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2015.09.01

Series | Old Drawings Journey No. 06

Drawings classified as "organization drawings" (excerpt)

Kazunori Nomura

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The old drawing research group has finally sorted the drawings for the Taisho period. They spent a year on the large number of Mitsubishi Building No. 21, and are about three-quarters done on the Mitsubishi Temporary Headquarters (Building No. 22). Their eyes were caught by a suspicious drawing bag labeled "Sort Drawings." They were shocked when they opened it, and found a collection of traced elevations from Building No. 1 (1894) to Building No. 20 (1911), and Naka Building No. 10 No. 9 (1919). What were these made for? They were made by Yasuoka Katsuya, as they roughly correspond to the period up until his departure, or perhaps they were sorted after the Great Kanto Earthquake (around September 1923), as there are drawings from the time of the 4th floor extension of Naka Building No. 8 (formerly Building No. 12) (December 1923). They tried to place the elevations in their positions. They had been told before that the buildings were "symmetrical with Naka-dori at the center," but seeing them like this is really interesting. This trend began with Buildings 6 and 7, the last project undertaken by Tatsuzo Sone (Yasuoka was his subordinate at the time). Building 9 (A and B) is two buildings, but they are combined with Building 8, which was a single building that stood opposite each other, and Buildings 14 and 15 are separate buildings, but there is only one blueprint for them. The symmetrical shape of Nakadori Street is a 250m-long streetscape completed by Yasuoka Katsuya, who was involved since his days under Sone and showed his skills as chief engineer. Is there any other organization that could do such a designer? And after this, Sakurai Kotaro finally appears with Building 21.

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Kazunori Nomura

Kazunori Nomura

When I appreciate architecture or cities, I try to remove any sense of expertise and look at them as a natural human being, just like how we can appreciate delicious food without any need for explanation.

Update : 2015.09.01

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