Research Director:
Associate Professor Tomo Inoue, Faculty of Design
Keywords:
university architectural archives, architectural materials, Shoei Yoh Archives

　A symposium was held on November 1, 2023, by the Center for Designed Futures of Kyushu University and co-hosted by the Kyushu University Shoei Yoh Archives entitled “Challenges from the  University Architectural Archives; Sharing Activities and Issues”. The symposium was comprised of two parts. In the first part, Martien de Vletter, assistant director of the Collection Division of the Canadian Centre for Architecture (CCA) and archivist Anna Haywood were invited to give keynote speeches. The second part featured participants from Japanese universities to give talks on their initiatives, including Motoki Katsuhara of the Kanazawa Institute of Technology, Takuya Miyake of the Kyoto Institute of Technology, Ayumu Saito of Kyoto University, Takako Fujimoto of Hosei University, Jin Motohashi of the Kanazawa 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Miru Rokkaku of Kanagawa University, and Masaaki Iwamoto and myself, Tomo Inoue, of Kyushu University.

　Given the controversy over the donation of the early architectural materials of Toyo Ito being donated to the CCA last year, Japanese architectural archives are at risk. The National Archives of Modern Architecture, Agency for Cultural Affairs may have opened in 2013, but their budget is still limited. If conditions continue as they are, then the loss of the architectural materials of leading Japanese architects will be unavoidable in the future. Given these circumstances, the number of cases of universities attempting to develop architectural archives to prevent the loss of architectural materials is on the rise. While each individual initiative is but a drop in the bucket, together they may eventually form a large current of action. Accordingly, we decided to hold this symposium to share the activities and issues facing each of these initiatives at domestic universities.

　Martien de Vletter gave a talk entitled, “Activities of the Canadian Centre for Architecture”, including an overview of the CCA and his memories with Shoei Yo from the Archaeology of the Digital exhibition held at the CCA in 2013. Anna Haywood then gave a talk entitled, “The Shoei Yoh Archive as a Case Study for Working with Hybrid Collections”, where she spoke of the handling of the analog and digital architectural blueprints and materials of Shoei Yoh in the CCA collection.

　In the second half, each Japanese university gave a talk on the activities of each of their architectural archives. Motoki Katsuhara gave a talk entitled, “Establishing a Circulation of Knowledge around Architectural Materials”, describing the architectural archive initiative at the Kanazawa Institute of Technology. Takuya Miyake of the Kyoto Institute of Technology spoke of, “Architecture Collection of the Museum and Archives, Kyoto Institute of Technology, describing his university’s architectural archives. Ayumu Saito of Kyoto University gave a talk entitled, “Research Resource Archive, Kyoto University and Architectural Records,” speaking of that university’s architectural archives. Takako Fujimoto of Hosei University gave a talk entitled, “Teaching with Drawings of Hiroshi Ohe”. Jin Motohashi of the Kanazawa 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art gave a talk entitled, “Waseda Architecture Archives”. Miru Rokkaku of Kanagawa University gave a talk entitled, “Rokkaku Kijo: His Philosophy, Works, Drawings and Models”, while Masaaki Iwamoto spoke of the Shoei Yoh Archive at Kyushu University, and I gave a talk entitled, “Shoei Yoh Digital Restoration,” of the digital restoration of the lost architecture of Shoei Yoh. Sadly, we learned that each university faced three major challenges, namely a shortage of funds, space, and manpower for their activities. While the outlook is not bright, the symposium was an opportunity to share issues and knowledge, thereby serving as a major step forward for those of us involved in small-scale university archives, though that step may be objectively small.

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Kyushu University Shoei Yoh Archive: an archive containing the architectural materials of architect Shoei Yoh established by the Kyushu University Faculty of Design.