12 Facts About Iwao Yamawaki

Iwao Yamawaki, born Iwao Fujita, was a Japanese photographer and architect who trained at the Bauhaus.

Iwao Yamawaki was active in theatre circles as a costume and set designer and in 1926 he founded the Ningyo-za theatre in Tokyo with Koreya Senda and others, and became involved with Tan'i sanka, an avant-garde artists' group, where he met the Bauhaus student Sadanosuke Nakada, and where he later became friends with Takehiko Mizutani, the first Japanese student to study at the Bauhaus.

Iwao Yamawaki was formally introduced to Michiko Yamawaki, an heiress and the eldest daughter of a wealthy businessman, whom he married in 1928.

Iwao Yamawaki was asked by her father to adopt her family name, which he did in return for is new family-in-law financing the opportunity for both of them to study at the Bauhaus.

Iwao Yamawaki developed a close friendship with fellow student and later Bauhaus teacher Kurt Kranz.

Iwao Yamawaki had a strong interest in architectural photography and took many photographs of the exterior and interior of the famous Bauhaus Dessau building complex, as well as of buildings in Berlin, Amsterdam and Moscow.

Iwao Yamawaki's photographs are strongly influenced by the Neues Sehen, an avantgarde movement of the 1920s and 1930s espoused by Bauhaus teacher Laszlo Moholy-Nagy, which encouraged photography of ordinary scenes using unfamiliar perspectives and angles, close-up details, use of light and shadow, and experimentation with multiple exposure.

On his return to Tokyo, Iwao Yamawaki taught photography for 6 months at the Shinkenchiku kogei, which was known as the 'Japanese Bauhaus'.

Iwao Yamawaki exhibited some of his work, but was dissatisfied with the Japanese photographic scene and gave up photography altogether.

Iwao Yamawaki became a successful architect and designed houses for the wealthy, developing a hybrid Japanese and Western design style, with architects such as Mies van der Rohe and Le Corbusier as his influences.

Iwao Yamawaki worked as an architectural journalist and was widely published.

Iwao Yamawaki designed a modernist villa for himself and his wife in 1934 and they furnished it with pieces that they imported from Germany, such as the Wassily Chair.