Design and Disaster

Kon Wajiros Modernologio

Edited by Jilly Traganou & Kuroishi Izumi

Design and Disaster: Kon Wajiros Modernologio
Jilly Traganou and Kuroishi Izumi, editors and exhibition curators

Published on the occasion of the exhibition Disaster and Design:

Kon Wajiros Modernologio
Exhibition Location: Arnold and Sheila Aronson Galleries, Sheila C.
Johnson Design Center, Parsons The New School for Design
Exhibition Dates: March 13-March 27, 2014

Mehdi Salehi, exhibition designer

Hayashi Natsuki, graphic designer
Dora Sapunar, editorial assistant
Rachel Smith, editorial assistant

Acknowledgments
The exhibition was made possible through the generous support
of The Japan Foundation, New York, the School of Art and Design
History and Theory at Parsons The New School for Design (New
York), and the School of Cultural and Creative Studies of Aoyama
Gakuin University (Tokyo). We are thankful to all the above, and
also to the Kon Wajiro Archive and the Kgakuin University Library
(Tokyo) for providing digital iles of exhibited work.

Throughout the text and bibliography the names of Japanese

persons are in Japanese order, surname irst.

ISBN: 978-0-9915463-0-5
 Design and Disaster:
Kon Wajiros Modernologio
Jilly Traganou, Kuroishi Izumi
Design and Disaster: Kon Wajiros
Modernologio explores Kon
Wajiros (1888-1973) visual obser-
vations of material practices in
Tokyo after the devastating 1923
Earthquakeparticularly draw-
ing from his work Modernologio
(kgengaku) and from his surveys of
barracks (makeshift structures for
earthquake recovery). Kon Wajiro
studied design in Japan in the early
20th century, and worked closely
with ethnographers, designers and
artists. In the 1920s, after extensive
experience studying rural Japan
with ethnographer Yanagita Kunio
(1875-1962), Kon turned his focus to
the realm of urban life.
The exhibition emphasizes Kon
Wajiros urban ethnography, as well
as its signiicance as a design-
based methodology of recording
material change in post-disaster
conditions through a wide lens, that
spans from the realm of urban and
domestic space to fashion. Chrono-
logically, the exhibition material
derives from Kons immediate post-
earthquake response, his recording
of material culture changes in Ginza
and the slum areas of Tokyo in the
modernization period after the
earthquake, as well as a selection
of Kons own design work produced
in the 1930-40s. It is signiicant that
Kon Wajiros thinking emerged dur-
ing an era wherein various design
ields (from architecture and interior
design to graphics and furniture
design) were studied in conjunction
with one another, rather than as
separate disciplines. Today numer-
ous educational institutions of
2
design are trying to re-establish this
integrative approach.
5_1
The exhibition poses questions
about how to record and analyze
change in social and material
culture at times of crisis, and how
these records can be utilized by
designers as agents of recovery.
Kon Wajiros work was impelled by
the need to comprehend the rapid
social and material changes that
occurred after the 1923 disaster
in Tokyo. This period of transition
resonates with changes that Japan
is undergoing today, after the triple
disaster of March 2011 (earthquake,
tsunami and nuclear accident in
the Tohoku area). If in the early
20th century Japanese societys
transition was towards modern,
westernized and consumer-oriented
lifestyles, today we notice a reverse
turn. Namely, a reconsideration of
the consumerist way of life and the
energy consumption practices that
Japan has adopted in the last 150
years. Today, these questions are
universally pertinent, given condi-
tions of climate change, and global
iscal and social crisis.
Designers will see in Kon Wajiro a
forerunner in the use of ethnog-
raphy as a design tool that had
no parallel in the western world.
Kons minute recording of mate-
rial culture, produced after careful
observations and supplemented
by statistical measurements, is a
sophisticated tool for detecting
and comprehending the patterns of
A Brief Biography of Kon Wajiro
Kon Wajiro was born in Hirosaki,
Aomori Prefecture. He is known as
the founder of modernologio, a
school of thought that involved the
documentation of modern life in
Tokyo as it rapidly developed into
