Ozondah Design

Japanese-American Outside Space: Memory and History

2017-01-30T21:17:00.000-08:00

In the wake of the 1941 Japanese attack of Pearl Harbor the United States Government established Japanese Internment Camps and required the relocation of all people of Japanese decent living on the Pacific Coast. On February 19, 1942 President Franklin D. Roosevelt issued Executive Order 9066, which provided the guidelines and rational the subsequent internment of roughly one hundred and twenty thousand Japanese-Americans. In the far reaching deserts of the West rough military–like internment camps were constructed using military barracks organized into rows and blocks. For an undetermined amount of time these camps were to become the homes, businesses, school and church for most of the Japanese-Americans on the West Coast of the United States during World War II. Though their circumstances may have been bleak and many if not most were harshly treated the stories they share and the art work created provides evidence for the resiliency that any group of people can choose to have when placed under difficult conditions. This essay will examine the visual aspects of a traditional Japanese garden created in the Manzanar Camp located in central California and compare this garden with an acrylic on canvas painting by Roger Shimomura from 1978 as a later response to internment camp experience to show the importance of personal memory and the role of cultural traditions in the historical reconstruction of Japanese Internment Camp period.

In her book Visual Account of Loss, author Jane Dusselier examines the art made within the American-Japanese internment camps and the culture, and their trials, they represent. The author presents the American’s (of Japanese descent) as honest, respectable and hardworking people who were wrongly interred but still managed to make the best of the what they had. From this book figure 20 shows a monochrome photograph of modest yet traditionally arranged Japanese rock garden; similar gardens were common place throughout the ten internment camps. The interned gardener, though photographed, is undocumented by the photographer Dorothea Lange. Evidence for the location of the garden, Japanese internment camp, is provided by the tar paper clad military barracks stretching the whole width of the picture plane. The walls of the barracks show the exposed evenly spaced vertical wooden strips that hold up the long horizontal sheets of tar paper. Though unintentional on the part of the United States Military who constructed these barracks, this interplay between the vertical wooden strips and horizontal bands of black tar paper is visually reminiscent of the wooden lattice framework with translucent white paper panels of the Japanese shoji screen. The rocks and desert plant life is arranged in a pyramidal composition with a large Y shaped tree stump at it apex. The remainder of the composition consists of ten to fifteen large round and angular boulders with some in smaller clusters and some on their own. Intermingled in the boulders are a handful of desert vegetation and gnarled dry branches. In contrast to the rough edges of the dry shrubbery and rough rocks stands a pond of glassy water that provides a mirrored foundation for the overall composition. In the memory of a young Nisei fisherman, Mas Tanibata remembers his first views of the Manzanar Camp a “miserable place” however in time camp artists changed the landscape with such traditional Japanese gardening techniques, adapted to the dry desert climate that Tanibata would later say “these gardens made the camp beautiful.”¹

The memory of the internment camp experience that this photographed gardener or Mas Tanibata lived is far different than that of artist Roger Shimomura. Though Shimomura was interned as a toddler with the rest of his family the memories he embeds into his art are supported by the written histories of his grandmother.

Roger Shimomura's Minidoka, No. 1 (Notification) from 1978 depicts a traditional patriarchal Japanese, in this case Japanese-American, family as they receive the notification from the United States Governments ordering them to forsake their belongings and be transported to relocation camps. A wide range of emotions are presented in the forms of the family members. The fleshy limbs of an innocent toddle, Shimomura himself, cling to the billowing folds of his mothers salmon and lilac colored kimono. The shocked mother's loose limp body, while hidden in clothing, is evident by her bent knees and upward arching arms held up by her two female, similarly curvilinear, companions. In contrast to the downtrodden women the rounded forms of the men, particularly the two foremost, present emotions of both anger and the sturdiness of a family patriarch. The largest figure in this acrylic on canvas painting is an elderly Japanese man, who's aged eyes are deeply focused of a large white paper scroll. The wrinkles in his round face are constructed from thin black lines, to create a wavy aged brow, crowfeet eyes and low sagging jowls. These simple black line details not only help in the patriarchal narrative but also harken back to the traditional art of Japanese wood block printing. Behind the wrinkled face of the grandfather stands a smooth faced mature male, possibly Shimomura's father, his shoulders are angled and his right arm shoots to the sky it fury over the notification. Other characters in the painting, such as a mature man looking fore-longingly at the iconic Mount Fuji in the distance or the woman on a simple geometric wooden patio while another peeks out from a shoji-like glass sliding door, instill the concept of the family unit and this lives displaced as a result of the War Relocation Act. Much on the constructed space in this painting is made up of grid-works, the yellow and brown tatami floor mats and the wooden patio balustrade are not unlike the tar paper background in the image of the Mazanar Garden. This historical aesthetic is made even more evident in later paintings by Shimomura as the tar-papered barracks actually take the form of a shoji screen such an Enemy Alien #2 from 2006 providing further evidence of the revived interest of later generations of Japanese-Americans toward the internment camps through the process of art. In the essay Internment and Identity in Japanese American Art by Kristine Kuramitsu the author explains that though Shimomura had no direct memories of his time in camp the process of interpreting his grandmothers dairies into acrylic painting helped him understand his own history.²

