by Cara Curtis
Life in Japan following World War 2 is the focal point of a new exhibition at the Barbican Centre.
Titled ‘The Japanese House: Architecture and Life after 1945’ and curated by Florence Ostende, it explores Japanese culture and architecture from a period in time that produced some of the world’s most influential architecture. The era also taught people across the globe about easy living with contemporary design.
By following this exhibition clock-wise, you’ll experience the real homes of those in Japan with small life-like houses built within the exhibition. It’s all Chinese Money Plants and minimal living. These full-furnished homes show the culture of the Japanese as they live minimally and purely with only the bare essentials, such as greenery for mental health and white walls for relaxation.
Alongside these life-like homes, there is also a built-up Japanese tree house and garden designed by Terunobu Fujimoro. This part of the exhibition explores the art of ‘zen’, which means to find inner self through relaxation stemming from the surrounding environment.
The Japanese way of living brings in some of the outdoors into the indoors, with plants in every available space to boost mental health and to simply improve the air. That’s because studies have found that plants can absorb pollution in the living space.
Chloe Walsh, who visited this exhibition said: “It’s incredibly interesting to really experience the Japanese way of living. The way you can walk through these homes and really look closely into their choice of design is giving me some interior design inspiration.”
Visitors to the exhibition may lose a sense of time as they walk through the history of Japan and see the evolution of their living standards, sparked after the Second World War. As the war closed to an end, Tokyo and the surrounding areas were left devastated from bombings. There was a surge for new homes after thousands were left homeless after the war had torn the city down.
Building more homes on such an immediate timeframe meant that houses had to be sustainable and cheap. This is when the single-family house became the foremost site for architectural and experimentation debate. These houses were simple and efficient; to reduce the cost of electrical lighting they simply installed more windows to allow natural lights, and the rooms were open plan to reduce the cost of infrastructure. At the same time, this design simply boosted the family value by allowing members to spend more time together.
The exhibition brings this era to life, through people who experienced it. Televisions stream life in Japan, including interviews with locals in the suburbs of Tokyo who live in houses that inspired the replicas in the exhibition.
These simple styles and designs that came after the war are still in use to this day – promoting the family values and the meaning of life, which is simply to relax.
This exhibition is ongoing until June 25th 2017. Cost: £14.50.
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