a metropolis in the early Showa pe-
riod (1926-1989). Kon also contrib-
uted valuable research in the study
of traditional folk dwellings (minka),
which he produced as a member
of the research group Hakubkai,
led by Yanagita Kunio, the father of
Japanese ethnography.
Kon studied graphic design (zuan)
at Tokyo Fine Arts University. During
his career he taught architecture
at Waseda University (1920-1959),
and produced diverse design
projects that ranged from graphics
to furniture and architecture. Kons
drawing style owes both to the vi-
sual languages of his contemporary
avant-garde, and to his training in
the Tokyo Fine Arts University, which
was strongly inluenced by the Arts
and Crafts movement. The zuan-ka
approach which he studied at Tokyo
human life (Kuroishi, 1998, 2000). A
parallel objective of the exhibition
is to look at Kons methodology
as an educational resource. This
entails a presentation of student
work produced in classes at Parsons
and Aoyama Gakuin University,
and the hosting of pedagogical
engagements during the length of
the exhibition.
Fine Arts University did not focus on
drawing for the purpose of faithful
reproduction of nature. It used
drawing as a means of grasping
the phenomena of the real world
through observation, in order to de-
velop a greater expressive capacity
for abstraction in design (Kuroishi,
2011). Through extensive docu-
mentary ieldwork undertaken with
minute scrutiny, Kon drew important
lessons for his own design practice,
while leaving a large visual record
of the material practices of his
contemporary society: from fashion
and interior design to body pos-
tures and walking styles in the new
urban locales of Tokyo. For Kon,
these were the material expressions
of the large societal changes that
occurred in Japan after the Tokyo
earthquake, and were thus valuable
for comprehending these broader
changes.
After the earthquake, Kon and Yo-
shida Kenkichi (1897-1982), a fellow
student from the Tokyo School of
Fine Arts, started the Barrack
3
 Decoration Company (Barakku
s shokusha), in collaboration with
a group of artists and design-
ers known as Forefront Com-
pany (Sent sha) (including painters
Nakagawa Kigen and Kanbara Tai,
and decorators tsubo Shigechika,
Asuka Tetsuo and Yoshimura Jir ),
most of whom had studied in the
design department of the Tokyo
School of Fine Arts. The groups
purpose was to decorate the interi-
ors and exteriors of the commercial
temporary structures, erected in the
wake of the earthquake, known as
barracks (barakku). Barrack decora-
tion provided the group with monu-
mental canvases, and became a
means to both tie their work closely
to everyday life, and to shape
peoples experience of their urban
environment (Weisenfeld, 230).
Exhibition Overview
1. Kon Wajiros Urban Ethnography
The exhibition presents sketches
and photographs by Kon Wajiro
and his team members after the
Great Kanto Earthquake of 1923.
The selected artifacts reveal the
multiplicity of the material aspects
of human activity that Kon recorded
in post-1923 Tokyo. They derive
from his observations of the citys
exterior and interior spaces, and
span characteristic locales of urban
modernity, such as Ginza, as well as
slums on the citys periphery.
4
At the end of the 1930s, Kon built
experimental housing to assist
those living in areas with heavy
snowfalls, and designed coop-
erative workspaces for villages
in six prefectures of the northern
part of Honshu, Japans main
island. Following World War II, he
pioneered new ields of academic
study, including Lifestyle Stud-
ies (Seikatsu-gaku) and Clothing
Research (Fukus-kenkyu). Kons
interest in diverse ields was rooted
in how he spent his life: traveling
between cities and villages, observ-
ing a wide range of lifestyles with
an open mind, seeking to work with
others to create new life systems,
that would be better adapted to
peoples needs.
Immediate Post-Earthquake
ResponseBarrack Survey,
1923
In the months after the earthquake,
Kon, Yoshida, other members of the
Barrack Decoration Company as
well as Kons students, visited the
areas where earthquake-refugees
tended to congregate. These
included Ueno Park, the Onarimon
area of Shiba Park, Shiba Atagoshi-
ta, the Tameike area of Akasaka and
Hibiya Park.

