Essay

Restored to life

By Karen Severns

During the six tumultuous years that Frank Lloyd Wright lived off and on in Tokyo (1917-1922), he poured his prodigious creativity into the Imperial Hotel. It would remain, as the many decades of his career passed, his largest and most complex project. But America's greatest architect also designed over a dozen other buildings for Japan, and the Imperial was not his only design to survive the 1923 Kanto Earthquake.

With construction of the hotel under way in 1920, Wright accepted a commission for a new girl's school in Mejiro, Tokyo. It was to be called Jiyu Gakuen, or School of the Free Spirit, typifying the liberalism of the era. The school's founders, Motoko and Yoshikazu Hani, were progressive journalists who wanted to prepare girls to be more productive and self-reliant.

Wright was introduced to the Hanis by his righthand man, Arata Endo, and the two architects collaborated so closely on the design that the final plans were signed by both of them — the first time Wright had ever shared credit. Built in a style evoking Wright's Prairie houses, Jiyu Gakuen featured a central section with double-height volume, and soaring windows facing south onto an open courtyard, embraced by symmetrical wings on the east and west.

The school outgrew its Tokyo location in 1929, and moved to a new campus in a western suburb. The original building was renamed "Myonichikan," and became the center of alumni activities. This continued until the mid-1980s, when it literally began to crumble from age. The cost of desperately needed repairs was no longer tenable, yet without them, Myonichikan had become a safety hazard.

At the same time, Japan's economic bubble had turned Myonichikan's lot into a potential goldmine — the land beneath the building was valued at a staggering $240 million (¥30 billion at that time). The solution seemed simple: Myonichikan had to go. Never mind its cultural value, the commercial value of the land made a sale impossible to resist.

But fans of the Wright building were legion, and for nearly 10 years, they fought to save Myonichikan from demolition. After the failure to save Wright's Imperial Hotel 25 years earlier, the preservationists were determined not to lose this time. Finally, the Japanese government revised its criteria for designating Important Cultural Properties, allowing historic buildings to be used in new ways, as they already were in Europe and America.

In 2001, after two years of restoration work, Myonichikan, now an Important Cultural Property, reopened as a public venue. It has been fully booked for banquets, parties, concerts and weddings ever since — proving beyond a doubt that beautiful old buildings can find vibrant new lives if we give them the chance.

Shukan ST: Sept. 26, 2008

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