short overview of Japanese history of architecture (postwar)

1. The first postwar generation of architects:

• Kemo Tange
• Kunio Maekawa
• Junzo Sakakura

There style was full of rationalism and modernism. Works represent the dilemma of how to establish a meaningful relationship between Japanese traditions and international modernity. "Weird" architecture or as Reyner Banham observed, "it would have been 'untinkable' in the west."

2. Metabolism movement 1960s~ with architects:

• Arata Isozaki
• Kisho Kurokawa
• Kiyonori Kikutake

Utopian urban visions driven by industrial technology and dominated by megastructuring, monumentalization, capsule and systemization.

3. New Wave movement 1970s~ (postmodernism) with architects, whose style different so much from their western postmodern counterparts (New Wave movement developed in significantly different ways in Japan than it did in Europe and America).

• Tadao Ando (severe minimalism)
• Fumihiko Maki (articulate contextualism)
• Minoru Takeyama (populism) 

Realization of the destructive capacity because of industrialization (worsening environmental and urban conditions). Architects aimed to explore unknown territories and explicit pro- or anti- urban sentiment.

4. Bubble economy and 1980s~ or the new golden age of Japanese architecture and design, with architects:

• Fumihiko Maki
• Kazuo Shinohara
• Tadao Ando
• Itsuko Hasegawa
• Yoshio Taniguchi
• Toyo Ito
• Riken Yamamoto

across-the-board experimentation; rediscovery and appreciation of the flexibility and volatile dynamics;

unlimited budgets to work with and unrestricted freedom to shape their buildings;

There were two groups distinct during the period: a highly innovative, world- class architects + the ones who pursued reckless proliferation of flamboyant, overly decorative, and often inferior, trivial, or kitschy designs (Shin Takamatsu, Kiho Mozuna, Atsushi Kitagawara).

References:
Kengo Kuma: selected works, by Botond Bagar.