1_4
There, Kon and Yoshida witnessed
the act of living and the creation of
shelter in their most fundamental
states. The day after the earth-
quake, people who had lost their
homes began salvaging timber
spared by the lames to use as
posts and beams for simple new
dwellings. Kon and Yoshidas irst
activity was observing. With camera,
pencil and notebook in hand, they
wandered through the ruins, record-
ing their observations of temporary
shelter construction. They photo-
graphed and sketched the barracks
of temporary living, as well as the
new places of business that began
to appear in ramshackle structures
in the central commercial districts
of Tokyo. As Kon wrote in 1924,
These black, red and blue houses
with their roofssometimes light,
sometimes heavy but, often pecu-
liarare quite remarkable. Archi-
tects should take note of peoples
ingenuity (Kon, 1927). During this
period, Kon also formed the Barrack
Decoration Company.
Post-Earthquake Urban
ChangesModernologio, 1925
Soon after the earthquake, Kon
assembled some of the members of
the Barrack Decoration Company,
his students of Waseda and other
Universities, and members of pub-
lishing houses, such as Chukoron.
They began carrying out a survey of
the mores and customs of the Ginza
district of Tokyo, a major urban
locale in the city, known as an epi-
center of modernity of early Showa
Japan. They named this study
modernologio, an engagement that
developed as an extension of their
observations of temporary shelters.
In addition to Ginza, Kon and
Yoshida conducted their surveys in
other changing areas of Tokyo, such
as the slum of Honj-Fukagawa,
suburbs like Koenji and Asagaya,
Hibiya and Inokashira parks, the en-
virons of Waseda and Keio Universi-
ties, and the commercial districts of
Ueno and Asakusa.
5_8
Kon explained modernologio as an
effort to record the transformation
of Tokyos landscape and lifestyle,
in response to the acceleration of
capitalism after the disaster. Results
of the modernologio studies were
exhibited to popular acclaim in an
exhibition titled Research (Mod-
ernologio) Exhibition [Shirabe-
mono (kgengaku) ten], held at the
Kinokuniya bookstore in Shinjuku
from October 15 to 21, 1927.
5
 2. Kon Wajiros Design Work in Film
In 1935, Kon Wajiro received a
commission from the Japanese gov-
ernment to improve the operation
of local communities mutual-help
system in farming areas of Tohoku.
Kon proposed a modular storage
system design (goso), which could
be adapted easily according to
the needs of each community. The
design employed local carpentry
techniques and readily available
materials. It was realized in the pe-
riod 1935-41. Theses humble stor-
age houses are emblematic of Kons
approach. His designs derived from
his on-site observation of peoples
lifestyles, the environment and ev-
3. Pedagogy Inspired by Kon Wajiro
Memory Maps: Kesennuma
Before and After 3.11
Aoyama Gakuin University Student
Work: SDSD (Spatial Descriptions of
Social Diversity)
Students: Abe Koyuki, Hayashizaki
Ai, Nakajima Yukika, Kobayashi
Yusei
Faculty: Kuroishi Izumi
After the triple disaster of 2011, Pro-
fessor Kuroishi Izumis laboratory at
Aoyama Gakuin University started
conducting extensive ieldwork
in Kesennuma, a coastal town of
Tohoku, that was heavily affected
by the earthquake and the tsunami
that hit the area. By interviewing lo-
cal inhabitants in the disaster area,
and observing how they are sup-
6
eryday building technologies. Kons
experience of in-depth observa-
tions of rural houses, barracks and
modern urban lifestyles led him to
advocate for a new approach to
architecture (different from that of
modernism), which uniied rational
production systems with options for
user-intervention.
Kazuhiko Kons ilm Storage Hous-
es and Memory of Kashiwagi Yama
Area (Onshi-goso to Kashiwagi
yama no kioku) (2011), presents one
of these storage houses in Kashi-
wagi, including interviews with local
residents.
porting and creating their everyday
lives after the disaster, students are
trying to understand the invisible
human relationships that construct
local society, as well as the commu-
nitys historical, social and cultural
identity. With this, students are
suggesting that, instead of think-
ing about the rehabilitation of the
disaster from top-down and techni-
cal approaches, we should rather
focus on understanding peoples
lifestyle and memories of the pre-
disaster era, through a historical
and interview-based approach that
derives from direct engagements
with the community. Project 1 shows
the maps of the most severely dam-
aged areas, before and after the
disaster, revealing how the everyday
living world vanished and a new
landscape emerged.
Resilience in Peoples Lifestyle:
Finding Locus in the Culture of
Food and Home
Aoyama Gakuin University Student
Work: SDSD (Spatial Descriptions of
Social Diversity)
Students: Matsudo Keidai, Yokose
Megumi, Mitome Natsumi, Someya
Asami
Faculty: Kuroishi Izumi
This project extends the idea of Kon
Wajiros modernologio from a study
of observation to a practice of revi-
talization. By conducting interviews
and surveys, the project attempts to
reconstruct the setting of residents
lost houses. It also proposes ways
to re-connect with the almost
vanished local context by focusing
on the areas food culture. These
works bring to the surface the social
and historical infrastructure of urban
everyday lifeKons fundamental
intention with his survey of modern
socio-material phenomena.
CommuniTea
Parsons The New School for
Design, School of Art and Design
History and Theory
Students: Sarah Farah, Hayashi
Natsuki, Anze Zadel
Faculty: Jilly Traganou
In January 2013, three students of
Jilly Traganous class Japanese
Design and Urban Culture from the
Edo to post 3.11 Japan visited Kes-
ennuma with Professor Kuroishi and
students of her laboratory. Upon
return to New York the students
began studying the notion of place-
identity, comparing Kesennuma and
Red Hook, an area affected by Hur-
ricane Sandy in 2012. In June 2013,
they participated in the Red Hook
Festival with a mobile performative
installation, titled CommuniTea.
This was part of an effort to connect
communities around the globe that
are both recovering from and at risk
for future large-scale disasters. This
project was inspired by Kon Wajiros
response to disaster, and particular-
ly his Barrack Decoration Company.
Combining the typology of the tem-
porary shelter and the traditional
Japanese teahouses, the installation
was the setting for a performer, who
invited visitors one-by-one to listen
to stories from Tohoku, and share
their experiences from the period
of Hurricane Sandy. CommuniTea
engaged fundamental questions
related to belonging, identity and
displacement by natural disasters,
as well as the politics of emergency
assistance, crisis preparedness and
humanitarian aid.
Authors
Jilly Traganou is Associate Professor
in Spatial Design Studies at Parsons
The New School for Design, New
York.
Kuroishi Izumi is Professor at the
School of Cultural and Creative
Studies, Aoyama Gakuin University,
Tokyo.
7
 Kon Wajiros Writings
With Introductory Notes by Kuroishi Izumi

