The Search for Solar Architecture in Asia in the Works of the Architect Antonin Raymond: A Protracted Balance between Culture and Nature

Abstract

The renowned architect Antonin Raymond undertook a large amount of work in Japan for more than fifty years. He arrived to the archipelago as a partner to Frank Lloyd Wright, who had received the commission for the paramount Imperial Hotel. Nevertheless, Raymond became almost revolutionary in that country for his realizations of projects and buildings. Simultaneously, he pioneered the concept of solar houses, a notion that proved to be fundamental for bioclimatic design. Raymond realized that because of the influence of geomancy and Daoism, the buildings of Japan had a sort of cosmic link, especially to the sun and the seasons, and in this way, he took great concern with solar exposure, shading, and daylighting, both in the way in which they were composed and also in the materials that were employed, such as lumber, reed roofs, and paper screens. We have tried to identify these trends in his most significant buildings and establish a sequence of how they evolved towards a contemporary and truly sustainable design. The main result presented is that for the reasons presented, Raymond influenced a number of celebrated architects in Japan, India, and the USA. In fact, instead of pursuing the pure abstract minimalism common in his epoch, he made use of the ideas of naturalism in architecture, which in the case of Asia were related to ritual cosmology. In this article, we have outlined how such a procedure was possible and what it entailed for complex domains such as sun-lighting and daylighting, ventilation, acoustics, and re-interpretation of vernacular architecture. The connection with the main forces of the environment, which effectively interact through architecture, when considered from a philosophical and even spiritual point of view as he did, resulted in a kind of artistic revitalization of traditions belonging to Daoism and Shintoism and inaugurated a new manner of sustainable thinking for the building profession that endures today.

1. Introduction

Antonin Rajman was born in Kladno, Bohemia (nowadays Czechia), on 10 May 1888. In 1910, after finishing his professional studies at the Polytechnic Institute of Prague, he emigrated to the United States.

Raymond became acquainted with Frank Lloyd Wright in the US and worked under his supervision at Taliesin East starting in 1916. After the end of the conflict, he, together with his partner Noémi Pernessin, came back to the US and accompanied Wright to Japan to join the team of designers for the Imperial Hotel in Tokyo.

However, instead of a biographical approach, which has been discussed extensively in the references by Helfrich, Cabeza-Lainez, and Vendredi, among others, we would like to discuss in a more scientific fashion the structures that he found most revealing in the Asian milieu and that marked him in contrast with the European perspective. The deep and intrinsic relationship between Japanese culture and nature was his unfailing source of inspiration as he performed valuable work toward its revitalization. Our proposal aspires to contribute new data to these questions that have increased their relevance in light of emerging environmental and climate challenges. To carry out this investigation, we have provided architectural examples in Japan, India, and the Philippines and unearthed original files in the archives of the Getty Research Institute in Los Angeles. Due to his dilated trajectory, we would try to outline only the fundamental realizations and facts of Raymond’s career in order to establish a common nexus between solar architecture and the architect’s insight.

Being a sort of xenophile, he reacted strongly to the beauty of traditional Nipponese architecture and art. He extracted many lessons from Japanese traditional solutions with which he was deeply acquainted, as a result of his repeated explorations of Japanese and Chinese traits prior to the Pacific War. On the contrary, his partner Wright said: “I am never well here in this Tokyo climate- which is the worst in the world, I believe”.

Raymond always believed that local conditions must play an important role in crafting modern architecture [1]. In this respect, he was particularly keen to employ traditional materials suitable for the environment. In fact, this remained a constant trigger for issues during his partnership with Wright on the building of the Teikoku Hotel. In this instance, Raymond mentioned: “The first principle which all great architecture teaches us is to regard local conditions as the fundamental factor from which to begin, and to let the structure flow with a logical shape inspired by local conditions. Plants and animals behave like that in diverse environments” [2] (p. 155). In this context, he was to be followed years later by Bruno Taut during a brief but intense period of rising militarism (1933–1936).

