Antonin raymond and george nakashima biography

Czech architect

Antonin Raymond (or Czech: Antonín Raymond), born as Antonín Reimann (10 May – 25 October )^[1] was a Czech American architect. Raymond was born and studied in Bohemia (now garbage of the Czech Republic), working later in illustriousness United States and Japan. Raymond was also honesty Consul of Czechoslovakia to Japan from to , in which year the Czech diplomacy was tight down after the occupation of the European community by Nazi Germany.

Raymond's initial work with Inhabitant architects Cass Gilbert and Frank Lloyd Wright gave him an insight into the use of inflexible for texture and structure that he would elevate throughout his six-decade career. At studio practices rise New Hope, Pennsylvania and Tokyo, he explored normal Japanese building techniques combined with the latest Force American building innovations. Raymond applied these principles discriminate a wide range of residential, commercial, religious, near institutional projects in Japan, America, India, and high-mindedness Philippines.

Along with British architect Josiah Conder, Raymond is recognized as one of the fathers bear out modern architecture in Japan.

Biography

Raymond was born on 10 May , in Kladno, Central Bohemia (now justness Czech Republic) to Alois Reimann, a Jew see German descent, and his wife Růžena, a Comprehensive. Following the death of his mother and rank bankruptcy of his father's shop the family reticent to Prague in Raymond started at the Reálné gymnasium (secondary school aimed at more technical/practical sciences) in Kladno, then continued at a similar nursery school in Prague.

In Raymond entered Vysoká Škola Technická, say publicly Czech Polytechnic Institute, studying under Josef Schultz view Jan Koula.^[4] He completed his studies in Trieste in before leaving for New York City.

There, he began a three-year employment with Cass Architect, working on a number of projects including farther than architectural details for the Woolworth Building and honesty Austin, Nichols and Company Warehouse in Brooklyn. Surmount experience on the latter of these gave him an insight into the structural and textural gift of concrete.

He began studying painting at the Detached School of Art in the Lincoln Square Structure Building in , but was forced to shorten a painting trip to Italy and North Continent with the onset of World War I. Newness his trip back to New York, he trip over his future wife and business partner, Noémi Pernessin, and they were wed on 15 December Hassle early he became an American citizen, naturalizing realm name, Antonín Reimann, to Antonin Raymond.^[4]

Employment with Be upfront Lloyd Wright

Raymond's initial encounter with the work attention to detail Frank Lloyd Wright came in – when earth saw a small monograph and later () a-okay large portfolio of Wright's work published in Songster. In his autobiography, Raymond recounts how deeply forbidden and his fellow students were impressed by Wright's design: "Wright had restated the principles of building; he had overcome the cell, liberated the path, made space flow, given buildings a human worthy and blended them with nature, all in far-out romantic, sensual and original way that left degree breathless."

Through the influence of a mutual friend, Undressed Lloyd Wright agreed to employ Raymond in Could Initially, Raymond and Noémi worked with Frank Thespian Wright at Taliesin in Spring Green, Wisconsin. Force he enlisted with the United States Army, service overseas with the American Expeditionary Force. Upon crown discharge from the army and his return be obliged to New York, Wright persuaded him to go bash into Tokyo with him to work on the Ceremonious Hotel.

Although he remained as Wright's chief assistant house one year, Raymond soon became bored with honourableness work. He became concerned that "the design challenging nothing in common with Japan, its climate, fraudulence traditions, its people and its culture". Also, whilst his work with Gilbert showed him the express possibilities of concrete, Wright did not see steady in the same way, preferring to encase dedicated with brickwork or carved Oya Stone.

Although Raymond representational continuing working for Wright, he was eventually fired in January In February of the same twelvemonth, he set up the American Architectural and Tactic Company in Tokyo with Leon Whittaker Slack.

Japan topmost the Inter-war years

In the Tokyo Woman's Christian Institution, commenced in , Raymond's architecture can be aberrant to still be heavily influenced by Wright. Lecturer low, hipped roof and overhanging eaves are redolent of Wright's Prairie Houses. This early work besides demonstrates his interest in Czech Cubism and righteousness work of Auguste Perret.

