Josiah Conder

Artist Info

Josiah ConderBrixton, England, 1852 - 1920, Tokyo

Conder, Josiah (1852–1920), architect and artist, was born on 28 September 1852 at 22 Russell Grove, Brixton, Surrey, the second son of Josiah Conder (1822–1864) and his wife, Eliza, née Willsher (1820–1899). Josiah Conder senior, who may have been a banker, left the family impoverished at his death. Conder won a scholarship to Bedford Commercial School, which he attended between 1865 and 1868. On his return to London he enrolled at South Kensington School of Art and also at University College, London. There seems little doubt that his choice of a career was influenced by Thomas Roger Smith (1830–1903), a relative, who was lecturer (1871–81) and later professor of architecture (1881–1903) at University College, London. Smith also ran, independently, an architects' office, where Conder went to work. Later Conder was employed in the architectural office of William Burges (1827–1881). Burges was the foremost medievalist in the architectural profession and, since the London exhibition of 1862, which featured a display of Japanese craftwork, had developed a keen interest in Japan.

In 1876, at the age of twenty-four, Conder won the Soane medallion for a design for a country house. Probably because of this on 18 October 1876 he signed a contract with the imperial Japanese government to serve in Tokyo, at the Imperial College of Engineering as professor of architecture. The Imperial College of Engineering was a remarkable, innovative, pioneering institution, founded under the auspices of the ministry of public works in 1872. It remained independent until 1886, when it became the faculty of engineering in the Imperial University, Tokyo. This college was, between 1872 and 1886, under the direct personal supervision of the new young Meiji leaders and thus Conder had direct access to the new source of power in Japan. His work in Japan involved him in teaching the first generation of architects in the Western tradition and in acting as architect to the new energetic and innovative Japanese government. Because of William Burges's medievalism, Conder arrived in Japan receptive to it and to its culture. He taught his students to admire and be proud of the great Japanese temples and castles. Nevertheless, Conder's basic teaching was geared to European, rather than Asian, architecture, as his examination papers indicate. For example the 1884 final examination included the questions ‘Give a brief history of the architectural styles in Italy mentioning special examples’ and ‘Sketch carefully, and in proper proportion, a Grecian Doric entablature, an early English Gothic capital and a vaulting rib, a Perpendicular window, and a Renaissance window’ (Josiah Conder, 171).

Conder organized the teaching of his students in exemplary fashion: they wanted to learn about Western architecture, and did so. His pupils, including Kingo Tatsuno (1854–1919), Tatsuzo Sone (1853–1937), Tokuna Katayama (1854–1917), Yorinaka Tsumaki, and George Shimoda (1866–1931), became important Western-style architects. Several of the buildings they designed are still in use today. Conder himself designed the Rokumeikan, a famous italianate building, used as a social club in early Meiji Japan but later pulled down. He also designed other public buildings, none of which survives. In his later years he concentrated on designing fine houses for wealthy Japanese patrons: several survive. In 1884 the emperor honoured him with the order of the Rising Sun, fourth class, and in 1894 the order of the Sacred Treasure, third class, and official rank of honorary chokunin.

In 1881 Conder made a commitment to Japanese art by becoming a pupil of Kyosai Kawanabe (1831–1889), nicknamed the Demon of Painting, who taught Conder at the latter's home each Saturday. These were family occasions. Painter and architect became close friends and they travelled on painting expeditions together to Nikko and Kamakura, places of pilgrimage and great beauty within reasonable distance of Tokyo. Kyosai had originally resisted the new regime, which required co-operation with the foreigners, but with the passage of time and the friendship with Conder, his attitude changed.

Conder's publications included The Flowers of Japan and the Art of Floral Arrangement (1891), Landscape Gardening in Japan (1893), The Floral Art of Japan (1899), and Paintings and Studies by Kawanabe Kyosai (1911), as well as articles on aspects of Japan in Transactions of the Royal Institute of British Architects, The Builder, Transactions of the Asiatic Society of Japan, and elsewhere.

Conder settled in Japan, and married Mayeba (Maenami) Kume; they had no children. Kume died on 10 June and Conder on 21 June 1920, and they were both buried at Gokokuji Temple, Tokyo. Conder had a daughter, Helen Aiko, who in 1906 married Commander William Lennart Grut of the Swedish navy.

Olive Checkland

Sources

Josiah Conder (1977) · O. Checkland, Britain's encounter with Meiji Japan, 1868–1912 (1989) · W. H. Coaldrake, Architecture and authority in Japan (1996) · T. Kinoshita, ‘Josiah Conder: the father of modern Japanese architecture’, MA diss., Royal Holloway College, Egham, Surrey, 1996 · WWW, 1897–1915