In his autobiography [2], Raymond introduced the curious name “solar houses” for his early realizations of the 1920s and compared them to similar initiatives in America. Solar architecture at the time referred to architecture that was heliocentric for reasons of health, energy, and perhaps social considerations (since the name “solar” also happens to mean “palace”), but living and learning from a country with renowned awe for the Sun (which was a goddess, ancestor to the Emperor) and especially Nature (the Dao), he expanded the concept to cope with the prevailing geomantic notions of Fengshui (Fusui in Japanese) which mainly included adroit management of water around buildings, favorable and undesirable winds, ventilation and solar exposure, and rejection of manufactured materials in favor of rash, thatch, wood, and stone, deemed to be more reliable and easily reconstructed in the likely case of disaster.

There is no modern exact equivalent to this notion; it is a mixture of bioclimatic, environmentally conscious, and sustainable architecture but with a spiritual nuance pertaining to Japanese animism (Shinto) and Daoism. We have kept the phrase “solar architecture” as a witness to the words coined by Raymond in his writings.

During an interview conducted by Kenzô Tange in 1960, Raymond spoke about his impressions upon arrival in Japan: “As I certainly participated in the new movement in Europe and was so to speak let alone at that time, 1920, in the USA, imagine my surprise when I arrived to Japan in finding here expressed in Nipponese farms and Shinto shrines as the famous Ise, all the features which we so fervently craved to reproduce in the new modern architecture although we were at the time far from realizing and perchance will never will be able to achieve those ideals (…) The people, their garments, their utensils, their pottery, paintings, gardens, all expressed a wonderful unity of purpose starkly developed through centuries by a natural process like anything else in nature. It revealed to me an unsurpassed love of nature with capital letter ‘N’ and a divine influence” [3] (p. 308).

In 1921, at the age of 32, Raymond began his career as an independent architect in Tokyo by adapting promising technologies to be used with traditional and vernacular Japanese forms. However, architecture was not his only means of expression, since he was also an accomplished painter, sculptor, and musician [4]. Kunio Maekawa, who worked with Le Corbusier in France, and Kenzô Tange were two of the many assistants who collaborated with Antonin Raymond in revitalizing the Nipponese tradition in the contemporary scene [5]. Raymond clarifies that: “Tange is verily an artist and comprehends the Japanese traditions, as well as all the arts. He is a good writer. He lectured at Harvard (…) He once told me that I can afford to do things Japanese but he cannot follow my example. He must do things Japanese, and in order to create in a modern spirit and creative spirit, he has to invent a new tradition” [2] (p. 250).

Antonin Raymond penned a series of articles about his experience in Japan [2,6]. More recently, Helfrich and Whitaker published in 2006 a rather complete account of Raymond and his intention to re-create a modern world. [3] However, these recently printed works [3,5,6,7] have not contributed definitively to the understanding of the relations of Raymond’s stances with cultural and environmental features of Japanese architecture, which we believe remain largely underestimated by most western experts, especially in relationship with his solar architecture [8]. Based on the authors’ investigation of the Japanese architectural realm, the objective of this article is to showcase that the aftermath of his Asian experiences was in fact the achievement of a new insight into nature and specifically the sun as a form-giver for future architectural realizations, as Walter Gropius himself was to recognize in a famous postcard of Ryoanji’s rock garden sent to Le Corbusier in 1957 [9].

It is important to stress that the notions presented in Raymond’s oeuvre were not limited to the surface in an expressionist way but had to be manifest from the core conception of the accomplished building.

Relevant examples of his work can be found in many countries, including Ireland, the Philippines, Hawaii, and the United States. Raymond was inducted into the American Institute of Architects in 1952 and in 1956 was awarded the New York Association’s Medal of Honor. He received accolades from different governments, such as the Third Class Order of the Rising Sun and a badge of honor for life in the Japanese Institute of Architects.

After leaving Japan, he put his own studio and farm in New Hope (Philadelphia, demolished) in a building reminiscent of unrealized ideas by Le Corbusier for the Chilean diplomat Errazuriz, with whose sketches he had experimented in his own Karuizawa studio. He died at the same location on 25 October 1976.

2. The Path to Raymond’s Architectural Evolution

In the following pages, and based on our methodology, we will trace a timeline that starts in 1919, when Raymonds arrived for the first time in Japan to partner with Frank Lloyd Wright in the construction of the Imperial Hotel. We will describe the significant works and events that led him to adopt a novel environmentally conscious attitude towards projects and to introduce “solar design”, as he named it [2], in his creations. Whenever necessary, we will introduce scientific tools such as sunlight simulation, as in Section 4.1, to demonstrate the main points that we would take into account and to achieve the desired results.

