Kunio Maekawa is an architect who designed and built his home, The Maekawa House, in 1941 (Reynolds, 2001). Because the war was ongoing, he could only build his house with limited materials (Reynolds, 2001). However, he still managed to incorporate traditional Japanese architecture with Western style influences. The Maekawa House is considered modern for introducing a different type of design to Japan (Reynolds, 2001). Maekawa got traditional wooden construction and a large garden; added the living/dining room to the center of the house. The bedroom was in the back corner of the house for privacy, and the other rooms were designed on either side of the living room (Reynolds, 2001), with a Western influence. Maekawa also preserved sliding doors with rice paper to let light into the house and had large openings to let in air. The sliding doors opened onto the garden to have a connection between the internal and external parts of the house (Reynolds, 2001). Maekawa was able to fuse Japanese and Western architectural styles and made Japanese modern architecture the emerging trend of his time period. At first he was a little hesitant to lose the identity of Japanese culture, but Maekawa was able to embrace this innovation. Kunio Maekawa was born in 1905 in the city of Niigata, Japan (Maekawa, 1984). Maekawa's parents were descendants of samurai origins, relatives on the mother's side were servants of the Tsugaru clan of Hirosaki (Maekawa, 1984). The paternal branch of the family were servants of the powerful Ii clan of Omi (Maekawa, 1984). At the beginning of the Meiji Restoration samurai families were stripped of their earnings and their...... middle of paper......ead of tatami, and Maekawa also had Western furniture (Reynolds, 2001). Maekawa's house was moved to the Edo-Tokyo Open Air Architectural Museum in Koganei City, Tokyo, to commemorate Kunio Maekawa in 1945. Maekawa's trip with LeCorbusier helped him establish his career as an architect (Maekawa, 1984) . Whether or not he agreed with LeCorbusier's ideas, he created his own modernism based on the needs of the country and what he believed was important to his later students and colleagues. He was one of many Japanese architects who worked abroad soon after graduation. He gained many insights and catered to European architectural trends and brought them back to Japan with him. In recent years he participated in numerous competitions and was denied (Maekawa, 1984). His work looked modern, with no Japanese tradition or history behind its design.