In comparing these two mutually exclusive works it is important to consider the time gap between the creation of each. While one depicts the interned Japanese making the best of life though surround by the conditions of the bleak camp and the other depicts a time just before the creation of the camps but created long after their closing both attempt to reconcile the memory of the tragic period.³

This idea of the links and gaps between history and memory is again seen in Mine Okubo's Citizen 13660, a compilation of sketches drawn during the artists time in camp and then later captioned with her memories of this time. Like Shimomura, Okubo's ink-and-pen drawings use humor and graphic narration to smoothly integrate the larger themes that surround the interment camps.⁴ The visual aspects of the documentary style photograph of a traditional Japanese garden and Shimomura's Minidoka, No. 1 (Notification) both demonstrate the importance of personal memory and the role of cultural traditions in the historical reconstruction of Japanese Internment Camp period.

1Jane Dusselier (2008), “Visual Account of Loss,” pp. 1-13; “Remaking Inside Places,” pp. 14-50; “Re-territorializing Outside Spaces,” pp. 51-88

2Kristine Kuramitsu (1995), “Internment and Identity in Japanese American Art,” pp. 619-658

3Marita Sturken (1997), “Absent Images of Memory: Remembering and Reenacting the Japanese Internment,” pp. 687-707

4Xiaojing Zhou (2007), “Spatial Construction of the ‘Enemy Race:’ Miné Okubo’s Visual Strategies in Citizen 13660,” pp. 51-73

Southwest Christian Seminary - Part 3

2017-01-16T09:55:00.000-08:00

The relationship between the interior and exterior continues in the web-like garden, with a grassy arbor on the east side and garden on the west side of the chapel section. Acting as a mental extension of the interior chapel the outdoor space is made up of ten more triangular columns, now fully circumlocutory. The shape of these unique columns in plan view is that of geometrically triangular star polygons, or concave equilateral hexagon, that tapers towards the ground. Each column is adorned with concentric triangular forms, continuing the trinity motif. Each of the exterior concrete columns is connected in a web-like pattern by horizontal concrete slabs for a roof-like structure for the arbor. This roof-life structure acts as a continuation of the stepped blue roof that dominates the composition.
The space created by these heavy concrete columns and roof-like structure is both intimate and free-flowing, both spacious and human scale. One can feel both the security and firmness of the structure and also easily look beyond the structure to the heavens above. The grassy arbor to the west is uniform and almost maze-like, while the east side garden, not part of the original design, is structured around a water fountain which faces toward the chapel wall. This water feature and large concrete paving stones create an enclosure to the otherwise exterior space.
To Wright Organic-Architecture did not simply means "of nature," but rather that the design feels natural in the space. The principles of Organic-Architecture are embodied into the design of the First Christian Church of Phoenix through the building’s relationship to its landscape, in the variety of ways the building harmonizes with the nature of its materials, natural and geometric form and the use of a natural spectrum of colors. Like his own beloved Taliesin West Wright utilized locally harvested natural materials, dramatic roof lines and a playful interaction between inside and outside space to create a space which is aesthetically completely different from his earlier Prairie Style, yet both clearly reflect his architectural philosophies that would make him one of the celebrated architects in history.