2.1. The Making of the Imperial Hotel

In this subsection, we will describe in brief the aftermath of the building of the Imperial Hotel in Tokyo.

Raymond’s partnership with Frank Lloyd Wright continued with a years-long sojourn to sort out the erection of an emblem hotel intended to impress foreign dignitaries and visitors. Although Wright had performed several brief stints in the island nation, the association between him and Raymond became problematic, because the American master was not inclined to acknowledge local singularities, especially those related to the climate and building materials. After a year working on the Imperial Hotel, Raymond turned sour due to the “incessant reiteration of Wright’s manners and moods”, to which he could not respond positively. Moreover, he had the impression that “the design did not bear any relationship to Japan, neither to its climate, traditions, or people and culture”, and consequently “the lodge finally transmogrified into a sort of cenotaph for the effigy of the same architect” [2] (p. 76) (Figure 1).

On the contrary, Wright’s opinion about Raymond’s work was reflected in some letters the American master sent to R. Schindler. At that time, Schindler was assisting Wright in the construction of the Aline Barnsdall’s Olive Hill Complex in Los Angeles while he visited Japan.

Schindler, who had worked with Raymond at Wright’s studio before they moved to Tokyo, attempted in vain to defend the posture of his former colleague. Lastly, Raymond received a letter terminating the partnership.

From the former it seems clear that Raymond made a strenuous effort, not entirely devoid of insecurity, to free himself from the strict mind frame of Wright’s whims in design. At the same time, Raymond’s preoccupations were far from stylistic and belonged to the realm of nature. After quitting working with Raymond, Wright sent several letters to Schindler expressing discontent and the urgent need to find a replacement for him. In one of them, Wright even pointed out his discontent and mixed feelings.

Schindler and his companion Neutra, whom he had encountered during his time in academia at the University of Vienna, had been taken into consideration as replacements for Raymond. In fact, they planned to visit Tokyo. In this respect, Wright wrote to Schindler stating his approval of the plan to work on a new hospital (probably St. Luke’s hospital).

Nevertheless, Wright’s work in Tokyo ended abruptly, and as a consequence, the two architects’ desired journey did not take place. Therefore, Schindler could never travel to Japan, although he had a great interest in Japanese architecture. In fact, one year later, Schindler built his studio and own house in Los Angeles, the innovative and iconic Kings Road House, which shows clear relationships with deep concepts of Japanese architecture [9]. Neutra lived and worked with Schindler at Kings Road House between 1925 and 1930. Subsequently, Neutra could finally travel to Japan. He arranged a trip of several weeks to Japan, which was achieved with the help of the Tsuchiuras.

In Japan, Neutra gave lectures and visited Tokyo, Osaka, Kyoto (including the Katsura Imperial Villa, a requirement according to Bruno Taut’s opinion), and Nara. For his part, Kameki Tsuchiura also encountered Antonin Raymond when he came back to Japan. He worked at Raymond’s studio in Tokyo, which, in addition, he commented on in the introduction to the first major publication of Raymond’s work in Japan, published in 1931 in volume 19 of Kenchiku Jidai (Epochs of Architecture) [10].

2.2. The First Structures Realized in Concrete in Tokyo

The bitter departure from the postulates of his former mentor resulted paradoxically in the introduction of modern structural materials and especially concrete, but its manifold functions and austerity had to produce a remarkable effect on design and expression in Japan, as we describe here.

In the beginning, Raymond carried out unassuming commissions for small and private villas with a certain Western style that the Japanese were not capable of reproducing at the time. The foreign colony in Tokyo was one of his main sources of commissions, more specifically, foreigners in charge of teaching equipment, medical attention, religious services, and so forth. In time, he evolved considerably in the typology and techniques of detached residences [11].

The plot of one of his early buildings in Japan, the house for Dr. Rachel Reid near Azabu, was too large for his client. Accordingly, she gave part of the land to Raymond, who built his first residence in Tokyo there (no longer extant). Regarding this house, Raymond explained that the rooms’ orientation to the South to bring in sunlight, the windows’ position based on ventilation and daylighting, and the principle of using unmanufactured materials were all inspired by Japanese traditional architecture. This constitutes an early move toward solar architecture.

