学術雑誌論文

本学関連学会

text

The Journal of the Asian Conference of Design History and Theory. 2016, 1, p. 85-94

Kosei and Zokei Education : Bauhaus and the Formation of Kuwasawa Design School

Ikegami, Hidehiro

Osaka University Graduate School of Letters

英語

text

2016-03

Theme III : Design Education after the Bauhaus

The Bauhaus movement had a significant impact in Japan. Based on the advice of Takehiko Mizutani, who had studied in Dessau, Renshichiro Kawakita established the Shin Kenchiku Kogei Kenkyu Koshu-jo [School for Modern Architecture and Craft]. Education at this school included expressionist style content such as visualizing the sound when a washbowl is beaten. The course content by Kawakita adopted undoubtedly the educational methods, created by Johannes Itten at the Bauhaus of Weimar era. Kawakita published Kosei Kyoiku Taikei [Compendium of Kosei education] in 1934, which contributed to spread widely the concept of kosei kyoiku in Japan. Yoko Kuwasawa, pupil of Kawakita and future founder of Kuwasawa Design Kenkyu-jo [Kuwasawa Design School], joined this project as a main editor. This study aims to clarify the philosophy behind Kuwasawa Design School and of its founder Kuwasawa, focusing on their role in promoting Bauhaus acceptance in Japan. Although Kawakita’s kosei kyoiku was fundamentally based on Mizutani’s kosei kiso kyoiku (corresponded to the first year course of Bauhaus), Kawakita considered Mizutani’s method as an “abstract kosei”. Nonetheless, Kawakita strongly intended to integrate the two different education styles of Bauhaus (Itten’s expressionist style and Moholy-Nagy’s rationalist style) and to systematize all concepts under his own almighty sensationalism. In the same way, although it was Kawakita who directly taught her the concept of Bauhaus(-like) education, Yoko Kuwasawa did not inherit Kawakita’s kosei kyoiku in the same form. On the other hand, a critic and educator Masaru Katsumi chose the term zokei instead of “design” or kosei, when he established Zokei Kyoiku Center. In 1954, Yoko Kuwasawa established Kuwasawa Design School and one of the core members Katsumi called it as “Japanese version of Bauhaus”. He expressed his joy when Gropius evaluated the school positively. The educational philosophy of Bauhaus, during the stage of its acceptance in Japan, underwent various trials and errors. The activities of Kuwasawa can be defined and evaluated as follows. 1) Her attitude of strongly desiring to connect daily life and design laid the groundwork for the active acceptance of the policy of Katsumi, Moholy-Nagy and so on, even if these two had differing opinions. 2) The Itten-like expressionist style method by Kawakita impressed her. 3) When she established Kuwasawa Design School, she adopted both trends. 4) At the beginning, she established the school mainly for fashion design, but from the second year, the school began to push further in terms of its synthetic and rationalistic character.

10.18910/90887

90887

Kosei and Zokei Education : Bauhaus and the Formation of Kuwasawa Design School

Ikegami, Hidehiro

Osaka University Graduate School of Letters

英語

2016-03

The Journal of the Asian Conference of Design History and Theory

1

85

94

https://hdl.handle.net/11094/90887

10.18910/90887

https://doi.org/10.18910/90887