Word: kagawa
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Childhood Memories. In his 17 years in office, Kaneko has turned the out-of-the-way, largely agricultural prefecture of Kagawa into an architectural showplace and art center, and he has become ,known far and wide as the "design chiji [governor]." For the Takamatsu library, he brought in Yoshinobu Ashihara, architect for Japan's pavilion at Expo 67. Professor Junzo Yoshimura, original architect of Emperor Hirohito's new palace in Tokyo, managed the restoration of the exquisite Moon-Scooping Pavilion, built by Matsudaira...
Kaneko is proudest that he snared Japan's leading architect, Kenzo Tange, 53, to design his Kagawa prefectural headquarters, which is considered even finer than Tange's Tokyo city hall, and Takamatsu's new gymnasium (see color). For the latter. Architect Tange called on his childhood memories of Japan's traditional, majestic wooden barges ("Takamatsu, after all, is a city by the sea"). Building it, with its cable-suspended roof and abutment-supported "bow" and "stern," proved a contractor's nightmare. Whenever the gripes seemed insurmountable, Kaneko cheerfully exhorted the workmen to "show us your...
...minds of the people." Though he has run into criticisms for extravagance, he devotes only 4% of the budget to architecture, keeps building expenses to a minimum-Tange's prefectural hall cost only $7.80 per square foot (v. $11.10 for his Tokyo city hall). The citizens of Kagawa seem to appreciate his philosophy. They have re-elected Kaneko to office by overwhelming majorities four times...
Died. Toyohiko Kagawa, 72, Japan's foremost Christian social worker, the son of a nobleman and his concubine, who was converted to Christianity at 15, went to live in the harrowing slums of Kobe where he contracted both tuberculosis and trachoma helping the poor; of a heart ailment; in Tokyo. Kagawa organized labor unions and cooperatives the length and breadth of Japan, bitterly denounced his government for attacking China, though he later supported the war against the U.S. He continued his good works among Japan's masses after the war in spite of opposition from the Communists...
...structure that comes closest to satisfying Tange's new ideal is his Kagawa Prefectural Office, completed last year. With its massive exposed beams rising in tiers, ceramic Zen symbols emblazoned on its walls, and a rock garden in the tradition of the Ryoanji Temple, it strikes an unmistakably Japanese note in the modern idiom of reinforced concrete. As well as recalling the past, Tange believes his building must also "make an image of our new social structure." For Tange this means the new democracy in which citizens are now invited to become part of the government. To welcome them...