Raymond used a type of concrete that he emphatically called monolithic. He had found from the work at the Imperial Hotel that stone was scarce in Japan and lacked the tensile properties of traditional wood employed for residences. As an ideal substitute, concrete was reinforced, but only with non-corrugated steel. Many of the materials were left exposed in their original state, re-instating the Japanese architectural idea with which he disagreed with Wright: “The ornament should be part of the surface but not lie on the surface” [8] (Box 1-f.1, 31057). Accordingly, Raymond reproduced as much as possible the ancient simplicity of the Japanese spirit by bringing in modern techniques (Figure 2).

Raymond came to the point of channeling water with ropes and bamboo instead of gutters. In addition, he designed large windows and screens that served as a sort of sliding doors that induced a stronger flow of space (and air) from the quiet interior to the green outer spaces [12]. The openings were protected by deep overhangs, taking into account solar angles and other types of sunshades that contribute to darkening the indoor spaces, as occurred in Japanese traditional architecture (Figure 3). These interiors seem to be appreciated by the Japanese mind, and they are the matter of a famous essay named “In Praise of Shadows” by the novelist Junichiro Tanizaki. On this point, he mentioned: “In making for ourselves a place to inhabit, we first spread a kind of parasol to cast some shadow on the earth, and in the pale light of this shadow we assemble our house” [13] (p. 28). At the same time, this house of pure lines set a precedent for his solar architecture.

This is the first example of the transformations toward environmental architecture that Raymond had envisaged for the contemporary scene of Japan, which, through a fortunate combination of skill and circumstances, became rather successful [13].

2.3. Influence of the Kantô Earthquake (1923)

In this subsection, we will comment that the previous platitudes of intellectual theories and cultural discussion were soon to be put to a test by the power of the untamed nature in Japan and the rise of militarism.

Raymond continued with his architectural inventions and was not involved with the construction frenzy in the occupied territories in Asia.

Life seemed to pass peacefully in Tokyo until one tragic event boosted Raymond’s career in Japan, the great earthquake of 1923. The architect was surprised by the magnitude of the catastrophe in his studio, but he and the rest of his staff were able to escape. Later, near Shinagawa station, Antonin found Noémi with their son Claude. Fortunately, Reinanzaka House had resisted the earthquake unscathed [14].

Astonished by the intensity of the damage due to the disaster and the large number of casualties, Raymond was personally involved in humanitarian aid. By chance, the Imperial Hotel also resisted the earthquake with little damage. Frank Lloyd Wright exultantly spoke about it in his biography.

Gradually, daily life was restored, and his studio activity became frantic in order to reconstruct as many buildings as possible. The construction techniques that Raymond pioneered, based on reinforced concrete, unlike those of brick used by Josiah Conder and Wright, were validated. On the contrary, the American steel construction applied among other buildings in the Marunouchi department store was found to be unacceptable for seismic activity and had to be discarded or reconsidered. Since then, earthquake resilience was one of the main features of Raymond’s signature; therefore, references to this characteristic can be found in almost all of his later sizeable works [15].

3. Early Achievements and Results in Climate-Responsive Houses

In this section, we will describe how Raymond’s trajectory was consolidated, and the concept of solar housing, elucidated in his Reinanzaka house, is made explicit in his own words through realizations of private villas such as Karuizawa’s and Viscount Hamao’s residence and also in virtue of dissemination of his ideas in books, articles, and sundry lectures. These are chosen as considering the higher exponents of a subtler approach to the problems presented by dwelling with nature.

3.1. The House for Viscount Hamao

The starting point of this trend was marked by this project. In 1927, Raymond carried out an important work for a Japanese nobleman. In relation to that work, the architect himself claims to have reached a cultural syncretism in which environmental Japanese features are included, resulting in a house that can be considered a precedent for the first American “solar” houses [16]. Raymond states about the home that “such design was a precedent of homes which even today could be taken as contemporary; not only in the disposition of an open plan and adequate orientation, but also in the handling of materials, maintained untreated as much as possible, and the use of plywood for inner partitions, etc.” [2] (p. 118).

