TAB Event - "William Merrell Vories as an Architect" Exhibition

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At Shiodome Museum | Rouault Gallery
Media: Architecture

Architect William Merrell Vories (1880-1964) is a distinctive figure in the history of modern Japanese architecture. Born in Kansas, Vories arrived in Japan in 1905. He worked as a English teacher at Shiga Prefectural High School for two years. After that, he stayed in the area and became involved in various activities, starting an architectural firm and also a company that would eventually become Omi Kyodaisha (OMI Corporation), as well as working as a missionary. He was based in Karuizawa, a famous summer resort area, where he made connections with foreign missionaries and expanding his activity throughout Japan. He designed a wide variety of architecture that reveals his focus on spaces of gathering, from mission schools, churches, commercial buildings to residential houses.

This exhibition introduces Vories' work through his architectural drawings, photographs, and video documentation. The highlight of the exhibition is the life-size walk-in model of Ukita-Sanso (former cottage of the Vories in Karuizawa built in 1922), where Vories and his wife stayed every summer. The exhibition explores the "ideal residence" Vories aimed to achieve in his architecture through works and documents he left.

[Image: "Former Asabuki-Sanso (Suikyu-so)" (1931) Photo: Akihisa Masuda]

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