1
In September, 1923, Tokyo was almost completely destroyed by a huge
earthquake. Kon organized the Barrack Decoration Company, a group
dedicated to the construction of temporary structuresbarracksbuilt
in the aftermath of the earthquake. The groups designs drew inspiration
from sources as diverse as avant-garde painting, rococo and organic natural
forms. Members of the company undertook the decoration of barracks, but
Kons work so directly confronted the stereotypical view of ornament in the
modern architectural discourse that a group of young modernists, Bunriha
Architectural Society (Bunriha Kenchikukai), immediately challenged him.
Through the succeeding debates, Kon tried to clarify the conlicts between
his beliefs surrounding decoration and ornament in architecture and the
modernist ideas of Bunriha.

Kons ideas about decoration and ornament were inspired by two sources:
First was the Arts and Crafts movement, with which he gained familiarity
when carrying out studies of rural houses. As Owen Jones described in his
Grammar of Ornament, the Arts and Crafts movement upheld, in addition
to a preference for naturalistic art, the belief that beauty in art resulted from
the artists ability to take pleasure in the dificulty of work, and that orna-
ment should be the result of reinement according to peoples usage of the
objects. The second source came from the European avant-garde move-
ment that exerted strong inluences in the arts of Japan at that time. Sharing
the early ideas of the European avant-garde, Kon and other members of
Barrack Decoration Company tried to reexamine the meanings and expres-
sions of art in society. They endeavored to express direct sensation through
dynamic forms, as well as destroy categorical divisions and conventional
ideas about the creation of art. Kon also shared the European avant-gardes
preoccupation with the social, stemming from his personal involvement in
the improvement of Japanese peoples living conditions since the 1910s.
Having a strong humanistic standpoint, Kon was opposed to the overly insti-
tutionalized and engineering-oriented understanding of architecture, as well
as to modernist notions of architecture privileging pure-form. Kons uni-
ied usage of the notions of ornament and decoration shows his characteris-
tic understanding of the essence of art as something our daily lives require
on the surface of things, through which man perceives and experiences the
meaning and beauty of objects and the world.

(Kuroishi Izumi)

8
 An Excerpt from Kon Wajiros An Analysis of
Decorative Art (Sshoku geijutsu no kaimei),
published in Kenchiku shinch 5:2 (1924)

Bunriha members seem to un-

derstand architecture as follows:
the material form directly affects
peoples minds, and is to be cre-
ated as such. They ind added
ornament to be unnecessary. They
also seem to believe that music is a
series of sounds and that architec-
ture is the placement of material
objects in a given space. I am not
aware of their opinion about bar-
racks, which are artifacts created
with maximum inancial restraint.
Bunriha members, however, act as
if they are destined to accomplish
the above-mentioned idea. Many of
the post ofice buildings by Yamada
Mamoru exemplify solutions to such
aesthetic problems. In his works,
we can clearly see an approach to 4_8
architecture which is inspired by
poetry and music. In order to appreciate the beauty
of a naked body we have to reject
However, I want to examine under decoration. The architectural body
what conditions they conceived cannot have dresses on. However,
their ideas of poetry and music in if we understood decoration from
architecture. After all, their idea a broader perspective we might be
of architectural beauty is abstract able to add to the naked archi-
and universal, superimposed on a tectural body something com-
concrete physical presence. The monly called decoration, in order
composition of lines, the volume of to highlight its basic meaning. The
masses, their distributions, the play irst viewpoint rejects decoration
of light on them, the force and the in order to protect the purity of
simplicity of the forms, and rhythmi- architectural form. The second one
cal, musical, poetic beauty are the appreciates the capability of deco-
themes and objectives of their ration to express dramatic emotions
designs. Indeed, this purist mindset on the surface of architectural form.
is a heavenly placeone accessible The irst viewpoint also recognizes
to only the most talented artists. the pure beauty in the architectural
structure.