Southwest Christian Seminary - Part 2

2017-01-13T09:54:00.000-08:00

The church's dominating diamond-shaped stair-stepped ridged blue roof, triangular pillars and the use of a construction method that Wright called “desert masonry” combine to make the First Christian Church a rare example of Wright's Organic-Architecture in the Arizona desert. Awarded Wright's red signature tile upon completion, the First Christian Church sits on the corner of Glendale and 7th Avenue. As with the highly stylized flower motif in the Hollyhock House of 1922 and the round motif found at the Johnson Wax Administration Build of 1939, Wright repeated a triangle, and diamond, motif throughout the design for the First Christian Church. The triangle motif was used to represent the Holy Trinity and to encourage worshipers to look to the heavenly realms. The largest section of the building houses the congregation chapel. This section's exterior is dominated by a sprawling diamond-shaped roof, painted blue-green to mimic the appearance of the oxidized copper roof of Wright's original design. This section of the roof is almost tortoise-shell or scale-like with large triangular or saw-tooth clerestory windows along one ridge that increase in size and culminate at an angular spire at the roof's center. These clerestory windows are infused with stained glass, which at midday shine in a variety of blues, reds, and greens. Though still ridged, copper-like and low pitched, the other roof sections over the two-story classrooms and auxiliary space are not nearly as dramatic and help to emphasize the chapel section. The triangle form continues as a decorative motif along the thick fascia of the deep roof overhang.

Below the dominating mass of the roof structure are angled walls made from the large string of smooth curtain windows, flat unadorned concrete and rough stone walls making the body of the structure. The large curtain windows allow natural Arizona sunlight to flood the chapel. between these sets of glass are twenty large triangular columns, these columns start the pattern that moves toward the exterior garden and arbor spaces. The remainder of the structure is a steel frame clad in Wright's own technique called "desert masonry," unique in that the twenty tons large slabs of flat-faced stones were harvested from the 600 acres that surround the Taliesin West complex. These rough walls were created by methodically adding each stone into the makeup of the concrete forms as the concrete was poured. The desert masonry walls are also used to create jutting triangular second story patios, stairways, and the angled bell tower.

Photo Copyrights: Ben Pearson

Southwest Christian Seminary - Part 1

2017-01-11T09:43:00.000-08:00

In 1949 Frank Lloyd Wright designed a large complex using his own principles of Organic-Architecture and building technique learned in the construction of his own Taliesin West (1937, Scottsdale, AZ) for the Southwest Christian Seminary in Glendale, AZ. Because of financial hardship on the part of the Seminary, the complex was never constructed in Wright's lifetime. Reverend William Speas Boice of the First Christian Church in Phoenix was a follower of Wright's architecture since his days as a soldier in World War II, and though Wright had been dead for over a decade Reverend Boice wanted his new congregational building to be built using the plans for the Southwest Christian Seminary. After a rigorous petition to the architect' s widow Olga Lloyd Wright and the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation, Reverend Boice and the First Christian Church broke ground for the new building in 1970. It was completed in 1972 and the bell tower added in 1978, twenty-nine years after it was originally designed.

Photo Copyrights: Ben Pearson

Frank Lloyd Wright

2017-01-09T09:43:00.000-08:00

In a 1952 article for Architectural Record magazine the self-proclaimed “greatest architect of all time,” Frank Lloyd Wright discusses, in his own cryptic way, Modern Architecture and that manner in which it is, or was at the time, falling into the “gutter of fashion.” Wright argues that the contemporary version of Modern Architecture is merely an offspring of his own Organic-Architecture and deviations run the risk of becoming styles—like the symmetrical brickwork of countless Georgian homes or the white stucco with dark brown half-timber of the Tudor homes.

Wright revered the American experience and believed that democracy was the best form of government. Throughout his life, he endeavored to create a new architecture that reflected the American democratic ideal, an architecture based solely on America's democratic values and human dignity. For Wright Organic-Architecture was far more than an aesthetic style, rather a new way to look at the structures in which society thrives. In a 1908 article for Architectural Record Wright lays out the integral parts of Organic-Architecture. One important attribute of Wright's principles of Organic-Architecture is a building’s relationship to its landscape, the nature of its materials, the use of a natural spectrum of colors.

