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Hiroyasu Tomiie (富家 宏泰, Tomiie Hiroyasu) (July 1, 1919 - December 21, 2007) was a leading Japanese architect in postwar Japan. He is best known as the architect who led the world of modernist architecture after World War II in Japan..

Biography

In July 1919, shortly after his birth in Kagawa Prefecture, his family emigrated to the Korean Peninsula. However, when Tomiie was a child, other family members, except for children, were all dead due to typhus that spread in the territory. After being repatriated, Tomiie was taken in and raised by one of his relative families in Shimogamo, Kyoto. After graduating from the Third Higher School, which was the predecessor of the Department of Integrated Human Studies at Kyoto University (京都大学総合人間学部), Tomiie entered the Department of Architecture at Kyoto Imperial University (now the Department of Architecture, Faculty of Engineering, Kyoto University). Soon after entering the university, he was drafted into the Imperial Japanese Army and was forced to serve in North Manchuria, but after the war ended, he returned to school and graduated from the Department of Architecture at Kyoto University. After graduation, he attended the graduate school and became a lecturer in Professor Ryo Tanabashi's architectural design laboratory at Kyoto University. While at school, he studied from Ryo Tanabashi, who was known for a designer of Kyoto Tower and Akashi Municipal Planetarium (Akashi, Hyogo). Tomiie also learnt architecture from Professor Keiichi Morita. In October 1952, Tomiie established his own architectural firm Tomiie Kenchiku-Jimusho (富家建築事務所), which was well received and grew to have more than 300 employees, including full-time staff not only in design and planning but also in facilities, structure, and other areas of architecture. The firm later dissolved due to the end of the economic bubble in Japan, but Tomiie himself continued to work as an architect. Tomiie has designed many of the postwar new buildings in Kyoto, especially public works such as school buildings, libraries, museums, gymnasiums, and office buildings. He also involved with many projects in other prefectures such as Mie, Ishikawa, Hyogo, and Chiba. The total number of buildings he designed in his lifetime exceeds 2000. In 1958, he was awarded the Medal of Purple Ribbon from the Japanese government. His activities were not limited to architectural practice, as he also dedicated himself in fostering future generations in the architectural world. For example, he assumed a position of vice president of the Japan Institute of Architects and established Kyoto Architectural Design Supervision Association (京都設計監理協会).

Tomiie Modernism

It is said that most of Tomiie's works rarely deviate from the basic elements of modern architecture. However, in his works such as “Koshinkan Hall” (built in 1962, later demolished) of Hirokoji campus of Ritsumeikan University, “Ishikawa Prefectural Library” (1963), and “Kyoto Chamber of Commerce and Industry Building” (1963, later demolished), he used lattices, which have long been used in Japanese traditional architecture, on the walls and windows in those works, in order to remind people of old Japanese or Kyoto style. Furthermore, in “Igakukan Hall” (1965), in Kinugasa campus of Ritsumeikan University, which is one of his masterpieces in the 60s, he attempted to depart from the dogmatic elements of modernism. In example, an abstract form of architecture that did not favor symmetry and eliminated symbolic elements such as towers. Tomiie placed a huge stair hall in front of the building, and symmetrically placed lecture halls on the east and west sides of the tower. Therefore, the building looks as if a condor were spreading its wings. Tomiie used Taizan tiles, a traditional Kyoto pottery from Taizan Seitosho or porcelain factory, on the concrete walls of Igakukan Hall. While the design of the building itself is based on typical modernism in its architectural style, it is clear that Tomiie attempted to seek an affinity between modern architecture and the Kyoto’s landscape by using Japanese hand-made tiles for the walls. Such attempts also can be seen in the symbolic shape of the large roof of the Catholic Kawaramachi Church, which was completed in 1967.

