The Architecture Shelf

Uncrating the Japanese House
Yuka Yokoyama, editor
William Whitaker, editor
Elizabeth Felicella, photographer
August Editions
c/o Distributed Art Publishers
155 Sixth Avenue, 2nd floor, New York, NY 10013-1507
www.artbook.com
9781947359093, $45.00, HC, 144pp

https://www.amazon.com/Uncrating-Japanese-House-Yoshimura-Nakashima/dp/1947= 359096

Synopsis: In 1953, Japanese architect Junzo Yoshimura designed a now-classi=
c Japanese house and garden that he called Shofuso. It was built in Nagoya,=
Japan, and shipped to New York in 1954, where it was exhibited at the Muse=
um of Modern Art and then relocated to Philadelphia's Fairmount Park. The c= urators of MoMA's House in the Garden exhibition highlighted its synthesis =
of historic Japanese architecture with modern architecture: the clarity of = the house's post and beam structure, its flexibility of use and the close r= elationship of indoor and outdoor spaces.

"Uncrating the Japanese House: Junzo Yoshimura, Antonin and Noemi Raymond, = and George Nakashima" is an extensively illustrated volume that centers on = Yoshimura's design for Shofuso and two allied sites located in New Hope, Bu= cks County, Pennsylvania: Raymond Farm (1939-41), a live-work residence bui=
lt by Antonin and Noemi Raymond within the fabric of an existing 18th-centu=
ry Quaker farmhouse; and Nakashima Studios, a complex of structures designe=
d by George Nakashima over three decades (1947 - 77) to serve his furniture= -making business and as his family's home. Each site, in its own way, is th=
e embodiment of the personal relationships and cross-cultural collaboration=
s among this group of architects and designers.

The Raymonds, along with Yoshimura, Nakashima and others, came to understan=
d Japan's changing environment through the act of building, through collabo= ration and travel. Together, they extended these lessons into the furniture=
and furnishings of modern living in both Japan and the United States.

"Uncrating the Japanese House: Junzo Yoshimura, Antonin and Noemi Raymond, = and George Nakashima" documents an exhibition of objects and ephemera mount=
ed at Shofuso. New York - based architectural photographer Elizabeth Felice= lla captures each site in a portfolio of newly commissioned images. Essays =
by Ken Tadashi Oshima and William Whitaker, illustrated with historical pho= tographs, family snapshots and architectural drawings, further elucidate th=
is important chapter in the history of modern architecture and design.

Critique: Collaborative compiled and co-edited by the team of Yukoyama and = William Whitaker, and profusely illustrated throughout with the full color = photography of Elizabeth Felicella, "Uncrating the Japanese House: Junzo Yo= shimura, Antonin and Noemi Raymond, and George Nakashima" is a unique, info= rmative, and unreservedly recommended addition to personal, professional, c= ommunity, and academic library Architectural Studies collections and supple= mental curriculum studies lists.

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