The Aline Barnsdall Hollyhock House. East Hollywood, Los Angeles, California

Photo Copyrights: Ben Pearson

Modern Architecture

2017-01-09T09:22:00.000-08:00

Modern Architecture is a term used to describe architectural factions that were developed from the end of the nineteenth century until the present day. These styles could include Bauhaus, Art Moderne, Art Deco, Craftsman, Brutalism, International, Neo-historicism, Postmodernism, the Prairie Style and Organic-Architecture. The advancements of the Industrial Revolution, as well as global social and cultural changes, had brought to a growing and expanding world new ideas that contributed to the conditions of modernity. Technological advances including the locomotive, the automobile, structural steel, large panel glass, electricity, photography, new forms of politics and the urbanization of modern cities helped to produce a modern mindset.

Quote Blocks

2016-03-09T19:42:00.001-08:00

Saint Ann's Parish Church

2016-01-28T20:55:00.001-08:00

Saint Ann's Parish Church, South Salt Lake City, UT., was built in 1968 and designed by Architects Scott, Louie and Browning is a form of Modernism that uses a dramatic roof structure and traditional red brick. The church shares property with the historic 1899 Saint Ann's Orphanage which now functions as Kearns-Saint Ann's Catholic School.

Salty Hall Wall Conservation Research - Slide Samples

2016-01-24T16:05:00.001-08:00

PHOTO CREDIT: The combined effort of Mike Riegert, Benji Pearson, Stephanie Lowe and Felice Bernabo

A Basic Survey of the Gardens at the Larz Anderson Park - Brookline, MA

2016-01-23T19:47:00.001-08:00

The Low House and the Bell House

2015-07-08T13:19:00.000-07:00

Isaac Bell House, Newport, RI – Completed 1883

The Low House and the Bell House, both by McKim, Mead and White. The later termed "Shingle style" both homes use wooden shingles to simplify, and unify, their wall textures, both have traditional gabled roofs, and both have some type of colonnade. Still, these two homes are incredibly unique in their forms and little motif.

William G. Low House, Bristol, RI – Completed 1887, Demolished 1962

Where the Bell House has varied roof heights, shapes and pitches, the Low House has one large unifying gable. On the Bell home the Asian-like thin bamboo pillars of the large covered porch contrast the heavy forms of the different roofs structure without a sense of instability. On the Low House the simple white bay windows and side porch supported by shingled columns provide visual variety and balance.

H.H. Richardson

2015-07-08T13:07:00.000-07:00

H.H. Richardson's designs, especially master works such as the Trinity Church, Crane Memorial Library and even the Marshall Field Wholesale Store, with their huge yet coherent massing which lend to an understanding of the building’s function and parts diverge from their predecessors, specifically the purely rectangular massing of the classical styles.

Richardson’s Romanesque designs are often more refined details and decoration, including the large dominating Syrian arch which required less columns and capitals than classical or even Gothic styles. Aside from the decorative details Richardson's designs were often massively scaled and constructed almost entirely of stone.

For this reason this style was generally expensive and reserved for wealthy clientele, unlike the revival styles and other Victorian style which were easily transposed onto smaller scale buildings.

Piazza d’ Italia

2015-05-06T16:26:00.000-07:00

Piazza d’ Italia was design by Charles Moore and Perez & Associates located is New Orleans, Louisiana. Functioning as a city plaza and open air space the Piazza d’ Italia is a dramatic example of the ideals of Postmodernism architecture. Built is 1978 the plaza incorporates many decorative motifs from Greco-Roman Classical architecture, include Doric, Ionic and Corinthian columns and capitals, arches and alcoves. Still, these classical elements are arranged in almost an abstract and random placement in the creation on the space. Jutting angles connecting the stacked sets of multi-color colonnades heighten the dramatic viewing experience. Round alternating black and white paving stones, arranged in a concentric circular pattern fill the open portion of the plaza and are broken by jagged stepped edges creating a pool for the plaza’s water feature. The playful, whimsical and almost-classical atmosphere Moore and Perez created stands as example of Postmodernism of the late-twentieth century.