In truth, he inadvertently foresaw the ideas of Bruno Taut, who in his Japanese sojourn wrote [17], “Hence until now Japan cannot possess her own architecture if such is not developed in accordance to its own climate (…). Nevertheless, this is very difficult to achieve and perhaps impossible in the short term for the Japanese themselves. Several centuries must pass before they are ready to act in this manner without the help of foreigners. The traditional Japanese house can no longer be inhabited by the current people of Japan (…). People who sit in chairs and tables will no longer stay crouched under the kotatsu (brazier) huddling into several layers of kimonos or remain trembling in the floor while the cold winter winds blow through the shattered shoji.”

3.2. Raymond’s Karuizawa Summer Studio in the Wake of Le Corbusier

A further development in this typology appeared as soon as 1933, when the Raymonds built a summer residence to carry on with some of their commissions during the hot and humid summer of Tokyo. The building design was based on Le Corbusier’s plans for the mansion of M. Errazuriz in Chile but adapted to Raymond’s previous achievements (Figure 4).

When the Swiss-born architect first heard about the matter, he reacted negatively but later, on May 7th of 1935, Le Corbusier sent Raymond a letter stating: “Please rest assured that there is no bad feelings between us, but–as you used to say–you made a slight mistake, that is, you forgot to send me a note when you published the images of your nice Tokyo house, which is very pretty, by the way” [3] (p. 332).

Moreover, in October of that year, Raymond spent several days with Le Corbusier in New York. Hence, the disagreement regarding the plagiarism of Raymond’s Karuizawa summer studio was apparently resolved. In fact, when Le Corbusier obtained in 1940 a commission for developing an urbanization plan for the new city of Izmir in Turkey, where Taut had worked prior, he sent Raymond another missive asking about his experience dealing with earthquakes in Japan. This harks back to the acclaim that the Reinanzaka house had achieved in Europe, especially among the French intellectuals.

In Raymond’s Karuizawa summer studio, currently the Paynet museum, everything was based on the skills of Japanese traditional carpenters. The architect used local chestnut timbers, rudimentary polishes with sand and straw, and had only the bark removed. Local igneous rocks (lava and magma) were selected as the aggregate for cement. In addition, sugiki (see glossary) wood (cryptomeria) from nearby forests was employed for the boards; the roof was covered with karamatsu straw (a type of larch), kaya (myscanthus) reed or rash; and sudare or typical shutters were made from bamboo. The construction incorporates a makeshift system of evaporative cooling that relies on the vicinity of a lakeside (Figure 5). The orientation of the living spaces was set to the south as usually happens in East Asia, although Le Corbusier made no mention of this matter in his sketch and hardly could have, being at the time fairly unaware of the subtleties of solar geometry and especially in the southern hemisphere where Chile lies. In this way, the breezes from the lake are also deflected to cool the inner rooms. Much later, Raymond was bound to enact a similar diagram for his farm and studio in New Hope (Pennsylvania), without hindrances due to different climates and latitudes. In fact, the New Hope studio has been recently demolished, while Karuizawa’s still receives visitors and activities with just nominal refurbishments.

To a significant extent, it could be argued that Raymond tried to reinforce the Japanese aesthetic concepts of wabi (lack of decoration as a result of the pursuit for the bare essence) and sabi (depicting or anticipating the passage of time) through modern environmental trends predating sustainability in architecture. According to Bruno Taut, natural wood represents in Japan “the beginning and the end, youth and old age. Beautiful wood that is simply old is not elegant due to its appearance, but because it has endured a long winding journey, or we could state, a spiritual experience” [18] (p. 91). Following this Japanese concept, Raymond’s friend Schindler added that the wood only needs to be “slightly brushed to accentuate the textures” [14] (p. 20).

Thus, in Raymond’s Karuizawa studio, all irrelevant ornaments were removed to attain vacuity, and thus “leave it to everyone’s insight to appreciate what it has enshrined” [19] (p. 89). On this point, Raymond commented that in the Japanese space “it could seem that the wish to dispose with the useless, to clean the space, to look for the essence in everything, eventually, in the silence so created, one hears the pure voice of the form, of the substance and the space” [2] (p. 151).

With hindsight, it seems clear that Raymond innovated against all odds whenever he was able to adapt the sleek plans of avant-garde architecture to Nipponese vernacular construction and philosophy, which implied natural features.