Ritsumeikan University (Kinugasa Campus) and Tomiya Architecture

According to the Ritsumeikan University Archive Center (立命館史資料センター), most of the school buildings constructed at the Kinugasa campus between 1955 and 1988 (64 school buildings in total) were designed by Hiroyasu Tomiie. He used traditional pottery (“75cm x 75cm non-vitreous square tile called Taizan tiles”) produced by the Taizan Pottery Factory (Taizan Seitosho; 泰山製陶所) in Kyoto for the exterior walls of many of the school buildings on the Kinugasa campus. The “Taizan tiles” have a texture that cannot be achieved with mass-produced products, and the beautiful colors created by the glaze are distinctive, helping to create a sense of unity throughout the Kinugasa campus. Tomiya worked on the design of the Kinugasa campus buildings until 1988, and many of the buildings designed and constructed after the closure of the Taizan Pottery Factory (e.g., Soshikan (創思館 2001), Jukoukan (充光館 2007), and Ikuyuukan (育友館 2008)) also use the tiles similar to “Taishan tile” for their exterior walls to go along with buildings designed by Tomiie. Therefore, it is no exaggeration to say that the Kinugasa campus of Ritsumeikan University is a showcase of “Tomiie Modernism”. It is said that Tomiie first used “Taizan tiles” for the exterior walls of Ritsumeikan's school buildings in the “Minami-kosha” (南校舎) of Ritsumeikan Junior and Senior High School, in 1964. The reasons for Tomie's use of “Taizan Tile” are as follows: (1)he personally liked the tile so much that he used it for the entrance of his own house in Kyoto; (2) he was influenced by Scandinavian architecture during a tour of European architecture organized by the Japan Institute of Architects in 1960; and (3) he was interested in the Taizan Tile because of its texture and prestige in the modernist architectural expression.

Notable Works

• Headquarters building of Kyoto Shimbun (1959)
• Doshisha University Student Memorial Hall (1962; demolished)
• St. Francis Xavier Cathedral, Kyoto (1967)
• Kyoto City University of Arts (Kutsukake campus, 1978)
• Ishikawa Prefectural Library (1966)
• Ishikawa Prefectural Museum of Art (1966)
• Wajima Museum of Urushi Art (1981)
• Kindai University Hospital (1975)
• Mie Prefectural Art Museum (1982)
• Tanizaki Jun'ichirō Memorial Museum of Literature, Ashiya (1988)
• Chiba Marine Stadium (1990)

References

1. 『｢県美を設計した男｣富家宏泰氏を紹介 県立図書館や中署など30施設』(2021年9月3日付北國新聞朝刊29面)2024年10月21日閲覧
2. ^ 「戦後京都における京都発信の建築家 - 富家宏泰とその作品について」『デザイン理論』 第81巻（2023年1月31日）意匠学会　pp.56-57
3. 立命館史資料センター（2024）『立命館と泰山タイル』（発行日：2024年8月20日）学校法人立命館
4. 富家大器（2021）「建築家・富家宏泰の石川における業績 - 『石川県美を設計した男』 〜 建築家・富家宏泰 没後 15 年記念回顧展の開催」 『京都美術工芸大学　研究紀要』 第2号（2021）京都美術工芸大学　pp.198-209
5. TOMIIE DESIGN Webpage
6. 立命館史資料センター「立命館あの日あの時 ＜学園史資料から＞衣笠キャンパス校舎の泰山タイル」
7. 富家建築事務所　作品集　1964、1970、1973、1979、1982、1987各版
8. 建設画報　1969.1　富家建築事務所作品集　光元社
9. 建築画報　103　1976.3　特集-富家建築事務所　建築画報社
10. 河野良平（2008）「京都モダニズム建築を訪ねて　第3回　弥栄自動車株式会社本社屋」 『京都橘大学文化政策研究センター ニューズレター』 第33号（2008年10月1日）京都橘大学 pp.6-7

External links

• TOMIIEDESIGN webpage
• Retrospective Exhibition Commemorating the 100th Anniversary of the Birth of Architect Hiroyasu Tomiie

Category:1919 births Category:2007 deaths Category:People from Kagawa Prefecture Category:Kyoto University alumni Category:Japanese architects

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