• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
• /
• v.15 no.5
• /
• pp.3176-3182
• /
• 2014

In the early 1920s Japan, a new concept of architecture emerged abruptly. Comprised of six new college graduates, Japanese Secessionist Architects, so called Bunriha Kenchikukai, proclaimed that they reject any historical baggage that Japan had so far inherited, and decided to build a brand new way for modern Japanese architecture. Their modernism differed from eclectic measurement done by earlier generations. For them, contemporary modern Japanese architecture was only copious to historic monuments of Western civilization. Bunriha architects' statement not only advocates an escape from nationalist historicism and Westernization, but also intends to resolve the dilemma in that it substitutes a technical syncretism inherent in all avant-garde movements. This paper intends to elucidate that Japanese Secessionist architecture is greatly indebted to German Expressionist architecture in terms of its formal language and avant-garde utopian idealism.