Gamble House

2015-04-27T19:22:00.000-07:00

Green and Green's 1909 Gamble house in Pasadena California is considered the quint essential example of both the California Bungalow style and the Green brother's best work. Similar to Wright theories on fitting the building to the landscape, and not the other way around, the Gamble house seems to naturally grow out from the rolling hills along side it. The rough stone foundation grounds and dark wood shingles to the airy menagerie of masterfully designed glass windows, protruding balconies, exposed woodwork, extended eaves and low-pitched roof lines inspired by both Japanese and English Arts and Crafts traditions. The varied massing blocks of the house come together at the interior to form a harmonious, expansive and free-flowing living and entertaining space.

Steps To Nothing

2015-02-07T14:04:00.002-08:00

Take a look at these steps that lead to nothing. The older picture of the house confirm where the front door was originally.

Beginnings in Historic Preservation

2014-09-06T21:29:00.002-07:00

I was going through my old blog posts tonight and found a project that I had put in the back of my mind. This was during Interior Design School at the LDS Business College, but what I think is interesting is that even back then I was interested in historic preservation.

For my final project of my first year at the LDSBC Interior Design Program my group and I designed and built a model of a restaurant/ brew pub. We called it “The Pubary” because the building we used as for our design is a library that is still in use in Bar Harbor, Maine built in 1911

The Classical orders in Boston

2014-09-06T20:40:00.000-07:00

Doric- the simplest of the orders

Ionic - two opposed volutes in the capital

Corinthian order - two rows of acanthus leaves & four scrolls

Building a Timber Frame Shed

2014-09-06T20:02:00.000-07:00

As part of my Traditional Building class with the Master of Design Studies in Historic Preservation through the Boston Architectural College we constructed a timber frame structure. These pictures show the progression of our work.

Lost in Boston

2014-09-06T19:54:00.000-07:00

I have been lost, mostly intentionally, is a few major US cities. New York, LA, San Francisco and the island on Maui to name a few. I love the idea of creating your own adventure and seeing what you can find that is off the beaten tourist path. Recently I got “lost” in Boston and I am pretty sure it is by far my favorite. History mix with cosmopolitan flare, truly remarkable. These are a few images from my non-tourist guide adventure.

The American Dream Home

2014-09-04T19:44:00.000-07:00

The following are snippets of a research paper I wrote titled: Homes of Modern America:

Eames, Johnson, Eichler and Wright

Beginning in the early 1950’s the American dream of home ownership became a reality for many, specifically in California where business men such as Donald Drummond, Joseph Eichler and Earl “Flat-top” Smith mass-produced simple homes with open floor plans, post-and-beam steel structure, and expanses of glass. The homes of Joseph Eichler was, arguably, the most successful of the three builders and even today the ownership of an Eichler home has, in parts of California, nearly the same prestige of owning a Wright home.

Wright's Falling Water

For Wright Organic-Architecture was far more than an aesthetic style, rather a new way to look at the structures in which society thrives. Many of the principles of Wright's Organic-Architecture share common characteristics with the mass-produced California Modern homes. In a 1908 article for Architectural Record Wright lays out the integral parts of Organic-Architecture. Principles such as simplistic homes which only contain the rooms necessary for the owner's lifestyle and the integration of doors and windows designed not only as access points but to replace unnecessary decoration were integrated into the designs of many Eichler's homes. Wright further preached of built-in furnishings, integrated after market appliances and fixtures, and the necessity of art incorporated into, in some cases apart from, the walls as opposed to gilded frames covering large expanses of wall. The most important attributes of Wright's principles of Organic-Architecture are the homes relationship to landscape, the nature of its' materials, the use a natural spectrum of colors, and the individual desires of the homeowner.

Photo from HERE

Through their visual qualities, their construction of space and the way each structure functions for the modern American family, Johnson's Glass House and Eames Case Study #8 house adhere to the principles of Organic-Architecture as outlined by Frank Lloyd Wright and acted as prototypes for the modern American home despite their box forms.

Johnson's Glass House, Photo from HERE

The Glass House contains no brick or wood-framed floor to ceiling exterior walls. On all of the homes four façades lay horizontal black steel beams that span the entire length of the building. Similar steel beams stand vertically at each of four corners of the home and function as columns. On the vertical plane between the horizontal and vertical steel beams are clear glossy panels of glass. These glass panels are separated by smaller steal mullions. The horizontal mullions are set at the height of a traditional wainscot trim, or one-third the height of the wall, and span the length of all four sides with the exception of the four doorways which are centered of all four of the clear façades. Vertical mullion are accompanied by horizontal mullions dividing each section in half, two on the shorter elevations and four on the longer.