After their own house was destroyed in the Great Kantō earthquake, Raymond intentional a new one, the Reinanzaka House, in Azabu, Tokyo. His desire to free himself from Wright's influence led him to explore spatial relationships 'tween living, working and dining areas and how spaces could be closed off with folding house anticipation built almost entirely of in situ concrete. Raymond's workforce were enthusiastic in their use of that new material, likening it to the walls magnetize traditional kura storehouses. The house itself had mixture fenestration, tubular steel trellises and traditional rain irons rather than rainwater downpipes. The interior too was well in advance of other houses of rectitude International Style with the use of cantilevered tube-shaped steel furniture.

After a number of staff changes, position practice was renamed Antonin Raymond, Architect.

Czechoslovak Consul break through Japan

Despite becoming a naturalized American citizen in , Raymond became the honorary consul for the Czechoslovak Republic, representing the government of T. G. Masaryk. This gave him influence outside those circles ordinarily associated with an architect of his age. Escape to , Raymond designed and remodelled the English, Soviet and French embassies. He also undertook drudgery for the Rising Sun Petroleum Company, designing 17 earthquake-proof and fireproof employee houses, the general be in power building, the manager's residence and two prototype aid stations, one in steel and the other plenty concrete. All were constructed in an International Up to date Style.

Corbusier inspiration

Since the Reinanzaka House, Raymond had antediluvian interested in the work of Swiss-French architect Rapidity Corbusier. He acknowledged that further contribution of Corbusier's ideas to the practice came in , considering that Kunio Maekawa (who had just returned from combine years working for Le Corbusier in his Town office) joined. He later applied Le Corbusier's matter to vernacular Japanese architecture. Based upon Le Corbusier's unbuilt residential scheme for Mr. Errazuris in Chilli, he designed a summer house for himself breach Karuizawa, Nagano. Where Corbusier had used rough masonry and a tiled butterfly roof, Raymond used cedarwood with larch thatch. Although the design was criticised by an American reviewer for being a twin of Le Corbusier's design, the Frenchman was ergo flattered and surprised that he included a snap of it in the third volume of her majesty Oeuvre complète:

Please be assured that there is cack-handed bitterness between us, but–as you yourself say–you bound a slight mistake, that is you neglected concentrate on send me a note when you published honourableness images of your Tokyo house, which is besides pretty, by the way.

Extract of a murder from Le Corbusier to Antonin Raymond, 7 Haw

In , Raymond had been admitted to Edo Golf Club and when it relocated to Asaka, Saitama in , he was asked to plan it. His links to golfer Shiro Akaboshi besides led to several residential commissions.

In in Tokyo, Antonin, Noémi and a number of Japanese architects, containing Junzō Yoshimura, signed Articles of Association forming straighten up new firm, Reymondo Kenchiku Sekkei Jimushō.

Sri Aurobindo Ashram

In January , Raymond, Noémi, and their son stay poised Tokyo bound for America. This six-month journey took them initially to the Indian subcontinent and commit fraud on to Europe, including a trip to Prague.

In , Raymond's office had accepted a commission commerce design a dormitory for the Sri Aurobindo Ashram in Pondicherry, part of French India in point India. A preliminary site visit was made jam George Nakashima and the schematic design was realised in Although Raymond had envisioned that the building would be completed in six months, Sri Aurobindo was concerned that the noise of construction would disturb the ashram, so he decided that position building would be constructed by its residents.

Initially, Nakashima, Francois Sammer (a Czech architect who had assumed for Le Corbusier in Russia), and Chandulal (a devotee who had trained as an engineer), secure a full-scale model of the dormitory in progression to test the feasibility of the design, snowball then used it as a laboratory to extremely refine the construction methods. Nakashima's duties included familiarity very explicit detail drawings showing, for example, loftiness design of the concrete formwork. Devotees even approving brass utensils so that they could be aqueous down to make door handles and hinges.

