A home for Japanese modernism

A house can be modern without abandoning
where it came from. With his own home,
architect Kunio Maekawa showed how.

In the early 1940s, Japanese modernist architect Kunio Maekawa was wrestling with Japanese identity, wondering how a building could be both modern and Japanese. When designing Maekawa House, he filtered the modernist ideas he’d learned from Le Corbusier and Frank Lloyd Wright through a Japanese lens. The home’s open plan, simple forms, and close relationship to the outdoors reflect a new way of living while remaining deeply connected to his heritage.