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Architects and Designers

Construction Bureau, Imperial Household Ministry

The Construction Bureau in the Imperial Household Ministry (now the Imperial Household Agency) was responsible for the design and management of construction of all structures and designs for imperial family use. Under the bureau head were three departments, Planning, Engineering, and Construction. The Engineering Department was subdivided into architecture, civil engineering, garden, and machinery sections. Each section included engineers, technicians, assistant technicians, and artisans. In total, more than a hundred people were involved in the construction of buildings.
For the Prince Asaka Residence, the architectural engineer Yōkichi Gondō (1895–1970), who had done research on architecture in t he West, was in charge of the basic overall design; he reported to Kōzō Kitamura (1877-1937), head of the Engineering Department. Gondō led a large group of outstanding engineers and artisans in working on the design. Other projects that the Construction Bureau also undertook in the same period include the Prince Chichibu Residence (1927), the Residence of Korean Crown Prince Yi Un (1929), and the Prince Takamatsu Residence (1931). It was also responsible for the final design of the Tokyo National Museum’s Honkan (design proposal by Watanabe Jin, 1937). The groundwork for the Prince As aka Residence, which integrated residential and office space and had a rectangular structure around an inner courtyard, can be seen in the Construction Bureau’s design for the Prince Higashifushimi Residence (1925).

Construction Bureau, Imperial Household Ministry

Henri Rapin(1873–1939)

Painter, interior decorator, designer.
After beginning his career as a painter, he gradually came to show his talents in the world of thedecorative arts. He was appointed artistic advisor to the Sèvres National Porcelain Manufactory and vice-chairman of the Association of Decorative Artists in 1924. He was in charge of the planning and design of a number of pavilions in the 1925 Art Deco Exposition.
Rapin created the interior design for severn rooms in the Prince Asaka Residence: the Great Hall, the Salon, the Small Drawing Room, the Anteroom, the Great Dining Hall, and the Prince’s Study and Sitting Room. While incorporating the work of artists who were his contemporaries and colleagues, he also created the wall paintings and designed the decorative fountain (the “Perfume Tower”), furniture, and other parts of the project. In doing so, he successfully created a harmonious Art Deco space.

Henri Rapin(1873–1939)

René Lalique

Jewelry designer and glass craftsman.
He was the leading jewelry designer of the Art Nouveau period, when he established his style, and he was highly acclaimed at the 1900 Paris Expo. Later he turned to working in glass. Using pressed glass and mold blowing techniques, which are suitable for mass production, he produced a wide variety of types of glass, from tableware to architectural materials. For the 1925 Art Deco expo, he built a glass fountain in the center of the exhibition area and his own pavilion beside it, building an unshakeable reputation as the leader who stood for Art Deco.
Lalique provided the chandeliers for the Prince Asaka Residence’s Salon (“Bucharest” chandeliers ) and Great Dining Hall (“Pineapple and Pomegranates” chandelier). He also created the Front Entrance Hall glass-relief doors, an original design exclusively for the residence. His initial design proposal depicted nude female figures, but, at the request of the Japanese side, he altered it to clothe them in robes; that process of change is recorded in his design drawings.

René Lalique

Ivan-Léon Alexandre Blanchot(1868–1947)

Sculptor and painter.
Having chosen an artistic career, Léon Blanchot quite his university to study sculpture at the École des Beaux-Arts in Bordeaux. In 1930, he joined the sculpture department of the Sèvres National Porcelain Manufactory and began teaching in its affiliated art school in 1933. He tutored Princess Nobuko in watercolors when she and the Prince were staying in Paris and was therefore invited to be involved in the building of their residence. A standing figure of Princess Nobuko created by Blanchot in 1925 is extant and gives us a glimpse of their relationship.
The marble relief in the Great Hall, entitled Children Playing, and the floral relief gracing the wall of the Great Dining Room can be seen in the Prince Asaka Residence today. His “BLANCHOT” signature can be seen on both.

Ivan-Léon Alexandre Blanchot(1868–1947)

Max Ingrand(1908‒1969)

Painter and glass craftsman.
 Ingrand produced works in glass for many interior design projects, with his name particularly linked to the interior decoration of Le Normandie and other luxury ocean liners. His early works
featured figural motifs taken from mythology and nature, but after World War II, he gradually turned to a simpler, more modern style. As France’s leading artist in the field of stained glass, he contributed to many churches. For the Prince Asaka Residence, Ingrand contributed the etched glass in the doors of the Salon and the Great Dining Hall.

Max Ingrand(1908‒1969)

Raymond Subes(1891‒1970)

An art ironworker, Subes created works characterized by graceful curves and geometric motifs. As a leading Art Deco artist, he worked on the interior decoration of luxury ocean liners and many buildings, producing handrails, partitions, door decorations and other ornamental fittings. He was also involved in decorating many of the pavilions at the 1925 Art Deco expo. The huge façade he produce for the Metal Pavilion at the 1937 Paris Expo earned him an unshakable reputation.
For the Prince Asaka Residence, Subes created the tympani (semicircular decorations) above the glass doors in the Salon.

Raymond Subes(1891‒1970)