9
 The second tries to extend the
notion of architectural beauty. Of
course, Bunriha members take
the irst standpoint and I take the
second.
We are now trying to liberate the
methods of decorative expression
as much as possible, and to make
their evocations as complex as
possible. For example, in interior
design, we try to express social
phenomenathe reality of peoples
lives, everyday activities, their emo-
tions and their changeson walls
and ceilings through luid, sensi-
tive forms. I want to make people
accept them without any explana-
tion, in order to perceive and enjoy
them spontaneously in their daily
environments. I believe the work of
decoration is to ill peoples living
spaces with dignity.
material in our living world.
I have been working on the idea of
the absolute pattern, which is not a
pattern added onto materials but
the direct expression of the human
mind through lines and colors, in
order to express peoples lifestyles
in their living space. When you see
a person sitting, you may want to
express his personality, his emotions
and moods in that space through
patterns on the wall behind him.
As a painter expresses his percep-
tion on the canvas, we should be
allowed to do something similar on
the wall of a room.

This expression of decoration may

contradict the idea of primal beauty
of architecture. However, can we
discard it from our lives? Many
of us ind that the experience of
human perception is stimulated by
the decorative patterns of rococo
style, and begin our examination
of decoration from there. In other 4_2 (right)
words, we feel delicate sounds
in the most complicated curv- People usually call the production
ing decoration, which is hated by of beautiful colors and harmonized
architects, and is the most dificult patterns decoration, but I think that
to simplify into geometrical forms. such formal approaches lead to
Our effort may raise the antipathy merely ephemeral expressions, and
of other architects, who never listen are not the real work of decoration.
to our explanations. Decoration is I think the work of decoration is to
at times harmonious and at times express the real and practical ways
independent from the rhythms of of peoples life.
architectural composition. In any
case, decoration is something we (Translated by Kuroishi Izumi, irst
demand to be on the surface of the published in Round01: Jewels (2006)

10
 2
Kon Wajiros understanding of architecture as the active intermedi-
ary between man and the world informed his signature interpretations of
architectural space and form. Along with his Barrack Decoration Company,
Kon applied these ideas to his modernologio survey, in order to discover
the phenomenological interrelationship between people, things and their
social environment. Kons project, assumedly inluenced by European and
American theories of phenomenology and pragmatic philosophy, appears
as one of the earliest examples of these theories application in practice.

In the following, Kon elucidates his ieldwork exploration of architectural

and urban spaces in relation to their material expression. Kon recorded fur-
niture, objects, tools, souvenirs and other artifacts which illed the interiors
of peoples living spaces, and included precise physical descriptions and
histories of the objects. In focusing on objects and their arrangements in
domestic interiors, he came to deine architectural space as a stage for lifes
events, thus accumulating historical resonance and the ability to represent
peoples social and personal lives. Opposed to the notions of architec-
ture, propagated by modernist architects during this period in Japan, Kon
expanded the idea of architectural space from a ixed to a luid entity for the
movement of daily lifenamely the interaction between man and the world.
With his studies of post-earthquake constructions, in his Barrack Survey, and
the application of phenomenology in modernologio, Kon framed architec-
ture as a humanistic discipline dependent on peoples individual and social
experience.

(Kuroishi Izumi)

