(b Okayama Prefect., 1 April 1944). Japanese architect and writer. He graduated from Waseda University, Tokyo, in 1966 and completed a graduate course there in 1968, the same year in which he established the office DAM DAN in Tokyo. Through a wide range of activities, of which design was only a part, Ishiyama became a spokesman for the New Wave architects in Japan who turned away from Metabolism and historicism to re-create a sense of place in architecture. An admirer of Buckminster Fuller, Ishiyama also attempted, though not always successfully, to provide general solutions, producing an indeterminate architecture that allowed users maximum freedom within. Inspired by a house in Toyohashi, Aichi Prefecture, constructed in 1962 by Kenji Kawai, an engineer for the early buildings of Kenzo Tange, Ishiyama designed a series of houses of corrugated steel sheets, the best-known of which is the Gen’an (Fantasy Villa) in Aichi Prefecture (1975). These simple houses required only the cheapest of materials and a low standard of construction skills, symbolizing the architect’s commitment to making housing easily available to the public. This was a cause he also supported through writing popular books on architecture and initiating a system called ‘direct dealing’ that recalled, in its intent to bypass the conventional commercial network, the Whole Earth Catalog, the book of tools and ideas relevant to independent education published in the 1960s. The Izu no Chohachi Museum (1984) in Matsuzaki, however, was a departure from his previous work. A showcase for the traditional Japanese building craft of plastering, its allusions to Meiji-period (1868–1912) interpretations of Western classical architecture by Japanese carpenters give it a definite Post-modern air. Ishiyama was awarded the prestigious Isoya Yoshida Prize in 1985 for this project.

• Ishiyama, Osamu
  • Japan, §III, 5(iii)(b): Architecture, 1960 and after: New Wave