3.3. Publication and Dissemination Efforts: Book: Antonin Raymond, His Realizations in Japan, 1920–1935

To prove that Raymond’s findings were not incidental, we will analyze the subsequent printing efforts. His first book was published by Jônan Shoin in Tokyo in 1938 with an initial print of 700 copies. In 1939, second and third printings were published, reaching 502 and 350 copies, respectively. In this relevant book, now almost unavailable, Raymond explains his architectural concerns before leaving Japan due to the increased pre-war militarism. Among other things, Raymond noticed a belligerent atmosphere when his second son Claude returned from school on a tank’s deck, despite having been treated well. Raymond points out in this book that:

“Everything fulfils a keen purpose and is only sufficient in relation to that purpose. The greatest satisfaction which a Japanese experiences, can be found in the balance which the inhabitant identifies between the idea, the act and the results, both through space and time (…) The Japanese worships nature fervently, much more than us, and he reveals it by making sacrifices for it which we are not willing to perform. The garden and the house constitute an indissoluble one.” [2].

(pp. 150–153)

It is convenient to stress that Raymond developed in the latter sentence the concepts of katei (literally, house garden), equivalent to “home”, and shakkei, or borrowed landscape. With the exception of genkan, the “hidden barrier”, where shoes must be removed, and some other minor aspects, it is astonishing that Raymond was able to distinctly recognize key points of the Japanese domestic tradition that even many natives were not able to perceive. He went so far as to tolerate and praise Feng-Shui and other geomantic rites, occasionally to be performed and implemented for some of his buildings; such customs prescribed the southern orientation of the buildings mentioned elsewhere [20].

4. Pacific War Exiles and Life in India: Ashram for the Guru Sri Aurobindo (1937), Church in Negros (Philippines) (1948), International Results

In the following section, we analyze two important examples developed outside Japan in purely tropical surroundings, which challenged Raymond’s postulates and capabilities.

Forced to leave Japan in 1937 due to the war-mongering atmosphere and increasing hostility towards foreigners, Raymond moved to Pondicherry (India), where he had been commissioned to build a complex for Sri Aurobindo, a sage and guru who took refuge in southern India (French territory) to elude the British authorities that had falsely accused and incarcerated him.

Raymond started to design the project in Japan with the participation of the architect Maekawa, who had stayed for a couple of years with Le Corbusier in Paris. Based on the original design, Raymond proceeded to construct the roof of the building with a kind of vaulting made of precast concrete to induce more ventilation in such a harsh climate [21]. Soon-to-be artists such as George Nakashima (sculptor) and François Sammer collaborated under his guidance. In this pristine resort, in which he himself had to live for quite some time, he further experimented with the concrete-frame typology built manually by acolytes of the guru. In order to open the building to the outside and thus respond to the exacting requirements of a tropical climate, the south façade was designed with long horizontal blinds, probably constituting the first modern large-scale brise-soleil (Figure 6 and Figure 7). In the plans, Maekawa minutely writes the French word persianne to refer to this shading system [22]. Even the windows were (and remain) unglazed, thus preventing a greenhouse effect.

In his first Japanese stint, he had deeply studied the radiative intensity of the high subtropical sun, which can only be subdued by reflection and never admitted directly. This effort came to the point of labeling a construction detail of the unglazed window cum louvers with the compelling sentence: “Window Arrangement for Tropical Countries” [23] (Figure 8).

This building is still in perfect use after 85 years, it features a Japanese garden with a lantern, a pond, and some worship halls. It pleasantly reveals how a detailed lecture of local climate, or in other words “the soul of the place” is able to produce transcendental architectures with the simplest means and resources through integration with a spiritual community.

4.1. Solar Analysis and Simulation of the Aurobindo Ashram

To demonstrate the effectiveness of Raymond’s ideas, cast intuitively, we have simulated the solar trajectories (Figure 9) for this building to ascertain that the orientation and louver details calculated by means of the software developed by the authors [24] are well adapted to the site and the local climate.

Following the solar study, we conducted a sunlight simulation [24] for the current device and several alternatives such as the ordinary window or different finishes for the slats (Figure 10). The behavior, recently checked with accurate monitoring by architect Mona Doctor-Pingel, seems adequate, since, in the particular case in which the system is set to a horizontal position, the increases in illuminance are relevant as compared with a normal window, which is hardly predictable without computer tools [25]. The louver device is kept in good condition and is well maintained by disciples even in the curious absence of glazing (which prevents the build-up of the greenhouse effect). At the site, a real-scale model (in wood) of the shading system attached to a single room is still preserved.

