Product Description

This is an illustrated exploration of the synthesis of the modern and traditional in the development of a highly original and influential contemporary living space design that is both progressive and innovative.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1371821 in Books
• Published on: 2001-03-28
• Original language: English
• Binding: Hardcover
• 132 pages

Donald Richie, The Japan Times
"... a thoughtful and beautifully realized essay on one of the ways in which the traditional manages to survive ..."

Andrew Barrie, Japan: People, Power & Opinion
"... will introduce a wide audience to an important, often innovative, and largely neglected sector of Japan's construction industry."

Donald Richie, The Japan Times
"It is a thoughtful and beautifully realized essay on one of the ways in which the traditional manages to survive in our untraditional times."

Customer Reviews

Excellent introduction to Japanese system housing
I was expecting a coffee table book on pretty Japanese manufactured houses, but was pleasantly surprised it had depth.

The book begins with a historical look at Japanese housing and the influences of society, aesthetics, and economics on today's housing market. It details the influences of government legislation on the rigid feudal class system; Japanese minimalism of the poor versus the ostentation of the aristocracy; and important events from the Edo period to today's ongoing recession.

Later on, it details the rise of system housing manufacturers, building techniques, and the sales process a family would undertake to purchase a home. While it does feature a few architectural one-offs, the authors discredits these as something mass market consumers have no interest in (no different than North America). Sidebars go into details on things like roofing materials, shoji screens, tatami matting, to bathroom design.

This book is the perfect beginning guide to Japanese manufactured system housing. To complain that this book is a sales brochure for Misawa would be like complaining that a book on cars has too many pictures of Cadillacs and Mercedes and not enough Dacias and Ladas. The pictures are very good, but I would have liked to see a wider variety of homes and interiors, but that can be easily done by picking up a Japanese housing consumer magazine like Plus 1 Housing.

Your basic [money amount]sales brochure
This book does provide a fairly interesting, if basic, overview of the modern Japanese home but ... it is also an expensive sales brochure for Misawa system built homes. Misawa provided photos for pages 1, 2, 3, 6-10, 25, 30, 31, 32, 33, 36, 38, 39, 41, 43, 44, 45, 48, 49, 50, 56, 57, 60-63, 68, 69, 76, 77, 78, 79, 82, 88, 89, 96, 97, 98, 99, 100, 101, 102, 104, 105, 106, 107, 110-118, 120-129. And Misawa is used as an example in the text on 12 pages.

Utterly wonderful and so informative
Because we are in the process of designing and building a Zen Danish (as we call it) new home I purchased this wonderful book in order to get some specific ideas. Of special interest are the Danish and Japanese choices in light hardwood floors, tatami mat floor coverings and window coverings like shoji screens which can be opened for full light during the day and closed for more privacy.

And the book does an excellent job in showing the value in smaller appliances like dishwashers for small families and the front loading or combo washer-dryer units which also take up less space and use less water. And the beautifully designed skylights.

The photography is wonderful and there are so many, along with informative texts on why certain elements work well, and what the future holds for design. The homes are so open and airy that they can be smaller and more environmentally friendly, and better than what I call the average American tract home that has so much wasted space.

I also like the whole sections on furniture and how the outside garden areas when designed well, become rooms that make the interior of the home look bigger as well. There is so much to be said about the way the Japanese blend style, high tech and spiritual into their home design.

If you are seriously interested in ideas for that one of a kind, high quality home that doesn't have to break the bank then this book may be of great value to you. It is not a book for the person who likes "average."