Part of the 2026 Winter Speaker Series
via Zoom- Link will be emailed on February 17 at 3pm. Presentation will begin at 6pm
February 17, 2026
Uncrating the Japanese House
presented by William Whitaker
Part of the 2026 Winter Speaker Series, Building Philadelphia via Zoom.
$10 for Members. Be sure to log in at checkout for the discounted rates.
In 1953, Japanese architect Junzo Yoshimura designed a now-classic Japanese house and garden that he called Shofuso. It was built in Nagoya, Japan, and shipped to New York in 1954, where it was exhibited at the Museum of Modern Art and then relocated to Philadelphia's Fairmount Park. The curators of MoMA's House in the Garden exhibition highlighted its synthesis of historic Japanese architecture with modern architecture: the clarity of the house's post and beam structure, its flexibility of use and the close relationship of indoor and outdoor spaces.
This lecture centers on Yoshimura's design for Shofuso and two allied sites located in New Hope, Bucks County, Pennsylvania: Raymond Farm (1939-41), a live-work residence built by Antonin and Noémi Raymond within the fabric of an existing 18th-century Quaker farmhouse; and Nakashima Studios, a complex of structures designed by George Nakashima over three decades (1947-77) to serve his furniture-making business and as his family's home. Each site, in its own way, is the embodiment of the personal relationships and cross-cultural collaborations among this group of architects and designers set within the Philadelphia region.
William Whitaker is Director and Chief Curator of the Architectural Archives of the University of Pennsylvania Stuart Weitzman School of Design. He is coauthor (with George Marcus) of The Houses of Louis Kahn and Uncrating the Japanese House: Junzo Yoshimura, Antonin and Noemi Raymond, and George Nakashima (with Yuka Yokoyama). Trained as an architect at Penn and the University of New Mexico, Whitaker works closely with the archival collections of Louis I. Kahn, Lawrence Halprin, and the partnership of Robert Venturi and Denise Scott Brown, in support of teaching, scholarship, preservation, and public engagement.
Complementary access available for current students and Art-Reach ACCESS card holders. Email [email protected] with valid student ID or ACCESS card to register.
The presentation link will be emailed to registrants on Tuesday, February 17 at 3pm.
All lectures will be recorded and a replay will be available to registered participants.
Image Credits: Shofuso hallway looking towards veranda. Elizabeth Felicella