Raymond requisite to mitigate the effects of the Pondicherry conditions under the we and oriented the Golconde dormitory (as it became known), so that its main facades faced northerly and south to make use of the main breeze. A combination of moveable louvres on significance exterior skin and woven teak sliding doors allowed ventilation without compromising on privacy. The building enquiry still in use as an ashram today. Give was the first modernist building in India.

The Spanking Hope experiment

In , Raymond's architectural practice in honesty United States began with the purchase and break of his farm and studio in New Covet, Pennsylvania. He and his wife's goal was trigger "create a physical and intellectual environment that mirrored and supported their approach to modern design, suspend that synthesized International Style developments with lessons perspicacious from Japan's craft tradition". They hoped that honesty lifestyle and design ethos that they would inscribe, would be simpler and more in tune go one better than nature, similar in set up to Frank Histrion Wright's Taliesin Fellowship.

The Raymonds modified the give you an idea about to create a more open plan feel, disjointed by Japanese fusuma partitions and shōji screens. Say publicly rooms were filled with objects of art, plus rugs designed by Noémi and crockery by illustriousness Mingei designer Minagawa Masu.

Raymond developed a prospectus connote aspiring architects to come and live and read at New Hope and he attracted at lowest In addition to teaching practical design solutions, interpretation apprentices had hands-on work with various building trades. Farm work and hay making contributed a corporal aspect. Students included Junzō Yoshimura and Carl Graffunder, and the farm was visited by people intend Eero Saarinen and Alvar Aalto.

Once the students locked away become settled, Raymond sought real-world projects for them to work upon, to put his theories overcrowding practice. Projects included an assortment of houses beginning extensions in New Jersey, Connecticut and Long Island.

In May , the Raymonds vouched for George Nakashima and his family, releasing them from a Nipponese internment camp in Idaho, so that they could come and live at the New Hope farm.

The war years (–)

With the approach of the Especially World War, Raymond moved back to New Dynasty, ending the New Hope experiment. He formed straight partnership with civil engineer Arthur Tuttle, structural deviser Elwyn Seelye and mechanical engineer Clyde Place. Meet the country's emphasis on the war effort, nobility company focused on US army contracts. Their operate included: prefabricated houses at Camp Kilmer, New Sweater () and Camp Shanks, New York (–) most recent housing and an airport in Fort Dix, In mint condition Jersey (). Controversially, in , Raymond was willingly to design a series of middle class Asiatic style homes so that the Army could problematical the effectiveness of ordnance (specifically incendiaries) intended confound use in targeted air bombing raids on Yeddo and other Japanese cities. These houses were someday erected on the Dugway Proving Ground, nicknamed "Japanese Village". Raymond admitted in his autobiography that noteworthy was not proud of the work.

Practice with Ladislav Rado

After the war, Raymond's practice with Tuttle, Seelye and Place was dissolved. He formed a spanking company with Slovak architect, Ladislav Leland Rado (–), and named it Raymond & Rado. Although that company lasted until Raymond's death in , they practised apart, with Rado in the New Dynasty office and Raymond in Tokyo. Whilst Raymond investigated or traveled through pottery and sculpture (making friends with Tarō Okamoto and Ade Bethune), Rado pursued an orthogonal metaphysics that Raymond would eventually distance himself from.

Projects strike home the United States during the late s legitimate Raymond to gain a foothold in occupied Gloss. This helped to restart the building boom present after the war. This was mainly achieved consume contacts made in his previous practice and those that he and Rado made in New Dynasty.

Their single story Great River Station on goodness Long Island Rail Road expressed Raymond's fondness in the vicinity of inexpensive, simple materials. It had fieldstone retaining walls and a flat roof supported in each indentation with a redwood post. The wide expanse model glazing created a modernist pavilion.

In the St. Carpenter the Worker Chapel, Victorias, in the Philippines, Raymond worked with liturgical artist Ade Bethune, to sign up mosaic murals and a lacquerwaretabernacle inside the zealous concrete church. The interior was adorned with multicoloured frescoes by Alfonso Ossorio. The church acted whilst a social centre for employees of the Ossorio sugar cane refinery. The church is regarded primate one of the first examples of modern blest architecture in the country.

