Antonin Raymond (or ), born as Antonín Reimann (10 May 1888 – 25 October 1976)"Deaths Elsewhere", Miami Herald, 30 October 1976, p. 10 was a Czech American architect. Raymond was born and studied in Bohemia (now part of the Czech Republic), working later in the United States and Japan. Raymond was also the Consul of Czechoslovakia to Japan from 1926 to 1939, in which year the Czech diplomacy was closed down after the occupation of the European country by Nazi Germany.
Raymond's initial work with American architects Cass Gilbert and Frank Lloyd Wright gave him an insight into the use of concrete for texture and structure that he would refine throughout his six-decade career. At studio practices in New Hope, Pennsylvania and Tokyo, he explored traditional Japanese building techniques combined with the latest In American building innovations. Raymond applied these principles to a wide range of residential, commercial, religious, and institutional projects in Japan, America, India, and the Philippines.
Along with British architect Josiah Conder, Raymond is recognized as one of the fathers of modern architecture in Japan.
Biography Raymond was born on 10 May 1888, in Kladno, Central Bohemia (now the Czech Republic) to Alois Reimann, a Jew of German descent, and his wife Růžena, a Catholic. Following the death of his mother and the bankruptcy of his father's shop the family moved to Prague in 1905. Raymond started at the Reálné gymnasium (secondary school aimed at more technical/practical sciences) in Kladno, then continued at a similar school in Prague.
In 1906 Raymond entered Vysoká Škola Technická, the Prague Polytechnic, studying under Josef Schultz and Jan Koula. He completed his studies in Trieste in 1910 before leaving for New York City.
There, he began a three-year employment with Cass Gilbert, working on a number of projects including external architectural details for the Woolworth Building and the Austin, Nichols and Company Warehouse in Brooklyn. His experience on the latter of these gave him an insight into the structural and textural properties of concrete.
He began studying painting at the Independent School of Art in the Lincoln Square Arcade Building in 1912, but was forced to curtail a painting trip to Italy and North Africa with the onset of World War I. On his trip back to New York, he met his future wife and business partner, Noémi Pernessin, and they were wed on 15 December 1914. In early 1916 he became an American citizen, naturalizing his name, Antonín Reimann, to Antonin Raymond.
Employment with Frank Lloyd Wright Raymond's initial encounter with the work of Frank Lloyd Wright came in 1908–1910 when he saw a small monograph and later (1910) a large portfolio of Wright's work published in Berlin. In his autobiography, Raymond recounts how deeply he and his fellow students were impressed by Wright's design: "Wright had restated the principles of building; he had overcome the cell, liberated the plan, made space flow, given buildings a human scale and blended them with nature, all in a romantic, sensual and original way that left us breathless."
Through the influence of a mutual friend, Frank Lloyd Wright agreed to employ Raymond in May 1916. Initially, Raymond and Noémi worked with Frank Lloyd Wright at Taliesin in Spring Green, Wisconsin. In 1917 he enlisted with the United States Army, serving overseas with the American Expeditionary Force. Upon his discharge from the army and his return to New York, Wright persuaded him to go to Tokyo with him to work on the Imperial Hotel.
Although he remained as Wright's chief assistant for one year, Raymond soon became bored with the work. He became concerned that "the design had nothing in common with Japan, its climate, its traditions, its people and its culture". Also, whilst his work with Gilbert showed him the great possibilities of concrete, Wright did not see concrete in the same way, preferring to encase it with brickwork or carved Oya Stone.
Although Raymond proposed continuing working for Wright, he was eventually dismissed in January 1921. In February of the same year, he set up the American Architectural and Engineering Company in Tokyo with Leon Whittaker Slack.
Japan and the Inter-war years In the Tokyo Woman's Christian College, commenced in 1924, Raymond's architecture can be seen to still be heavily influenced by Wright. Its low, hipped roof and overhanging eaves are reminiscent of Wright's Prairie Houses. This early work also demonstrates his interest in Czech Cubism and the work of Auguste Perret.
After their own house was destroyed in the Great Kantō earthquake, Raymond designed a new one, the Reinanzaka House, in Azabu, Tokyo. His desire to free himself from Wright's influence led him to explore spatial relationships between living, working and dining areas and how spaces could be closed off with folding screens.The house is built almost entirely of in situ concrete. Raymond's workforce were enthusiastic in their use of this new material, likening it to the walls of traditional kura storehouses. The house itself had metal fenestration, tubular steel trellises and traditional rain chains rather than rainwater downpipes. The interior too was well in advance of other houses of the International Style with the use of cantilevered tubular steel furniture.
After a number of staff changes, the practice was renamed Antonin Raymond, Architect.
