ON THE DRAWINGS AND THE DOCUMENTS OF THE ARCHITECT KOZABURO KIGO (1874-1941) WHO HAD DEEP KNOWLEDGE BOTH OF JAPANESE ARCHITECTURE AND OF WESTERN ARCHITECTURE

1988 Fiscal Year Final Research Report Summary

• Project/Area Number: 62550447
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for General Scientific Research (C)
• Allocation Type: Single-year Grants
• Research Field: 建築史・建築意匠
• Research Institution: TOKYO INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY
• Principal Investigator: FUJIOKA Hiroyasu Associate Professor, Department of Architecture and Building Engineering, School of Engineering, TOKYO INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY, 工学部・建築学科, 助教授 (40100987)
• Project Period (FY): 1987 – 1988
• Keywords: Tradition / Japanese architecture / Western-style architecture / Residences in Modern Japan

Research Abstract

The architect Kozaburo Kigo (1874-1941) belonged to Kigo family, that had long served the Imperial family as carpenters. His father,Kiyoyoshi Kigo, was a carpenter, too, and designed the Imperial Palace built in 1888 in Japanese style and first taught Japanese traditional architecture at Tokyo Imperial University. Kozaburo Kigo studied at the Department of Architecture of Tokyo Imperial University and as an architect he worked for the Section for Building Crown Prince's Palace, the Architectural Section of the Imperial Household Agency under the instruction of the famous architect Tokuma Katayama. So, Kozaburo Kigo was very lucky to get both Japanese architectural knowledge and Western one. Besides, a large amount of his drawings, documents and photos preserved by him was presented to Tokyo Metropolitan Central Library by his third son Kiyotada Kigo in 1975 and has been held by it. This research concerns how he thought about relationship between the Japanese architectural tradition and the Western architectural ideas and style, by inspecting his drawings and other materials on houses.
The number of the materials is 11,652. Most of them are drawings. By delving into the contents, the dates on them, it can be said that they were working drawings for constructing buildings. Most of the buildings were designed by Kozaburo Kigo. He designed at least 23 houses. Most of them were for royal families and the extremely rich. Whem designing such houses, he himself took much time to determine from overall shape to details of furniture.
He seemed to make much of following traditional ways. He seldom combined Japanese and Western style in a room. To him, the Japanese and the Western should have existed separately. But in reception rooms which sometimes had Japanese traditional interior design with tables and chairs, he tried to search for a new way of giving life to Japanese traditional interior design in Western life style, by intentionally deviating from the traditional way of proportion such as heightning the ceilings.