This building was one of the few key works of modern architecture completed at that time in India and is still the most important outside the Chandigarh area. It came to be considered a pioneering and outstanding response to the tropical climate [26]. The project was to be inspirational and was heavily disseminated through the book Tropical Architecture by Drew and Fry, who also collaborated with Le Corbusier in Chandigarh’s main works.

Dr. Otto Koenisberger, who started a practice in India in 1939 and in 1951 became the director of the Tropical Department of the Architectural Association in London, took good notice of the innovations and achievements developed by Raymond at Pondicherry.

It is convenient to notice that the Golconde Ashram bears some similarities with the Ministry of Education in Rio de Janeiro designed by Lucio Costa, Oscar Niemeyer, and other Brazilian architects inspired by Le Corbusier, though actually built later in 1943 [27] (Figure 11).

Richard Neutra, a colleague of Schindler’s at the Vienna University of Technology who met Raymond at Wright’s Oak Park studio before his trip to Japan, was also interested in the brise-soleil experiments that were being carried out in South America. In this regard, Neutra explains, seemingly forgetting about Arabic architecture, that “no other element in and by South American architects has received as much attention as the ever-present blinds and integrated architectural devices for shading the outside of facades and windows.” [28] (box 01: folder 178 Counter-solar devices labeled A-50, 1946).

To this aim, we have compared the solar trajectories for the building of the Ashram and for that of the Ministry of Health (Figure 12a,b), both evolved as design estimates by intuition in places completely foreign to western climatic traditions, but they show an adequate behavior and performance after more than 80 years of their respective construction.

Although some would speculate that Le Corbusier’s sketches could be traced to the inception of the two projects, in India and Brazil, it becomes clear that Raymond’s brise-soleil formulation, entwined with his own Asian experiences [29], does not showcase the disadvantages that have affected the operation and maintenance of the similar device in Rio de Janeiro (Figure 11) [30]. We can sum up such divergences by arguing that Raymond’s building became more than simply rationalist, stemming from authentic Asian architectural solutions, while being responsive to the local climate. Unfortunately, there was no such architectural tradition in Brazil, whose earlier buildings were content to try and imitate old-fashioned Portuguese models. This fact could also explain the intriguing reason why there are no courtyard houses in the Brazilian Sertao (in the desert).

4.2. Example of a Church Adapted to the Warm and Humid Climate

Another instance of the kind of adaptations devised by Raymond in response to tropical countries is the almost forgotten church of Saint Joseph built in a remote sugar factory near Victoria in the isle of Negros (Philippines).

In this simple but convincing project (Figure 13), Raymond incorporates perforated walls for ventilation and a belfry tower to provide daylighting to the main altar.

In this case, the concrete frame is also employed but to a bare level and very similar to wooden construction. As in most vernacular buildings throughout the island, there is no solid wall, but the significant difference from traditional buildings is the deft use of skylights, largely unheard of in Eastern Asia. Monitoring of the interior of the church reveals a satisfactory lighting performance (Figure 14).

After some 80 years since its completion, the building is still in use and is greatly appreciated and preserved by a thriving community, which is gathered around this intriguing church in the jungle.

5. Definitive Return to Japan: A Statement on Architectural Maturity

During the war, Antonin Raymond worked in the US, accepting commissions for the army and designing family houses. In America, he was associated with a young Harvard graduate, his Czech countryman and fellow architect Ladislaw Rado; after the Pacific War, he immediately returned to Japan [31].

The Reader’s Digest Building, located on the vacant plot of the French embassy, was his initial work of this second period. The building suffered demolition in spite of its surprising modernity. It was the first construction in Japan with central air conditioning, acoustic insulation, and integrated lighting. Although the building’s seismic stability had been verified by experts, it was questioned by some authorities due to its audacious design featuring a double cantilevered frame [32].

The church of St. Anselm is another poignant work by Raymond. It was commissioned in 1954 by Father Hildebrand, who was the principal of the Benedictine order in Japan. Raymond worked for several years on the commission and conceived many models. He commented on the project that the result was fruitful due to its advanced structural system and economy [33]. The folded panels that shape the walls and the roof are left exposed in bare concrete with steel sheets. In the longitudinal direction, each side is formed by a folded wall six sun wide (about 20 cm), and the roof is supported by long beams 2.7 sun (Japanese feet) in thickness (about 8 cm). Each zigzag wall portion is embedded with concrete beams to create a rigid portico that supports the deck loads and the transverse mechanical stresses caused by earthquakes (Figure 15) [34,35,36].

