Beauty in Enormous Bleakness: The Design Legacy of the Interned Generation of Japanese Americans

Kelley Van Dyck Murphy, Heidi Kolk, Lynette Widder

^{“Japanese-American Influence on the St. Louis Landscape” by Kelley Van Dyck Murphy/Makio Yamamoto}

“If I hadn’t gone to that kind of place, I wouldn’t have realized the beauty that exists in enormous bleakness.” – Chiura Obata

Beauty in Enormous Bleakness: The Design Legacy of the Interned Generation of Japanese Americans is an interdisciplinary research project between the School of Architecture, the School of Art, and American Culture Studies that seeks to explore the connection between American post-war design history and the Japanese American Internment during World War II. Japanese Americans greatly influenced the landscape of post-war American art, architecture and design: from the TWA terminal and Twin Towers to the Corvette Stingray. Isamu Noguchi, Ruth Asawa, Chiura Obata, and Ray Komai are just a few of the design luminaries who made profound contributions to the history of American art and design. Locally, in St. Louis, architects Gyo Obata and Richard Henmi, both graduates of Washington University, are responsible for much of the mid-century architectural heritage of the city. The proposed research project will look at the role of Japanese American artists and designers who were affected by the internment of WWII, the lasting effects of their influence on architecture, art and design in the United States, and the impact of the internment experience on their work.

The research project will unfold in three mutually informing parts: the research and curation of an exhibition featuring the work of selected Japanese American architects, artists and designers (including those who escaped internment by attending Washington University in St. Louis), the creation of an archive of materials including but not limited to drawings, models, photographs, correspondence, artwork and other artifacts collected for the exhibition, and the development of an interdisciplinary seminar focused on researching the history of post-war Japanese American designers’ internment and its impact on their design practices.