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"I came across his work as a sort of fluke," admits curator and Columbia University lecturer Lynnette Widder of the subject of her latest show, "Kaneji Domoto at Frank Lloyd Wright's Usonia," which opens today at the Center for Architecture in New York. A former student of the Taliesin school, the late Kaneji Domoto (1912-2002) was the only Japanese-American architect to design homes in Frank Lloyd Wright’s modernist Usonia community, established in Westchester County, New York, in 1944. Now, his story is on display for the first time: from the internment in Colorado that disrupted his architectural education to his, at times, tumultuous relationship with Wright himself.
Widder’s research began after she gave a lecture about Usonia at Columbia University. A student informed her of a few homes for sale in Wright’s only fully realized utopian architecture community and the two ventured up to Pleasantville, New York. Widder fell in love with and put in an offer on the Lurie House. She then learned that the 1949 two-bedroom was designed by Domoto, and it was one of five in the 47-house community that bore his hand.
Following the principles of Wrightian architecture "his planned [base] geometries are simple," said Widder. “All of the sort of angular geometries end up in the rooms of the homes." Floor-to-ceiling windows that bring the landscape indoors, small spaces that open onto larger rooms, and cantilevered roofs all feature heavily in Domoto’s designs. The show also explores larger questions brought to light by Wright’s Japan-influenced school of design: what did it mean to be a midcentury Japanese-American architect?
A student of the Taliesin school of architecture in 1939, Domoto was forced to abandon his education when his family was forcibly interned at one of the camps the U.S. operated during World War II. Wright himself rallied for their release (letters between Wright and Domoto in the exhibit place the show in its World War II context, including one especially heartbreaking telegram in which Domoto cites "family trouble" for his inability to return to the school), prompting Domoto’s move east to New Rochelle, New York. He began designing at Usonia in 1948, but left for a brief hiatus when Wright rejected a few of his project designs, returning in the mid-50s when Wright had left the community’s construction board.
Domoto’s original architectural drawings, details, blueprints, and restored models of his five Usonia houses, as well as archival and contemporary photos are all on display at the Center for Architecture. The show is especially timely with the Museum of Modern Art’s simultaneous Frank Lloyd Wright survey. It offers another layer to the story of the architect’s influence. "Hopefully we are moving out of a moment where history is only characterized by big stars and moving into shared authorship," said Widder. "There are often complex, unique pathways taken through professional lives and it’s important to recognize the effort and value of this other layer."
Open June 22 to August 26 at 536 LaGuardia Place, New York.
