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Hara, Hiroshi
(b Kawasaki, Kanagawa Prefect., 9 Sept 1936). Japanese architect. He trained at Tokyo University (1955–9) under Kenzo Tange and Uchida. He was one of the oldest in a new generation of avant-garde New Wave architects, who were active from the late 1960s and early 1970s and who were sharply critical of the contemporary urban developments in Japan (see JAPAN, §III, 5). Yet, unlike many of his more radical contemporaries, such as Tadao Ando and Toyo Ito, Hara derived his design theories from his extensive studies of vernacular architecture and indigenous settlements in Asia and Africa, in an attempt to bridge the avant-garde and the ethnic. Thereafter he followed a unique anthropological approach to architecture somewhat similar in nature to the one put forward by the members of Team Ten in Europe. His early works (1970s), the so-called ‘reflection houses’, such as his own residence (1974) at Machida near Tokyo and the Niramu House (1978), Tokyo, display a negative attitude towards the chaotic and volatile conditions of the Japanese city and focus upon the internal order and other critical aspects of dwelling. They were all shaped along sequences of centrally and symmetrically arranged spaces and appeared as hollowed-out concavities. Many of them implemented scaled-down and metaphorical urban elements, including landmarks, intersections and plazas, and so could be regarded as attempts to create miniature and fantastic cities.
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