Sei'ichi Shirai and subjective method of synthesis

Abstract

If modernism in architecture is based on a rational, objective approach, Sei'ichi Shirai was a unique architect who created his own subjective value system, which resulted in isolating him from the modern movement. Educated both in Japan and in Europe, Shirai incorporated what he saw as the existential quality of western architecture into his own original designs. His subjective judgement guided the choice of trans-cultural and transhistorical architectural elements, and arranged them in a dialectic manner. This thesis examines Shirai's designs in the terms of their internal conflicts with tradition, such as those of Egypt and Greece, Shintoism and Buddhism, Jo-mon and Yayoi, and stone masonry and wood carpentry. The attitude was quite different from that of so-called modern architects, since Shirai did not deal with systematic spatial integration. Shirai's architecture emerged like an inevitable creation that was destined to exist. As a result, proponents of modernism who think of architecture in the context of the environment and who create space analytically in terms of functions and compositions, failed to appreciate his efforts. His work has the quality of so-called Post Modern architecture already in the 1950s, but his insights, being too early, failed to win him wide recognition.