Kenchiku Yoshiki Ronso

1932. ITAGAKI, Takao & Sutemi HORIGUCHI. Kenchiku Yoshiki Ronso. 707, [5] pp., illustrated throughout with architectural diagrams and photographs. Small 4to, 200 x 180 mm., bound in publisher's tan cloth within original printed card slipcase. Tokyo: Rokumonkan, 1932. First edition. An expansive collection of writings on style in architecture curates by Itagaki, the leading proponent of modernism in pre-war Japan, and Horiguchi, who pioneered the union of modern and traditional Japanese architecture. Other contributors include Ichiura Ken, Yamada Mamoru and Taniguchi Yoshiro. Kawakita Renshichiro, who placed impressively in the 1930 international competition for the Ukraine state theatre, details the structure of the designs. Saito Torao contributes what appears to be a ferociously technical study of the airport in modern cities. Itagaki writes on the Roman dome while Horiguchi writes on the philosophy and composition of the tearoom - in its way the apotheosis of modernism. Some slight wear around edges of the card slipcase and slight darkening of the spine as well as a small sticker on the inside cover from the previous bookseller, otherwise a fine copy. OCLC lists a copy at CCA, two copies in Japan and one in Taiwan.