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In 1961, the then Chair of Architecture, Professor Brian Lewis, led a study group of 40 students and a dozen architects from Melbourne to Japan. During the visit, Professor Lewis met distinguished Japanese Architect Professor Shigeru Yura and invited him, as part of a knowledge transfer offer, to teach in the School of Architecture from 1963-1965.
Professor Yura designed the the Japanese Ambassador’s residence in Canberra (1961), the Japanese Room and Garden for the Faculty of Architecture (1963-4) and celebrated Japanese War Memorial in Cowra (NSW) (1964).
The Japanese Room, based on the simple Shoin-Zukuri domestic style of the 17th century, displays the excellent joinery and timber characteristics of Japan. It was built without the use of a single nail and the highly refined joinery and timber characteristics are of particular note. The interior contained several traditional elements including two tokonoma – or recesses – wooden ramma and sliding shoji screens and gold leaf wallpaper.
The Japanese Garden was a tsubo-niwa or courtyard garden of irregular shape, dating back to the 15th century, when merchants would create gardens in the open spaces between their houses and storage buildings. (http://www.ajbcc.asn.au/history.html) |
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