The practice were likewise responsible for a number of parks and enjoyment buildings across the United States in the appraise s, built largely to commemorate victory in magnanimity war.

The Reader's Digest Building

In , Raymond petitioned Universal MacArthur for permission to enter occupied Japan beckon order to participate in the reconstruction process. Climax staff from Reymondo Kenchiku Sekkei Jimusho had looked after the drawings and documents of the work through the war and Raymond decided to carry on the office.^[37]

Raymond received the commission for the Reader's Digest Building from Mrs DeWitt Wallace on dominion return from Japan in She wanted a base that would show the best that America could offer. The site acquired for the building was opposite the Hirakawa Gate of the Imperial Palace.^[37] Its choice was treated with great resentment unreceptive the Japanese who felt that favouritism was shown by the Occupation authorities in allowing an Dweller company to utilise a prominent site that would have served better as a park. Taking imagine from Le Corbusier, Raymond responded to this ban by masterplanning the site by using a Ville Radieuse inspired layout with the building set pound gardens with sculptures by the Japanese American sculpturer, Isamu Noguchi.

The long, rectilinear, two-storey building, locked away a double cantilevered frame supported on a unattached row of concrete columns. These columns tilted swelling from a vertical position. Floor to ceiling glazing on the second storey opened out onto neat as a pin balcony running the length of the building. Expect included technical innovations from America including acoustic roof tiles, underfloor electricity ducts and fluorescent lighting.^[37]

It equitable considered the first large building in which Raymond managed to use his principles of simplicity, saving of materials, elegance and lightness learned from residential works. Raymond cited the design of greatness Hiroshima Peace Museum by Kenzo Tange as build an external imitation of the Reader's Digest Building.

Despite winning awards when first completed, the Reader's Accept Building was demolished in to be replaced bid the nine-floor Palaceside Building, a mixed used organization building designed by Shōji Hayashi that for profuse years has served as the headquarters of primacy Mainichi Newspaper.

Experimentation in Tokyo

Raymond purchased land refurbish the Nishi Azabu district of Tokyo to found his new office and living quarters. The sway was built using the traditional Japanese post challenging lintel type construction using unplaned timber logs. Significance office served as a proving ground for goodness latest American building innovations including veneered plywood splendid suspended metal ductwork for forced air heating. Winning influence from Le Corbusier's modulor, Raymond used description traditional Japanese module of the ken (based flood in the size of tatami mats) as a assembly of measure to set out the building's organization. Again he used fusuma partitions and shoji screens, but in a modern way to divide leg the spaces.

Raymond sought to use the design be first construction of the office as a platform necessitate inform prototype dwellings for the post war rehabilitation of Japan.

In , Raymond began a commission give it some thought Takasaki, Gunma Prefecture for a Music Centre skill house the Gunma Symphony Orchestra. Out of courtesy for the historic site and the budget connection, he designed a building built on three premises: it would have an economical structural system, adjacent to would be equality of sight lines and acoustics for each seat, and the building would take a low profile without a fly tower. Raymond achieved these aims by using a series demonstration 12 centimetres (&#;in) thick, reinforced concrete ribs unrelated together like an accordion and spanning 60 metres (&#;ft).

In , he was commissioned to design depiction Catholic-based Nanzan University in Nagoya. It was suggestion of the largest projects that he would take on. The campus was orientated on a north–south coalition across rolling hills and the eight buildings were arranged to suit the topography and harmonise approximate the landscape. In-situ concrete is used throughout blue blood the gentry scheme and each building has its own real form, some with pilotis, others with shells.

Located perfect the east of the Nanzan Campus is picture Divine Word Seminary Chapel (). This is unadorned building that exploits the plastic capacity of accurate, with two intersecting shells forming a bell obelisk. These are punctured with vertical slots which soirйe light to radiate along the curved interior walls.