11
 An Excerpt from Kon Wajiros Examination of the
Household of a Newly Married Couple (Shinkatei no
shinamono chsa) in Modernologio (1930)
4_3 (left)
If you were to examine all the
belongings of a person, you would
be able to see the characteristics
and tendencies of that person. His
belongings make up the back-
ground of his life. There is an issue
with working in such a way. People
prefer to hide their inner world and
they dislike having it examined by
others. They recognize privacy as
a human right, and make it their
fundamental law without exam-
ining whether it is a primal or a
progressive one. There are many
who require privacy in their houses,
without considering that there are
various types and natures of privacy
in our lives.
12
I think our contemporary material
culture, which is gradually becom-
ing universalized with the slogan
of culture of daily life (bunka
seikatsu), is at a stage which is simi-
lar with pre-naturalism in literature.
Is there any exact measurement in
the discussions of culture of daily
life? After all, the ideas of culture
of daily life are based on what is
perceived as common sense. Their
criteria re decided only through
some rough estimation. The degree
of comfort, the required spatial vol-
ume and number of household ob-
jects are based on common sense.
It is believed that everyone has
the same desires and sensibilities
without a consideration for those
who have different ones. Of course,
such an approach had a certain
effect on the improvement of our
lifestyle, that was too-conventional.
However, in order to conduct the
social project of life improvement
(seikatsu kaizen) we must try to
establish a deeper and stronger
foundation for it.
In this work I am trying to further
develop an anthropological method
in order to record and examine
comparatively our contemporary
material culture. By examining the
records of material culture, we
should be able to see social cus-
toms and fashionable tendencies,
as well as the differences between
individuals in society. Then, indi-
viduals should be able to
distinguish societys diverse
personae, and the trends of mate-
rial culture, in order to prepare for
their own way of living, unhampered
by compulsions to imitate. For such
projects in the study of material
culture, I have been recording and
Selected Bibliography
Fujimori, Terunobu. Kaisetsu ta-
dashii kgengaku (Commentary on
True Modernologio). In Kon Wajiro,
Fujimori Terunobu. Kgengaku
nymon (Introduction to Moder-
nologio). Tokyo: Chikuma Shob,
Chikuma Bunko, 1987 (originally
published in 1930), pp. 409-17.
Gill, Tom. Kon Wajiro, Moder-
nologist. Japan Quarterly, 43.2
(1996):198-207.
Kawazoe, Noboru. Kon Wajiro: sono
kgengaku (Kon Wajiro: His Moder-
nologio), Tokyo: Riburo Pto, 1987.
Kon, Wajiro. Soshoku geijutsu no
kaimei (An Analysis of Decorative
Art), Kenchiku shincho 5:2 (1924).
Kon, Wajiro. Yake totan no ie (A
House With Burnt Iron Roof), in
series Barakku chsa (Barrack
research), Cho Kenchiku (1924): 24.
Kon, Wajiro. Barakku ni tsuiteno
ichi-kousatsu (An Essay on Bar-
racks). Waseda kenchiku gakuho,
December 1925. Reproduced in
describing every object in peoples
living spaces in detail, trying to
discover the differences between
each individual.
(Translated by Kuroishi Izumi, irst
published in Round01: Jewels (2006)
Kon Wajiro zenshu, Vol. 4, pp.
285-98.
Kon, Wajiro. Shinsai barakku no
omoide (Memory of Barracks
After the Earthquake). Minzoku to
kenchiku, 1927. Reproduced in Kon
Wajiro zenshu, Vol. 4, pp. 299-336.
Kon, Wajiro, and Yoshida Kenkichi.
Modernologio: Kgengaku (Moder-
nologio), Tokyo: Shunyd, 1930.
Kon, Wajiro. and Yoshida Kenkichi,
Kgengaku saish: Moderunorojio
(Modernologio Collection), Tokyo:
Zshigayamachi (tkyfu), Kenset-
susha, 1931.
Kon Wajiro, Kon Wajiro zenshu (Kon
Wajiro Collection), Vol. 1-9, Tokyo:
Domesu Shuppan, 1971-72.
Kuroishi, Izumi. Kon Wajiro: A
Quest for the Architecture as a Con-
tainer of Everyday Life. Ph.D. diss,
University of Pennsylvania, 1998.
13
 Kuroishi, Izumi. Kenchiku-gai no
shiso: Kon Wajiro ron (Ideas from
the Exterior of Architecture: Kon
Wajiros Ideas and Work). Tokyo:
Domesu-shuppan, 2000.
Kuroishi, Izumi. Wajiro Kon: An
Architect Who Envisioned Archi-
tecture as a Container of Everyday
Life. In Zenno, Yasushi and Jagan
Shah (eds.), Round 1, Jewels. Tokyo:
Acetate, 2006.
Kuroishi, Izumi. Visual Examina-
tions of Interior Space in Move-
ments to Modernize Housing in Ja-
pan c. 192040. Interiors: Design,
Architecture and Culture 2:1 (2011):
95-123.
Kuroishi, Izumi. Kon Wajiro saish
kgi (Collection of Lectures by Kon
Wajiro). Tokyo: Seigensha, 2011, pp.
45-52, 55-56.
Kuroishi, Izumi. Kon Wajiro ni
totteno Tohoku (Kon Wajiro in To-
hoku). In Kon Wajiro to Kgengaku
(Kon Wajiro and Modernologio),
Tokyo: Kawade-shobo, 2013, pp.
153-59.
14
National Museum of Ethnology.
Modernologio Now: Kon Wajiros
Science of the Present. Osaka,
2012. (exhibition held in April 26 -
June 19, 2012 ) http://www.minpaku.
ac.jp/english/museum/exhibition/
special/20120426kon/exhibition
Nute, Kevin. Place, Time, and Being
in Japanese Architecture. London:
Routledge, 2004.
Sand, Jordan. House and Home
in Modern Japan. Cambridge,
Massachusetts; London: Harvard
University Press, 2003.
Silverberg, Miriam. Constructing
the Japanese Ethnography of Mo-
dernity. Journal of Asian Studies
51:1 (1992): 30-54
Weisenfeld, Gennifer. Designing
After Disaster: Barrack Decoration
and the Great Kanto Earthquake.
Japanese Studies 18:3 (1998): 229-
46.
Exhibited Works

Immediate Post-Earthquake Response:

Barrack Survey

Section 1: Photographs of Barracks, 1923

1_1 1_3
Untitled Untitled
Kon Wajiro Collection Kon Wajiro Collection
Earthquake refugee settlement on Six Photographs
the grounds of the Imperial Palace,
Tokyo, September 1, 1923 1_4
Photograph Untitled
Kon Wajiro Collection
1_2 Six Photographs
Untitled
Kon Wajiro Collection
Ueno Park, September 20, 1923
Five Photographs

