideals of the group are visible in several independently completed structures: Horiguchi's Peace Exhibition pavilions and tower (1922), arched concrete bridges by Yamada and Yamaguchi Bunzo (including Yamaguchi's Hijiri Bridge in Ochanomizu, constructed in 1930), Ishimoto's Asahi Newspaper building (1929) and his Shirokiya Department Store (1931).

Trip to Europe (1923)

Horiguchi traveled to Europe in 1923 for 6 months, where he was able to study monuments of architecture in person that he had previously learned about in school. He traveled to Marseilles, Lyon, Paris, Brussels, Vienna, Berlin, Darmstadt, Magedeburg, Weimar, Amsterdam, London, and Athens. His main focus was to see the work of the Vienna Secessionists. His experience viewing Josef Hoffman's Palais Stoclet (1905) and its coordination of architecture and artistic media to create a "total work of art" (''

Gesamtkunstwerk A ''Gesamtkunstwerk'' (, 'total work of art', 'ideal work of art', 'universal artwork', 'synthesis of the arts', 'comprehensive artwork', or 'all-embracing art form') is a work of art that makes use of all or many art forms or strives to do so. ...

'') instigated a new interest for Horiguchi: the coordinated environment of the Japanese teahouse. Rather than a remnant of the past, he began to view the teahouse as a ''Gesamtkunstwerk.''

Later career

He worked together with the

MOA Museum of Art The is a private museum in the city of Atami, Japan. The museum is the third museum established to house the art collection of Mokichi Okada, the founder of the , and was founded in 1982. The first museum, the Hakone Museum of Art ( ja), was ...

in Shizuoka to rebuild the 16th century Golden Tea Room. He was also a member of the faculty of Kanagawa University and

Meiji University is a Private university, private research university in Chiyoda, Tokyo, Chiyoda, Tokyo, Japan. Originally founded as Meiji Law School () by three lawyers in 1881, it became a university in April 1920. As of May 2023, Meiji has 32,261 undergradu ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Horiguchi, Sutemi 1895 births 1984 deaths People from Gifu Prefecture University of Tokyo alumni Academic staff of Kanagawa University Academic staff of Meiji University Japanese architects