３月１０日（日曜日）２０２４
パナソニック汐留美術館で開かれた、建築家、フランク・ロイド・ライト(1867-1959)の展示会に行きました。FLライトは日本では帝国ホテルなどを手がけたことで知られるアメリカ近代建築の巨匠です。
自然の地形に呼応する様々な建築物が７つのテーマに分けて解説、写真、図面で分かりやすく展示されていました。浮世絵のモチーフや構図が使われていたり、横の線が印象的な建築は耐久性にも強く関東大震災にも耐え、美術的、文化的、構造的に今日の課題と共鳴して、建築の専門家から一般の人まで大変注目され会場は入場券を手にいれるのが難しいほどの盛況振りでした。
今回は米国の５万点を超える資料が調査研究され、日米共同で整理編集された結果で、この展示の企画編集者としてワシントン大学建築学部教授のケン・タダシ・オオシマ氏の名前が大きく出ています。実はオオシマ教授は私が米国H大学で日本語の仕事を始めた時の学生で、以来欠かさず季節の挨拶を送ってくれています。今回の展示会の入場券も特別に美術館の方を通して手配してくれました。大村理恵子館長によるとオオシマ先生は日米建築交流史のエキスパートとして関係者の尊敬を集めておられ人望の厚い方とのこと。
今回の展示でFLライトの勉強を少しできたことと、立派な先生になられたオオシマさんを誇りに思えたことは大きな喜びです。
I went to an exhibition of Frank Lloyd Wright ((1867-1959) at Panasonic Shiodome Museum in Tokyo. F.L. Wright was a great American modern architect who is famous for designing the Imperial Hotel in Japan.
Various architectures by Wright which adapted to the natural terrain were divided in seven themes, and well exhibited with explanations, photos and beautiful blueprints. Wright collected many Ukiyoe (Japanese wood prints in Edo period) and got many inspirations from them in his motif and composition. I was impressed by his horizontal lines. It is such a beautiful and tough structure which withstood the Great Kanto Earthquake in 1923. Artistically, culturally and structurally, Wright's work addresses current issues, so the exhibition got people's attention from architects to common people and the museum was so crowded that you couldn't get tickets to enter easily.
According to the brochure, more than 50,000 documents and materials in the US were researched and organized by people from both US and Japan. Dr. Ken Tadashi Oshima, Professor/Director of History Theory, Deprt. of Architecture of Univ. of Washington, is the person who planned and curated this exhibition. As a matter of fact, he was a student of my Japanese class at Harvard a long time ago, and he took care of my ticket to visit the exhibition. Ms. Emiko Omura of the Panasonic Museum, said to me that Prof. Oshima is an expert in the Architecture History of Japan-U.S. Exchange, and he is respected by many related people as a warm, trustworthy person.
I am grateful to learn about F.L.Wright in this exhibition and to know that Oshima-san became such a respectable professor, and I am very proud of him.
