著者

藤岡 洋保 黒岩 卓

出版者

一般社団法人日本建築学会

雑誌

日本建築学会計画系論文報告集 (ISSN:09108017)

巻号頁・発行日

no.409, pp.161-168, 1990-03-30

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Hosin Kuroda (1885-1967) offered a few criticisms on various kinds of buildings in downtown Tokyo in the Tokyo Asahi Newspaper from November 25th through December 4th, 1910. On December 5th two architects wrote in the same newspaper that he was the first to try to openly review new buildings. Since the authors can find several architectural criticisms in other papers and magazines which were ahead of Kuroda's, what the architects said was not true. But if we define the word on 'an architectural critic' as the one who has been offering criticisms on newly-built buildings and on architectural trends for some time, we can say Kuroda was the first architectural critic in modern Japan ; he had written many articles to review new buildings in the 1910s and the 1920s. He studied esthetics at the Tokyo Imperial University where he found an interest in architecture. He had been asserting that in architecture 'truth', 'good' and 'beauty' should have come together. In his theory, 'truth' meant that real structure and material should not have been covered by others, and 'good' did that function should have been made much of. These two suggest that he was influenced by the European Medeavalists in the late 19th century. And in his thoughts 'beauty' should have come from several esthetic theories at that time. Among them 'unity in multiplicity' was the most important to him. In his criticisms on buildings, the authors can see some coincidence with his architectural idea, but he was apt to review buildings chiefly through the point of 'unity in multiplicity,' which means that 'beauty' was the most important to him, although he had kept declaring for a happy coincidence of 'truth', 'good' and 'beauty.'