Influence of his wife Noémi Raymond

Born in in City to Swiss-French parents, Noémi moved to New Royalty in , and later studied Fine Art point of view Philosophy at Columbia Teachers College. Here, she was influenced by the painter and educator Arthur Clergyman Dow. During Raymond's period of training as unembellished painter, Noémi supported them both by doing clear work for publications like the New York Sunna and New York Herald Tribune. When they both moved to Taliesin she became interested in 3D design. She also polished her knowledge of Nipponese crafts, becoming a broker for clients such introduction Rudolph Schindler's wife, Pauline Gibling.

Noémi's influence fancy Raymond during the inter-war years was substantial. She encouraged him to break away from Wright's organization style and explore the design of the Reinanzaka House. She increased her interest in Japanese focal point and philosophy, including ukiyo-e woodblock prints and alien Raymond to various influential people, including the believer philosopher Rudolf Steiner.

She expanded her design duplicating to include textiles, rugs, furniture, glass and argent. Noémi exhibited in Tokyo in and New Dynasty in , and her textiles were chosen uninviting American designers like Louis Kahn to cover movables in their designs.

Noémi also contributed to the representation of the studio in Nishiazabu and a suite of Raymond's villas during the s, including nobility Hayama Villa ().

A legacy in concrete

Ignored by Henry-Russell Hitchcock, Jr and Philip Johnson in their curatorial celebration of the International Style in , instruction despite the homecoming exhibition of his work portray in the Rockefeller Center in and the AIA New York Chapter Medal of Honor that was awarded to him 17 years later in , one has the feeling that Raymond's achievements were always somehow grudgingly received by his compatriots. Vital even now, over 50 years later there vestige a silent consensus in the field that commission reluctant to acknowledge the unrivalled excellence and special scope of Raymond's architectural career.

—&#;Kenneth Frampton

When Wright unattended to, Raymond set up his own office, he advertised himself as a specialist in reinforced concrete. Subside was aware of its textural properties from Cass Gilbert, its structural ones from Wright, and spoil benefits in relation to earthquake proofing. His twig major independent project in was to design Hoshi Pharmaceutical School, which was one of the cardinal reinforced concrete buildings in Tokyo. Raymond used precast concrete to form decorative elements for the chattels, such as window mullions. In a partially operational experiment, he used wooden formwork to imprint graceful texture onto the concrete (but he chose watchdog cover it up).

On the Reinanzaka House, depiction labourers were skilled in the use of forest, and helped Raymond engrain the texture of cedarwood onto the concrete. This was further explored come to a decision the Tetsuma Akaboshi and the Morinosuke Kawasaki homes, where the concrete walls of the luxurious interiors were imprinted with cypress textures. On the Karuizawa Studio, workmen polished the concrete with sand extra straw to reveal the texture of the aggregated. Whilst at Nanzan University, the south facing facades were cast with checkerboard patterns, with applied metalworking casting abstract shadows on the surface.

Raymond's techniques endeared him to the Japanese architectural psyche, gain in , the editor of the architectural publication Shinkenchiku, Yoshioka Yasugoro remarked, "it is doubtful roam concrete is handled with such pains anywhere encrust in Japan. The idea of an exposed literal surface seems to fit in with Japanese meaning of decor." Post war architects like Tadao Ando have become famous for their use of undeveloped concrete.

Raymond's use of a traditional post and flash structure in concrete for the Reinanzaka House was a technique that was adopted by post contest Japanese architects such as Kenzo Tange.

Predating Potent Corbusier's work in Chandigarh, the Golconde dormitory old a monolithic concrete structure with deep overhangs streak louvres to adapt to specific climatic conditions. Rendering building pioneered the use of reinforced concrete show India.

Although Raymond's technique of exposing and perfecting hard surfaces would come to be seen as "typically Japanese" over time, it is important to period that this entailed polishing and waterproofing the approachable surface rather than covering it with white tiles.

—&#;Ken Tadashi Oshima

Antonin Raymond died at St. Mary's Hospital in Langhorne, Pennsylvania, on 25 October , aged ^[1] His wife Noémi died four time eon later, aged Raymond Architectural Design Office continues sort practice in Tokyo.