Eames Case Study #8 house, Photo from HERE

In the Eames House, entering the south side of the longer of the two rectangular structures one finds an expansive double high living room filled with multiple layers of rich textures and wide spectrum of colors. Only four pieces of furniture are in this space yet it is far from empty. Parallel to the shorter wall stands a stream-lined Eames Sofa Compact draped in textiles, pillows and blankets, souvenirs from the couple’s adventures around the world. Along each of the longer walls are two chairs, on the glass wall is the iconic Eames Lounger with tufted black leather upholstery and the rich grain of the molded plywood frame. Plant life and vegetation accompany lounger on this wall which echoes the structural wood on the opposite. The opposite wall, which contains no windows due to the fact the it is nestled up against the hillside, is paneled with planks of glossy golden wood and is the back drop for a simple wooden framed bookcase that stands the height of the first story. The bottom two and top three shelves of the book case are dedicated to a hundred or so books in a variety of sizes and colors. The floor of this wide open space is covered in white square tiles, to one section a large rough brown rug and a smaller plush blue rug categorize the sitting space and form an implied pathway. Apart from the walls of glass which illuminate this space by day three paper pendant lights, two rounds and one cylindrical, add a warm glow to the large room. A tumble weed hangs from the ceiling near two Hans Hoffman organic paintings which hang parallel to the floor as though raining on the inhabitants, every surface acts as a new canvas for a collage of objects. To one end of the room a deep alcove is formed from the paneled wall and a wide wood-paneled partition wall. In this space an L-shaped built-in sofa is again covered in a wide array of textiles accompanied by shelves filled with souvenir objects large and small.

Old Lehi Hotel- Adobe Brick

2014-09-02T21:16:00.002-07:00

A few weeks ago I was taking picture of old homes in Lehi UT for my stock of “historic home” photos...as if I didn't already have enough of those through the year. In my search I was stopped by an owner ask what I was doing taking pictures of her house. The student card is worth a lot. I explained my purposes and the owner gave me a full tour of the old hotel. As it turns out the owner presently purchase the hotel and was needed some help with research on the building and suggestions on techniques to restore the build especially the 1878 adobe – mud – brick. I hope to keep this blog up to date with my progress on the old hotel.

As part of this project I have found that it is mandatory that I learn all I can about adobe brick. As part of this I took my family on a trip to the Provo Pioneer Village – where the Loveless “Adobe Cabin” was recently moved to.

Here's to Adobe Brick

Museum of Fine Art – Boston

2014-09-02T20:57:00.002-07:00

I recently had the opportunity to visit the MFA twice in one week and as an Art History student I was in pure heaven, especially considering the MFA-Boston has one of the best Asian art collection in the U.S. These pictures are a small part of the amazing art I was able to see first hand.

This is a drawing by Frank Lloyd Wright

I wrote about this painting, Watson and the Shark by John Singleton Copley HERE - This may seem strange but I actually got a tear in my eye to see it in real life....and I nearly got lost from my group when I wondered off to find it.

This is the hallway staircase in the Asian Art section.

Antoine-Jean Gros’ Bonaparte Visiting the Plague Victims of Jaffa - Which I wrote about HERE

Degas little dancer of fourteen years statue

As part of my trip to the museum, and to Boston, was for my Master of Design Studies in Historic Preservation through the Boston Architectural College – This class focused on Traditional Building Methods in New England

This is a display for furniture building was built by students at The North Bennett Street School where I spent most of my "in class" time while in Boston

I was stunned at the carving on this bust of a youth

Mary Cassatt's At The Opera

I am working on more articles -Enjoy Ai Wei Wei's Sunflower Seeds

2012-03-05T06:34:00.000-08:00

Ikea Hackers- Bonsai Tree

2012-02-29T10:53:00.001-08:00

Ikea Hackers- "Vintage" Rast Dresser

2011-12-18T06:55:00.000-08:00