Section 2: Sketches of Barracks, 1923

2_1
Untitled
Kon Wajiro (Japanese, 18881973)
Ink on paper 2_6

2_2 2_5
Untitled Untitled
Kon Wajiro (Japanese, 18881973) Kon Wajiro (Japanese, 18881973)
Ink on paper Ink on paper

2_3 2_6
Untitled Untitled
Kon Wajiro (Japanese, 18881973) Kon Wajiro (Japanese, 18881973)
Ink on paper Ink on paper

2_4 2_7
Untitled Untitled
Kon Wajiro (Japanese, 18881973) Kon Wajiro (Japanese, 18881973)
Ink on paper Ink on paper

15
 Post-earthquake Urban Changes:
Modernologio
Section 3: Ginza Fashion Survey, Mode of the Age,
Modernologio, 1925
3_1
3_1
Index of the Report of Ginza
Fashion Survey, 1925
Kon Wajiro (Japanese, 18881973)
Ink on tracing paper;
8.7 x 7 in. (22 x 17.6 cm)
3_2 (top)
Mens Kimono (Plate#20)
Kon Wajiro (Japanese, 18881973)
Ink on paper;
3.1 x 6.4 in. (8 x 16.3 cm)
3_3 (bottom)
Shoes (Plate#18)
Kon Wajiro (Japanese, 18881973)
Ink on paper;
5.4 x 7.8 in. (13.7 x 19.8 cm)
16
3_4 (top)
Womens Kimono (Plate#30)
Kon Wajiro (Japanese, 18881973)
Ink on paper;
3.6 x 7 in. (9.2 x 18 cm)
3_5 (botoom)
Womens Footwear (Plate#44)
Kon Wajiro (Japanese, 18881973)
Ink on paper;
1.7 x 3.5 in. ( 4.3 x 9 cm)
3_6 (top)
Womens Hairstyles (Plate#52)
Kon Wajiro (Japanese, 18881973)
Ink on paper;
2.4 x 5 in. ( 6.3 x 13 cm)
3_7 (bottom)
Womens Purses (Plate#60)
Kon Wajiro (Japanese, 18881973)
Ink on paper;
4 x 7.5 in. (10.2 x 19.2 cm)
3_8 (top)
Mens Eyeglasses (Plate#25)
Kon Wajiro (Japanese, 18881973)
Ink on paper;
3.4 x 4.2 in. ( 8.8 x 11 cm)
3_9 (bottom)
Portables (Plate#28)
Kon Wajiro (Japanese, 18881973)
Ink on paper;
2.5 x 5.6 in. ( 6.4 x 14.5 cm)
3_10 (top)
Womens Shoes (Plate#51)
Kon Wajiro (Japanese, 18881973)
Ink on paper;
3.2 x 5.3 in. ( 8.3 x 13.6 cm)
3_11 (bottom)
Portables (Plate#66)
Kon Wajiro (Japanese, 18881973)
Ink on paper;
1.5 x 3.8 in. (4 x 10 cm)
Section 4: Interior Survey, Modernologio, 1925
Households
4_1
Household of a newly-married
couple#1
House layout (left); entrance and
home ofice (right), 1925
Kon Wajiro (Japanese, 18881973)
Ink on paper and tracing paper;
11.5 x 14.7 in. ( 29.3 x 37.5 cm)
4_2
Household of a newly-married
couple#2
Living room (left); home decorations
(right), 1925
Kon Wajiro (Japanese, 18881973)
Ink on paper and tracing paper;
11.5 x 14.7 in. ( 29.3 x 37.5 cm)
4_3
Household of a newly-married
couple#3
Inside of the closet (left); dining
room and bedroom (right), 1925
Kon Wajiro (Japanese, 18881973)
Ink on paper and tracing paper;
11.5 x 14.7 in. ( 29.3 x 37.5 cm)
3_8 (top)
4_4
Household of a newly-married
couple#4
Cabinet (left); closet (right), 1925
Kon Wajiro (Japanese, 18881973)
Ink on paper and tracing paper;
11.5 x 14.7 in. ( 29.3 x 37.5 cm)
4_5
Household of a newly-married
couple#5
Kitchen, 1925
Kon Wajiro (Japanese, 18881973)
Ink on paper and tracing paper;
11.5 x 14.7 in. ( 29.3 x 37.5 cm)
Objects
4_6
Illustrations of what a woman in
Fukagawa needs
(with costs and department stores
window signs), 1925
Kon Wajiro (Japanese, 18881973)
Ink on tracing paper;
9.5 x 7.1 in. ( 24.2 x 18.2 cm)
17
 4_7
Illustrations of what a man in
Fukagawa wants (with costs), 1925
Kon Wajiro (Japanese, 18881973)
Ink on tracing paper;
9.4 x 7.1 in. ( 24 x 18.1 cm)

