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Yamada, Mamoru
(b 1894; d 1966). Japanese architect. After graduating in engineering from the School of Architecture at Tokyo Imperial University in 1920, he founded the Japan Secession Group (Bunriha Kenchikukai) with other students from the university, including Sutemi Horiguchi. This was the first movement in support of modern architecture in Japan, and its members were greatly influenced by the German Expressionists, the Vienna Secession and Art Nouveau. In 1920 they staged an exhibition of drawings and models, and, although they had little opportunity to demonstrate their ideas in actual projects, the group was important in introducing Expressionism to Japan. Yamada then became an engineer in the Communications Ministry (1920–45), and his early work for the Ministry clearly reveals an Expressionist style. For example the Central Telegraph Building (1925; destr.), Tokyo, which incorporated the parabolic curve as a motif, was the first building in Japan to break away from a strictly formalist style. In later works the Expressionist influence was replaced by a simpler modernism. The Communications Ministry Hospital (1937), Tokyo, is an important example, executed in the simple, clear forms of the International Style; its white interior tiling, floor-to-ceiling glazing, functional surfaces and unified plan indicated the course that modern Japanese architecture would take. In 1949 Yamada opened his own architectural office and worked on a number of hospital projects such as the Welfare Pension Hospital (1954), Osaka. In 1951 he also became a lecturer in construction in the engineering department at Tokai University, Tokyo.
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