Urban Monuments by Japan’s Gaudí: The Works of Japanese Architect Von Jour Caux

Culture

A Never-Ending Hymn to Life

Mukōdai Home For the Aged (1985): Higashiyamato, Tokyo

A home for the aged is often a resident’s final abode in life. In this, it differs from a hospital, where people normally expect to stay only until they recover, and unavoidably a pall of death lingers. Von and his collaborators poured all their skills and creative energy into designing a space where people could spend their final years in peace and happiness. The space is has an air of tranquility and rest, bringing it close to the hearts of resident as well as the staff who care for them.

The building is designed so that happy memories from the past overlap new input from their surroundings. Stained glass depicting seasonal scenes decorate the corridors and ceilings, providing variety and distinguishing characteristics to a space that is typically bland and repetitive. The idea was to help residents orient themselves in the space by providing visual cues. As Von describes it, rather than simply relying on a random room number, “people can remember that they live in the room just after the stained glass of the carp streamers symbolizing the Children’s Festival in early May.”

Another huge hand, poised as if beckoning the souls of the deceased to heaven, adorns the mortuary. The space is an affirmation of life filled with light and happiness, and it clearly conveys the message that death is nothing to be afraid of.

The structure has attracted unprecedented attention and drawn a continuous stream of prospective residents from around the country. I too want to live here when I get old. In Von’s visions, dream and reality, life and death are two sides of the same coin. His building is an ambivalent space in which these two facets mingle. For me, this home for the aged is the supreme masterpiece of the art complex movement. Only by experiencing this space can a person truly understand the hymn to life characteristic of so much of Von Jour Caux’s work.

The bathing facilities at Mukōdai Home for the Aged is guarded by an angel with flowing locks.
The bathing facilities at Mukōdai Home for the Aged is guarded by an angel with flowing locks.

The mortuary features a stork’s nest
The mortuary features a stork’s nest

Inside the mortuary at the Mukōdai Home for the Aged
Inside the mortuary at the Mukōdai Home for the Aged

The corridor ceilings of the building are decorated with stained glass depicting scenes from the four seasons.
The corridor ceilings of the building are decorated with stained glass depicting scenes from the four seasons.

Von collaborates with other architects and artists to realize his imaginative ideas. He has joined hands with other creators to imbue his architectural spaces with the joy of living. How many architects in Japan today truly embrace or even understand his approach or the ideas fueled by his desire to fulfill his responsibility as an architect? Architecture in Japan today is dominated by the plodding, self-absorption of the people Von refers to dismissively as “building designers,” with the sad result that Tokyo’s streets are too often dominated by uninspiring buildings that fail to move the people who live in and among them. In contrast, Von Jour Caux has spent his life bringing colorful, inspiring vision to the metropolis.

The author with Von Jour Caux.
The author with Von Jour Caux.

(Originally published on May 28, 2019. All photos by the author. Banner photo: The Philosopher’s Stone from the elevator hall inside the Hiraki Building in Ikebukuro, Tokyo.)

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