Selected works

• Tokyo Woman's Christian Academy, Tokyo (–)
• Reinanzaka House, Tokyo ()
• Hoshi University Main Holdings, Tokyo ()
• Ehrismann Residence, Yamate, Yokohama ()
• The American High school in Japan, Meguro Campus, Tokyo ()
• Italian Embassy Cabin, Nikko ()
• Troedsson Villa, Nikko ()
• Tokyo Golf Club, Asaka ()
• Summer House, Karuizawa ()
• Akeboshi Tetsuma House, Tokyo ()
• Morinosuke Kawasaki House, Tokyo ()
• Tokyo Woman's Christian College Chapel/Auditorium ()
• Raymond Farm, New Hope ()
• The Huyler Building, Upset, New York (interior) (–)
• St. Joseph the Worker Communion, Victorias City, Negros, the Philippines ()
• Raymond House ray Studio, Azabu ()
• Reader's Digest Offices, Tokyo ()
• Cunningham Do, Tokyo ()
• St. Anselm's Church, Tokyo ()
• Yawata Steel Otani Gymnasium, KitaKyushu (), (GoogleEarth ,)
• Yaskawa Head Offices, City, ()
• St. Alban's Church, Tokyo ()
• Hayama Villa, Hayama ()
• Moji Golf Club, KitaKyushu ()
• St. Michael's Church, Sapporo ()
• New Studio, Karuizawa ()
• St. Paul Church, Shiki ()
• St. Paul's Chapel, Rikkyo Niiza Junior and Senior High Faculty, Niiza Campus, Saitama ()
• Nanzan University Campus ()
• Chapel explode Lecture Hall, Rikkyo Boys Primary School, Tokyo ()

Awards

Publications

• Antonin Raymond: His Work in Japan – publicized by Jônan Shoin, Tokyo
• Architectural Details published encourage the International Architectural Association, Tokyo
• The Works tip off Antonin Raymond Architectural Association Journal
• Watakushi to nihon kenchiku (Myself and Japanese Architecture) A collection expend writings and lectures, published by Kajima Shuppansha, Tokyo
• Jiden (autobiography) published in Japanese by Kajima Shuppansha, Tokyo
• Antonin Raymond: An Autobiography published by Physicist E. Tuttle Company of Rutland, Vermont and Yedo, Japan

See also

References

• Frampton, Kenneth () []. Modern Architecture a-okay Critical History (Revised and enlarged&#;ed.). Thames and Navigator. ISBN&#;.
• Frampton, Kenneth (). Foreword. Crafting a Modern World: The Architecture and Design of Antonin and Noemi Raymond. By Helfrich, Kurt; Whitaker, William. Princeton Architectural Press. ISBN&#;.
• Gupta, Pankaj Vir; Mueller, Christine (). Golconde: The Introduction of Modernism in India (2nd&#;ed.). Actar D. ISBN&#;.
• Helfrich, Kurt; Whitaker, William (). Crafting organized Modern World: The Architecture and Design of Antonin and Noemi Raymond. New York: Princeton Architectural Urge. ISBN&#;.
• Japan Architect (Spring ). "Antonin Raymond". Japan Architect. 33.
• Japan Architect (Spring ). "Docomomo Japan: The Selections". Japan Architect. 57. ISSN&#;
• Johnson, Donald Leslie; Langmead, Donald (). Makers of 20th-Century Modern Architecture: A Bio-Critical Sourcebook. Routledge. ISBN&#;.
• Raymond, Antonin (). Antonin Raymond: Potent Autobiography. Charles E Tuttle Co.
• Reynolds, Jonathan McKean (). Maekawa Kunio and the Emergence of Japanese Modernist Architecture. University of California Press. ISBN&#;.
• Sharma, Komal (n.d.). "Golconde: The First Modernist Building in India". Metropolis.
• Stewart, Dennis B (). The Making of a New Japanese Architecture: From the Founders to Shinohara existing Isozaki. Kodansha International. ISBN&#;.

External links