Former Kondo Residence

Former Kondo Residence: A Taisho-Era Masterpiece by Frank Lloyd Wright's Star Pupil

Tucked into the front garden of the Fujisawa Civic Hall in coastal Kanagawa stands a quietly remarkable house: a low, horizontal, T-shaped wooden villa that looks unlike any traditional Japanese home. The Former Kondo Residence (Kyu-Kondo-tei) was built in 1925 as a seaside retreat in the pine forests of Tsujido, designed by Endo Arata, the most devoted Japanese disciple of the great American architect Frank Lloyd Wright. Today, registered as a National Tangible Cultural Property and lovingly maintained by the city, it offers visitors a rare chance to step inside one of the finest surviving examples of Wright-influenced residential architecture in Japan.

Historical Background

The villa was completed in 1925 (Taisho 14), just two years after the catastrophic Great Kanto Earthquake had reshaped attitudes toward construction across the region. The client was Kondo Kenji, a successful businessman who commissioned a summer home in the pine groves along the Tsujido coast — then a fashionable seaside resort area within easy reach of Tokyo. Wealthy industrialists, writers, and politicians of the late Meiji and Taisho periods frequently built villas in this stretch of Sagami Bay, drawn by the sea breeze, the scent of pine, and the proximity to Kamakura and Enoshima.

What set the Kondo villa apart was its architect. Rather than choosing a conventional sukiya-style retreat, Kondo entrusted the design to Endo Arata, a young Japanese architect who had spent six years working alongside Frank Lloyd Wright on the Imperial Hotel in Tokyo. The result was a house that fused Western Prairie School ideas with the rhythms of Japanese daily life — a building of its time, yet ahead of it.

For more than half a century the villa stood quietly among the pines. After the original owner's death the property changed hands, fell into disrepair, and was eventually slated for demolition. What saved it was an extraordinary citizens' campaign — a story we will return to below.

The Architect: Endo Arata and the Wright Connection

Endo Arata (1889–1951) was born in Fukushima Prefecture and graduated from Tokyo Imperial University's architecture department in 1914. Three years later, he joined the architectural office Frank Lloyd Wright had set up in Tokyo to design the second Imperial Hotel. From 1917 through the early 1920s, Endo worked at Wright's side, even traveling with him to the United States in 1919. He served as Wright's principal Japanese assistant on every Wright project in Japan, including the legendary Imperial Hotel, the Jiyu Gakuen Myonichikan school in Tokyo, and the Yamamura Residence in Hyogo.

After Wright returned permanently to America, Endo opened his own practice in 1922 and spent the rest of his career adapting Wright's "organic architecture" to Japanese soil. He famously rejected mere imitation of Western forms, pursuing instead what he called the "true Japanese house" — a dwelling in genuine harmony with both the human body and the local climate. The Former Kondo Residence, completed only three years after he opened his office, is one of the earliest and most expressive demonstrations of that philosophy.

Why This Building Was Designated a Cultural Property

The Former Kondo Residence was registered as a National Tangible Cultural Property (Toroku Yukei Bunkazai) on August 21, 2002. The official designation by the Agency for Cultural Affairs cites several reasons. First, it is a representative example of the seaside villa architecture that flourished along the Shonan coast in the Taisho period. Second, the design vividly preserves the Wrightian vocabulary that Endo Arata absorbed from his master — the strong horizontal lines, the deep eaves, the integration of building and garden — while adapting it to a small-scale Japanese residence with tatami rooms.

Equally important is the building's place in the history of citizen-led heritage preservation in Japan. The fact that the structure survives at all is the result of a grassroots campaign that became a model for similar movements across the country. The designation honors not only the architecture itself, but the public will that kept it standing.

Architectural Highlights

The villa is a wooden two-story building covered with a slate roof, with a total floor area of approximately 173 square meters. Its plan is unusual: a low T-shape, with the intersection of the two wings rising to a partial second story crowned by a flat rooftop terrace. Walking around the exterior, visitors immediately notice the strong horizontal emphasis — clapboard siding, banded window groupings, and projecting eaves all draw the eye sideways rather than upward, exactly as Wright did in his Prairie houses of the American Midwest.

Inside, the T-shaped layout allows almost every room to be lit from three sides, an innovation that was rare in Japanese houses of the time. The central crossing contains a Western-style living and dining room with a brick fireplace, while the wings hold a series of tatami rooms whose proportions, sliding doors, and built-in details have been thoughtfully adjusted to Endo's aesthetic. A long corridor lined with windows runs alongside the garden, dissolving the boundary between interior and landscape — another distinctly Wrightian gesture.

Many small touches reward close attention: geometric patterns in the door fittings and joinery, custom-designed lighting fixtures, the way the garden-side terrace seems to flow continuously from the living room through the windows, and the intricate handling of the corners where the eaves meet the walls. For anyone interested in early twentieth-century modern architecture, the residence is essentially a three-dimensional textbook on how Wright's ideas were translated into Japanese.

A Building Saved by Its Neighbors

By the late 1970s the villa, by then no longer owned by the Kondo family, had deteriorated badly and demolition was scheduled. Local residents and architects who recognized its value formed an organization called the "Society to Protect the Former Kondo Residence" (Kyu-Kondo-tei o Mamoru Kai). For more than a year they campaigned through newspapers, broadcasts, and direct appeals to the city. Their effort succeeded: Fujisawa City agreed to dismantle, transport, and reconstruct the entire building on public land. In March 1981 the villa was reassembled in the front garden of the Fujisawa Civic Hall, where it stands today.

Volunteers from the original preservation movement and their successors continue to look after the building, holding seasonal open days, lighting the fireplace in cooler months, planting flowers in the garden, and offering informal explanations to visitors. The atmosphere of the place owes as much to this ongoing community care as it does to the architect's original vision.

Visitor Information

The Former Kondo Residence is open to the public free of charge and requires no reservation. The building is located in the front garden of the Fujisawa Civic Hall, a short walk from Fujisawa Station. When the building is unattended the doors are kept locked, so visitors are asked to call at the Cultural Arts Section office inside the Civic Hall (located directly opposite the residence) and a staff member will open the building for viewing.

Please note that visiting days are scheduled to change from April 2026: the building will be open on weekdays only (excluding the year-end and new-year holidays) due to the temporary closure of the adjacent Civic Hall for renovation. Hours remain 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. Photography is permitted inside.

The garden surrounding the villa is itself a small attraction, with cherry trees, hydrangeas, and azaleas providing changing displays through the seasons. Spring (cherry blossom season) and early summer (when the hydrangeas bloom) are particularly recommended.

Around the Neighborhood

Fujisawa is one of the most rewarding day-trip destinations in the Tokyo area, and the Former Kondo Residence pairs naturally with a number of nearby attractions. Just a short ride away on the picturesque Enoden tram is Enoshima, the small island linked to the mainland by a causeway and famous for its shrines, sea caves, observation tower, and panoramic views of Mount Fuji. Continuing on the Enoden line brings you into Kamakura, the ancient samurai capital with its Great Buddha, Hasedera Temple, and Tsurugaoka Hachimangu Shrine.

Closer to hand, the Yugyo-ji Temple (the head temple of the Ji sect of Buddhism, founded in 1325) sits in the heart of old Fujisawa post-town, and the beaches of Kugenuma and Tsujido — the very stretch of coast where the Kondo villa once stood — offer a relaxed seaside atmosphere. For lovers of modern architecture, the Wright-influenced theme can be extended with a visit to the Kachi Residence (Kyu-Kachi-tei) in nearby Hayama, another Endo Arata work from 1928 that is also a Registered Tangible Cultural Property.