Czechoslovak Consul in Japan
Despite becoming a naturalized American citizen in 1916, Raymond became the honorary consul for the Czechoslovak Republic, representing the government of T. G. Masaryk. This gave him influence outside those circles normally associated with an architect of his age. From 1928 to 1930, Raymond designed and remodelled the American, Soviet and French embassies. He also undertook work for the Rising Sun Petroleum Company, designing 17 earthquake-proof and fireproof employee houses, the general office building, the manager's residence and two prototype service stations, one in steel and the other in concrete. All were constructed in an International Modern Style.
Corbusier inspiration Since the Reinanzaka House, Raymond had been interested in the work of Swiss-French architect Le Corbusier. He acknowledged that further contribution of Corbusier's ideas to the practice came in 1930, when Kunio Maekawa (who had just returned from two years working for Le Corbusier in his Paris office) joined. He later applied Le Corbusier's ideas to vernacular Japanese architecture. Based upon Le Corbusier's unbuilt residential scheme for Mr. Errazuris in Chile, he designed a summer house for himself in Karuizawa, Nagano. Where Corbusier had used rough masonry and a tiled butterfly roof, Raymond used cedar with larch thatch. Although the design was criticised by an American reviewer for being a copy of Le Corbusier's design, the Frenchman was so flattered and surprised that he included a photo of it in the third volume of his Oeuvre complète:
Please be assured that there is no bitterness between us, but–as you yourself say–you made a slight mistake, that is you neglected to send me a note when you published the images of your Tokyo house, which is very pretty, by the way.
Extract of a letter from Le Corbusier to Antonin Raymond, 7 May 1935.
In 1922, Raymond had been admitted to Tokyo Golf Club and when it relocated to Asaka, Saitama in 1932, he was asked to design it. His links to golfer Shiro Akaboshi also led to several residential commissions.
In 1937 in Tokyo, Antonin, Noémi and a number of Japanese architects, including Junzō Yoshimura, signed Articles of Association forming a new firm, Reymondo Kenchiku Sekkei Jimushō.
Sri Aurobindo Ashram
In January 1938, Raymond, Noémi, and their son left Tokyo bound for America. This six-month journey took them initially to the Indian subcontinent and then on to Europe, including a trip to Prague.
In 1935, Raymond's office had accepted a commission to design a dormitory for the Sri Aurobindo Ashram in Pondicherry, part of French India in southeast India. A preliminary site visit was made by George Nakashima and the schematic design was completed in 1936. Although Raymond had envisioned that the dormitory would be completed in six months, Sri Aurobindo was concerned that the noise of construction would disturb the ashram, so he decided that the building would be constructed by its residents.
Initially, Nakashima, Francois Sammer (a Czech architect who had worked for Le Corbusier in Russia), and Chandulal (a devotee who had trained as an engineer), built a full-scale model of the dormitory in order to test the feasibility of the design, and then used it as a laboratory to further refine the construction methods. Nakashima's duties included doing very explicit detail drawings showing, for example, the design of the concrete formwork. Devotees even donated brass utensils so that they could be melted down to make door handles and hinges.
Raymond sought to mitigate the effects of the Pondicherry climate and oriented the Golconde dormitory (as it became known), so that its main facades faced north and south to make use of the prevailing breeze. A combination of moveable louvres on the exterior skin and woven teak sliding doors permitted ventilation without compromising on privacy. The building is still in use as an ashram today. It was the first modernist building in India.
The New Hope experiment In 1939, Raymond's architectural practice in the United States began with the purchase and conversion of his farm and studio in New Hope, Pennsylvania. He and his wife's goal was to "create a physical and intellectual environment that mirrored and supported their approach to modern design, one that synthesized International Style developments with lessons learned from Japan's craft tradition". They hoped that the lifestyle and design ethos that they would create, would be simpler and more in tune with nature, similar in set up to Frank Lloyd Wright's Taliesin Fellowship.
The Raymonds modified the house to create a more open plan feel, separated by Japanese fusuma partitions and shōji screens. The rooms were filled with objects of art, including rugs designed by Noémi and crockery by the Mingei designer Minagawa Masu.
Raymond developed a prospectus for aspiring architects to come and live and study at New Hope and he attracted at least 20. In addition to teaching practical design solutions, the apprentices had hands-on work with various building trades. Farm work and hay making contributed a physical aspect. Students included Junzō Yoshimura and Carl Graffunder, and the farm was visited by people like Eero Saarinen and Alvar Aalto.
Once the students had become settled, Raymond sought real-world projects for them to work upon, to put his theories into practice. Projects included an assortment of houses and extensions in New Jersey, Connecticut and Long Island.
In May 1943, the Raymonds vouched for George Nakashima and his family, releasing them from a Japanese internment camp in Idaho, so that they could come and live at the New Hope farm.
The war years (1941–1945)