The creative team from the Okolo group presents an expanded version of the exhibition At a Crossroads: Interwar Architecture in Japan, which was created earlier this year for the Winternitz Villa. The exhibition is based on Štěch’s own research in Japan and detailed photographic documentation, combined with the graphic design and exhibition architecture of his colleagues Matěj Činčera and Jan Kloss.

The exhibition presents diverse examples of interwar Japanese modernist residential architecture, whose main theme was primarily the interweaving of Japanese architectural and cultural traditions with new avant-garde influences coming from Europe and the USA. All the houses featured are very different examples of Japanese modernism, in which the imaginary clash and synthesis of East and West are simultaneously manifested in various ways.

This stems from the country’s overall historical development. The interwar period, in fact, followed the preceding Meiji era (1868–1912), when the empire underwent rapid modernization with the support of Western powers. This was followed by the Taishō period (1912–1926) and subsequently the long Shōwa era of Emperor Hirohito, who ascended to the throne in 1926 and reigned until 1989. The interwar period is generally characterized, on the one hand, by Japan’s aggressive imperial policy and, on the other, by the overall modernization and initial Westernization of society and institutions.

In the field of architecture, the first modernist pioneers began designing modernist houses influenced by European and American modernism as early as the 1920s. These included architects such as Sutemi Horiguchi, Iwao Yamawaki, Koji Fujii and Kameki and Nobuko Tsuchiuro. The influence of major figures such as Frank Lloyd Wright from the USA and Henri Rapin from France was also significant. The exhibition deliberately avoids the work of Czech architects Jan Letzel and Antonín Raymond, whose significant activities in Japan are, after all, better known in our country.

Several additional panels were created for the Semler Residence, expanding the theme of residential architecture to include public and residential projects of early Modernism and Art Deco.