Magazine

Engineers, Builders and Architects

It wouldn't occur to very many people that the Czech Republic and Japan have a lot in common in the world of architecture. It is only over the last decade that the work of the architect Jan Letzel (1885-1925) has finally begun to be discussed in our country. Letzel was a student of Jan Kotěra and is best known as the designer of the Industrial Palace in Hiroshima (today known as the A-bomb Dome). The fact that it is Letzel who was the architect behind this monumental building was only made clear in 1969 by Fumiko Fujita. The general public is much less well informed about the activities in Japan of Antonín Raymond (born Antonín Reinman, 1888-1976), who is considered to be the leading proponent Japanese Modernism. Very few Czechs will know the name Bedřich Feuerstein (1892-1936) and almost no one the builder Jan Josef Švagr (1885-1969), who left evidence in Yokahama - evidence, that speaks volumes - of his Czech background in the form of a window wall in a church with the motif of the Baby Jesus of Prague with a view of Prague Castle across Charles Bridge. This article will look at only four of the many Czechs who had a major impact on Japanese architecture in the first half of the twentieth century.

Following the assumption of power by the Meiji emperor (1868), Japan began to look abroad towards European and the increasingly strong American cultures. A system known as "oyatoi gaikokujin" was introduced. Foreigners were invited as experts in various fields to participate in the development of Japanese society. Architecture was of course impacted as well. The English architect J. J. Conder (1852-1920) arrived in Japan in 1877; beginning in 1916 the American architect Frank Lloyd Wright (1867-1959) was active in Japan. Czech architects, builders and engineers began arriving in Japan in the early part of the twentieth century. There was the engineer Karel Jan Hora (1881-1974), who in addition to his technically-oriented profession was also one of the first Czech students of Japanese language and culture. He learned to speak Japanese in Chicago, where he worked before he went to Japan. He relates this story in the post-script to his Czech translation of Inazo Nitobe's book Bushido: The Soul of Japan, which he published in Prague (1904). He first came to Japan precisely 100 years ago (1905) as one of the top managers the Osaka Gas and Light Company, which was installing natural gas in Osaka. It is worth mentioning that his salary was 250 yen, which was 25 times a teacher's monthly salary. When he left the natural gas company, he moved to Yokohama, where he established a large import firm in 1908. One of the companies he represented was Laurin and Klement, automobile manufacturers from the city of Mladá Boleslav. Theirs were among the first cars to appear on Japanese roads. In 1907, there were sixteen private cars in Tokyo; three years later there were 116, several of which came from the Laurin and Klement factory. Together with his countryman Letzel, they established the firm Letzel & Hora Architecture and Engineering (1909), whose headquarters where in the Tokyo district of Yotsuya, with a field office in Yokohama. Hora was there at the founding of the first Japanese auto club (Nihon jidosha kurabu). Eventually Hora left Japan with this Japanese wife Fuku and their family and moved to first to China (1913), and then back to Bohemia. Eventually he left here as well, dying in Johannesburg, South Africa.

Jan Letzel had known K. J. Hora in Bohemia. Letzel came to Japan as an experienced architect in 1907. Following Hora's departure, he established his own company and successfully continued to design buildings, including Sophia University (1914), the Industrial Palace in Hiroshima (now the A-Bomb Dome, 1915), the interior of the Tokyo Station Hotel (1915), the Ueno Seiyoken Hotel (1917) and the Miyajima Hotel (1917) just to name a few. Almost all of his buildings fell victim to the devastating Kanto earthquake of 1923, the Second World War or fire. Letzel died in Prague and is buried in his hometown of Náchod.

Antonín Raymond left for the United States in 1910 and came to Japan in 1919 as an assistant to Frank Lloyd Wright. While Wright soon left Japan, Raymond stayed and over the course of the next 43 years he designed more than 250 Modernist buildings and family houses. It can be stated without exaggeration that Raymond was one of the main architects responsible for the reconstruction of Tokyo and Yokahama after the destructive Kanto earthquake of 1923. His buildings include the Imperial Hotel (still as Wright's assistant), Reinanzaka House (1924), Rising Sun Petroleum Company in Yokahama (1929), the Summer House in Karuizawa (1933), his own house and studio in Azabo (1951), the Gunma Music Center (1961) and the Catholic church in Shibata (1965). It was at Raymond's invitation that the architect and stage designer Bedřich Feuerstein, who had worked with August Perret, came to Tokyo. He worked with Raymond on the project for workers' housing for the Rising Sun Petroleum Co. (1929), on the St. Lucas' Hospital project (1933), and buildings for the embassies of Belgium (1928) and the Soviet Union (1929). In Tokyo he published the book Theater Settings by Bedřich Feuerstein, Architect, Tokyo (1927). Following disagreements with Raymond, he finally left Japan (1930). In Prague, he gave his well-known lecture on Japanese architecture (1931), but five years later, misunderstood, Feuerstein took his own life.

Allow me to bring to a close our brief excursion with the profile of a figure that has been shrouded in mystery for a long, long time. I am speaking of Jan Josef Švagr, who came from the central Bohemian village of Tynčany. Following the completion of his studies at the Czech Technical University in Prague, he worked on the construction of the Tran-Siberian Railroad, followed by jobs in Mongolia and China. He arrived in Japan after the Kanto earthquake and together with Raymond worked on the reconstruction of the heavily damaged Standard Oil Company building (later the home of the Socony Vacuum Co.) and built their administrative building. As a member of the "Czech Trio" (with Raymond and Feuerstein), he worked on the homes for the workers of Rising Sun Petroleum and the St. Lucas' Hospital. He split with Raymond, only to achieve fame for his buildings including the Sacred Heart Cathedral in Yamate, Yokohama (1933), the auditorium and gymnasium of the St. Joseph's International School in Yokahama (1934) and the House of Meditation (1934). Following on in Letzel's footsteps, he also worked on the project for the Seishin Joshi Gakuin School (1936), a house for E. V. Bernard (1937) and employee apartments for the firm Helm (1938). His last building in Japan was the Toyonaka Catholic church in Osaka (1939). He was forced to leave Japan in as a result of the outbreak of the Second World War. In 1941, he left his company to his employees, who in returned presented him with a Samurai sword. He left Japan with his family, going first to Chile and then a year later to Argentina. Towards the end of his life, he became a Catholic priest in Don Orione's order for whom he was able to build a number of churches and schools. Švagr spoke fifteen languages and is buried in the city of Claypole, Argentina.

Petr Holý

Note: The author would like to thank John Švagr and his wife Barbara for providing valuable information about his father J. J. Švagr and the loan of some personal photographs.

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