4_8
Patterns of diapers, 1925
Kon Wajiro (Japanese, 18881973)
and Kenkichi Yoshida (Japanese,
18971982)
Ink on paper and tracing paper;
14.8 x 11.5 in. ( 37.6 x 29.3 cm)

4_9
Cracks of bowls at a cafeteria, 1927
Kon Wajiro (Japanese, 18881973)
and Ozawa Shz (Japanese, ? - ? )
Graphite and ink on paper and 4_7
tracing paper;
11.5 x 14.6 in. ( 29.3 x 37.1 cm)

Section 5: Public Realm Survey, Modernologio,1925

Body Postures, Dress and

Movement

5_1
Social class composition of
pedestrians in Futagawa, 1925
Kon Wajiro (Japanese, 18881973)
Ink on tracing paper;
9.5 x 7.1 in. ( 24.3 x 18.2 cm)

5_2
Trail of a modern girl in
Marunouchi building, 1927
Koike Tomihisa (Japanese, ? - ? )
Graphite, ink, and watercolor on
paper and tracing paper;
15 x 11.5 in. ( 38.1 x 29.2 cm)
5_3

18
5_3
Uniform of waitresses at the cafe
in Ginza from the Report of Ginza
Fashion Survey, 1926
Kon Wajiro (Japanese, 18881973)
and Kenkichi Yoshida (Japanese,
1897-1982)
Print;
12.6 x 9.4 in. ( 32.2 x 24 cm)
5_4
Worn-out parts of junior high school
boys clothing, 1927
Kon Wajiro (Japanese, 18881973)
and Naoz Nagata (Japanese, ? ? )
In on paper;
14.8 x 11.5 in. ( 37.6 x 29.3 cm)
5_5
Variations of resting laborers, 1925-
1926
Arai Mitsuo (Japanese, ?-?)
Graphite and ink on tracing paper;
10.9 x 7.6 in. ( 27.7 x 19.5 cm)
5_6
Kon Wajiros Design Work in Film
Section 6: Storage House, 1935-41; Film, 2011
6_1
Storage Houses and Memory of
Kashiwagi Yama Area (Onshi-goso
to Kashiwagi yama no kioku), 2011
Kon Kazuhiko with Kuroishi Izumi
Video
Traces, Objects and Animals
5_6
Study of dogs, Tokyo suburb
Arai Mitsuo (Japanese, ?-?)
5_7
Traces of ants, measurement per 50
centimeters, 1925
Kon Wajiro (Japanese, 18881973)
Ink on paper and tracing paper;
14.6 x 11.6 in. ( 37.2 x 29.5 cm)
5_8
Street merchants equipment, 1927
Arai Mitsuo (Japanese, ?-?)
Ink on paper;
8.6 x 6.6 in. ( 22 x 16.8 cm)
5_9
Suicide Spots in Inokashira Park,
1925-1927
Kon Wajiro (Japanese, 18881973)
Ink on tracing paper;
14.8 x 11.4 in. ( 37.7 x 29 cm)
19
 Pedagogy Inspired by Kon Wajiro
Section 7: Student Work
7_1
Memory maps, Kesennuma before
and after 3.11
Students: Abe Koyuki, Nakajima
Yukika, Hayashizaki Ai, Kobayashi
Yusei
Student work conducted by
Kuroishi Izumis Laboratory at
Aoyama Gakuin University, based
on their volunteering activities
and workshop participation in
Kesennuma in 2012 and 2013.
Project presented at Gen-Fukei
(Original Landscape) Exhibition
in ACL hall in Tokyo in Nov. 2013.
Supported by the Research Institute
of Aoyama Gakuin University,
Obayashi Construction Research
Fund.
7_2
Resilience in Peoples Lifestyle:
Finding Locus in the Culture of
Food and Home
Students: Matsudo Keidai, Yokose
Megumi, Mitome Natsumi, Someya
Asami
Cover Images
4_1, 4_3, 4_4, 4_5
20
Student work conducted by
Kuroishi Izumis Laboratory at
Aoyama Gakuin University, based
on their volunteering activities
and workshop participation in
Kesennuma in 2011, 2012 and 2013.
Project presented at RiasArc
Museum Kesennuma in 2013.
Supported by the Tohoku Fund of
the Ministry of Agriculture, Research
Institute of Aoyama Gakuin
University, GBFund by Association
for Corporate Support of the Arts.
7_3
CommuniTea
Students: Stephanie Farah, Hayashi
Natsuki, Anze Zadel
Student work conducted in
Japanese Design and Urban
Culture from the Edo to post
3.11 Japan class taught by Jilly
Traganou, Parsons The New School
for Design, Spring 2013. Project
presented in the Red Hook Festival,
June 2013. Supported by Urban
Festival, The New School.