After such acclaimed work, which still had a touch of foreign spirituality, more churches followed in due course, such as Saint Alban, an Anglican Episcopal temple for which Raymond drew on timber frames encompassing the tradition of Nipponese temples at the risk of a more compromised safety against earthquakes [37].

Other important works of the same typology were St. Paul in Karuizawa, the Shibata Catholic Church, the Saint Paul Chapel at Rikkyo University, and especially St. Michael in Sapporo. In this last case, we have to recognize that quakes are rare in the Hokkaido region where the building is located, and thus, timber frames seem better suited to this kind of project [38] (Figure 16 and Figure 17). In the supporting truss, he displayed some rare and precious carpentry encounters with three logs (Figure 17).

It could be stated that, in a serendipitous way, he seemed to return to his origins in a serene path of spirituality that had deeply overjoyed him in India.

In the final stage of Raymond’s residence in Japan, Fusaichiro Inoue, who was a patron of Bruno Taut, commissioned him for several relevant works, including his marital house in Nishi-Azabu and the Performing Arts Center in Gunma. Raymond uses, in this latter building, one of the most celebrated cultural venues in the central regions of Honshû, the same anti-earthquake typology that he had applied previously in the church of St. Anselm. Specifically, folded V-shaped plates in concrete, for both the roof and the walls, form a continuous portico that even accommodates Kakubi and Noh theatrical performances (Figure 18) [39]. In this case, for acoustic and visual reasons the plan is divergent. Interestingly, a very similar idea was adapted by the Uruguayan architect Eladio Dieste in the famous Church of Atlantida, although in this case by employing reinforced brick masonry and curved forms, which little by little were being discarded in Raymond’s oeuvre except for the chapel of the Nanzan University in Nagoya and the latter St. Paul’s Chapel at Rikkyo University (Figure 19) [40].

In a manner of speaking, we can see that Raymond was capable of deftly managing wind performance, ventilation, and solar exposure in and around his buildings as well as discarding processed materials in favor of reed, thatch, wood, and bamboo, as a surprising reaction to modern architectural demands. He showed a great deal of bioclimatic philosophy in doing so.

6. Conclusions

Antonin Raymond produced a real advance in solar architecture due to his experience and adequate management of compositional issues and in the wake of the acculturation that he had undergone. He achieved a long-sought-for attunement between Eastern and Western architectures, creating at the same time new kinds of building typologies.

He understood perfectly what is nowadays termed “the forsaken Japan”, stemming from the long evolution of a singular tradition that experienced secular isolation, the sakoku 鎖国, or “enchained” country. He realized its potential in the contemporary scene and felt at ease with its intelligent pursuit in search of a distinguished place in the international scene. On this matter, Antonin Raymond argued: “An architect working in Japan has at his disposal the basic principles, whose re-discovery lies at the essence of modern architectural trends” [2] (p. 150). In truth, he dealt with a sophisticated, complex, and refined culture, which stayed apart from all other civilizations in the self-enclosing movement of sakoku (see above), in open defiance of the common and more fashionable principles, as became manifest in many realizations.

In Japan, scholars have detected an enduring respect for the natural sphere, which has modeled manifold aspects of human activities and arts, and Raymond was capable of transporting this to the architectural realm (the Dao). Consequently, Japanese tectonic modes, so described, are singular and sustainable in a similar fashion. Raymond seems to have anticipated the ideas in the late C. Alexander’s A Timeless way of Building, as he realized the significance of nature for the Nipponese mind: an unfathomable treasure of creative stints from which to exhaust a repertoire of inventions suitable for architectural expression.

These expressions move with lissomness in the realms of solar and bioclimatic design, as we believe we have widely demonstrated.

Raymond clearly understood the vernacular as a precedent for solar and later sustainable architecture, as we have striven to show above with several examples and computer simulations crafted by us.

Famous living architects and architectural thinkers should be included in his wake for such is the true dimension of his intellectual legacy [41,42].