Nobuko Tsuchiura
Nobuko Tsuchiura (1900 – 1998) was the first woman architect in Japan.
The wife of architect Kameki Tsuchiura, also an architect, she trained with Frank Lloyd Wright. The couple worked with Wright on the Imperial Hotel. They returned to the United States with Wright and worked for him for two years as draftsmen. After their return to Japan in 1929, they established their own architectural firm. Besides designing homes, the firm also experimented with furniture design. However, her work was always presented under her husband's name, not her own. In 1937, she founded the Ladies’ Photo Club; at the time, photography was considered to be a more appropriate activity for women than architecture.[1][2]
Nobuko Ogawa and Atsko Tanaka have published a book Big Little Nobu. Student of Frank Lloyd Wright Woman Architect Nobuko Tsuchiura.[3]
After finishing their education at the University and learned a lot from Wright in the United States, their sketches and construction drawings had been displayed at an exhibition at the Edo-Tokyo Open Air Architectural Museum in Koganei Park in Tokyo. Most of their exhibits were showed Wright-style as they had learned. They are improving their style to new international style that came from Europe. [4]
References
- Kruger, Nicolai. "A Modern Marriage: Kameki and Nobuko Tsuchiura at Tatemono-en". artscape Japan.
- Helfrich, Kurt; Whitaker, William (2006). Crafting a Modern World: The Architecture and Design of Antonin and Noémi Raymond. Princeton Architectural Press. pp. 28–29. ISBN 1568985835.
- "New Acquisitions: Women Architects in Japan" (PDF). International Archive of Women in Architecture (14). Fall 2002.
- https://spec.lib.vt.edu/IAWA/news/news14.pdf