This project offers an interpretation of modern Japanese architecture through analyzing 7 houses with cultural and historical importance and unpacking the ways in which these meaningful structures were adapted to the principles of a post-growth era.

 

The project focuses on the decade between 1972 and 1982 through the works of the architects: Takefumi Aida, Hiroshi Hara, Arata Isozaki, Kiko Mozuna, Jiro Murofoshi, Kazuo Shinohara and Makoto Suzuki. The houses designed by these architects represent a modern architectural practice and a set of social ideas that came together on the backdrop of important global-to-local tensions: at the end of World War II (1939-1945) and the American occupation in Japan (1945-1951) on the one hand, and the upsurge of the world oil crisis (1973) and the Japanese real estate bubble acceleration (1986-1991) on the other hand.

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​In contrast to a period of financial, cultural, or social growth and development, a post-growth era is characterized by the notion of reduction. In this sense, Japan faced demographic challenges through declining birthrate rates, aging population, and weakening of national growth engines (for example: closing of educational institutes, and high rates of unemployment). These, in turn, posed clear planning challenges due to shrinking cities and spatial imbalance. This project presents the ways in which such challenges are represented in residential architecture.