LIVING Modernity: Experiments in the Exceptional and Everyday 1920s–1970s

Beginning in the 1920s, architects including Le Corbusier and Mies van der Rohe explored new residential designs with function and comfort in mind. Their experimental visions and innovative ideas eventually intersected with everyday life, greatly reshaping people’s lifestyles.

This exhibition focuses on seven dimensions of modern houses: hygiene, materials, windows, kitchen, furnishings, media, and landscape. Approximately 14 masterworks of residential architecture spanning the world will be presented in detail through photographs and drawings, sketches, models, furniture, textiles, tableware, magazines, graphics, and films.

The modernity of this residential architecture in this exhibition continues to resonate today, offering an opportunity to reflect on our own living spaces and ways of living.

Exhibition highlights
The house: an exhibition emerging from our everyday lives
A house consisting of a living room and kitchen at the center of the floor plan, equipped with comfortable sanitary facilities and separate rooms for family members may seem to be common today. Historically, this is a relatively new type of housing that gained popularity along with the nuclear family becoming the norm after World War II. Single family houses spreading widely in the 20th century shaped a variety of lifestyles, strongly reflecting the ideals of the residents. This exhibition revisits the pillars of our everyday life through 14 exceptional residential projects, shedding light on the 1920s to 1970s when innovative housing design spread across the globe.

Master architects’ passion towards the home
The houses showcased in this exhibition are by renowned architects who designed on both large and human scales. As leading architects of the era, they had a deep interest in everyday life at the heart of their creativity. Many of the featured projects are the architects’ residences, serving as the ideal space for experimenting with new architectural concepts. From their meticulous attention to even the smallest details, we catch glimpses of their pursuit of functionality and comfort as well as their genuine appreciation for the joy and delight of living.

A rich assemblage of works and images from Japan and the world
This exhibition brings together a rare and exceptional collection of works spanning the globe, including the United States, Europe, Brazil, and Japan. The exhibition features original, rarely exhibited drawings by the architects such as Mies van der Rohe and Alvar Aalto in addition to architectural drawings, models and photographs of both exteriors and interiors. Furniture and household items designed for their residential projects, along with films, will also be on display. The exhibition offers a comprehensive reexamination of re through these diverse works and images.

A centenary of modern houses and iconic furniture and lighting still in use today
The housing designs featured in this exhibition, along with the chairs, tables, and lighting designed by the architects to complement these homes, remain strikingly “modern” even by today’s standards. Many of these pieces of furniture and fixtures are still in production and use today. Behind these masterworks, which we often encounter in our daily lives, lie the timeless, universal questions that architects and designers have posed about function and form

Realizing a Mies van der Rohe unbuilt courtyard house at full scale
Following the exhibition in Special Exhibition Gallery 1E on the first floor, the 8-meter-high Special Exhibition Gallery 2E on the second floor will feature a full-scale reproduction of Mies van der Rohe’s “Row House” project (1931) as part of his ongoing courtyard house series. Visitors will also be able to explore an immersive experience showcasing iconic contemporaneous furniture, along with a virtual reality experiential installation. Additionally, we will hold lectures and more events in the second-floor gallery. The second floor, including the opportunity to experience Row House , will be free and open to all visitors.

14 residential masterpieces
Le Corbusier, Villa “Le Lac”, 1923; Koji Fujii, Chochikukyo, 1928; Mies van der Rohe, Tugendhat House, 1930; Pierre Chareau, Maison de Verre, 1932; Kameki Tsuchiura, Tsuchiura Kameki House, 1935; Lina Bo Bardi, Casa de Vidro, 1951; Kenji Hirose, SH-1, 1953; Alvar Aalto, Murtala Experimental House, 1953; Jean Prouve, Jean Prouve’s House in Nancy, 1954; Eero Saarinen, Alexander Girard, Dan Kiley, Miller House, 1957; Kiyonori and Norie Kikutake, Sky House, 1958; Pierre Koenig, Case Study House #22, 1959; Louis Kahn, Fisher House, 1967; Frank Gehry, Frank & Berta Gehry House, 1978

Related symposium “LIVING Modernity: Past, Present, Future”
To commemorate the opening of “LIVING Modernity: Experiments in the Exceptional and Everyday 1920s-1970s,” the National Art Center, Tokyo will hold the international symposium, “LIVING Modernity: Past, Present, Future.” The exhibition reconsiders innovative attempts in housing design beginning in the 20th century from seven perspectives that shape the modern house: hygiene, materials, windows, kitchens, furnishings, media, and landscape.

The symposium presents key researchers/curators of the exhibition’s featured 14 masterworks from Japan and the world.  They will consider how the architects’ experiments beginning a century ago continue to shape living today and how their visions of modern houses may be passed on to the next generation. This symposium offers the opportunity to examine these questions from multiple perspectives of architect, client, and conservator.

Date: Thursday, March 20, 2025
Time: 2–5pm (doors open at 1:30pm)
Venue: The National Art Center, Tokyo, 3rd Floor Auditorium
Free admission for LIVING Modernity exhibition ticket holders.
Organized by The National Art Center, Tokyo

Speakers
Ken Tadashi Oshima (Exhibition Guest Curator, Professor of Architecture at the University of Washington); Patrick Moser (Curator of Villa “Le Lac” Le Corbusier); Akira Matsukuma (Representative Director of Chochikukyo Club); Atsuko Tanaka (Architectural historian, Part-time lecturer of Kanagawa University); Marcelo Carvalho Ferraz (Architect, Former Director of Bardi Institute); Timo Riekko (Chief Curator, Alvar Aalto Foundation); Kiwa Matsushita (Architect, Professor at Shibaura Institute of Technology); Kei Sasaki (Exhibition Associate Curator, Assistant Professor of Architecture at Tokyo Institute of Technology (2019–24))