9:30–9:50 

Opening (Jens Niebaum) and introduction (Maki Iisaka)

9:50–10:50 

Christian Tagsold, "Landscapes of Japan’s International Hotel Culture: Two Case Studies of Togo Murano"

10:50–11:50

Rika Fujioka, "The Role of Togo Murano in the Development of Japanese Department Stores"

11:50–2:00

Lunch and exhibition tour (1:30–1:50)

2:00–3:00

Bapam Baticam, "The Presentist Togo Murano"

3:00–3:30

Coffee break

3:30–4:30

Hans H. Hanke, "Gifts for Peace. Some Reflections on Art and Politics in the World Peace Church"

4:30–5:30

Hubertus Adam, TBA

6:30

Symposium Dinner (please register. place to be announced)

Hubertus Adam: TBA

TBA

Bapam Baticam: The presentist Togo Murano

TBA

Rika Fujioka, "The Role of Togo Murano in the Development of Japanese Department Stores"

Department stores were the driving force of the Westernisation of Japanese consumer culture. Whilst providing consumers with a pleasant shopping experience, they also fostered the industries enabling the domestic production of new products introduced from the West during the interwar period. These department stores served as symbols of modern retailing and landmarks of urban development in Tokyo and Osaka during the period following the Second World War. Some of them were designed by leading architect Togo Murano. This presentation examines the role of Togo Murano in the development of Japanese department stores. It explores the impact of department-store architecture on the modernity and identity of department stores.

Hans H. Hanke, "Gifts for Peace. Some Reflections on Art and Politics in the World Peace Church"

In the period after 1945, the World Peace Church was the first architectural statement of a call for peace in the world, through its concept, architecture and interior design. With this building, Togo Murano created a Christian-Japanese ‘treasure chamber’ that housed valuable donations from all over the world. Numerous contributions came from the Federal Republic of Germany. These included church bells cast from steel in one of the large armaments factories of the Nazi era. One of the bells bears the inscription: ‘Germany, devastated by war, united with the people of Japan in the works of peace.’ What political and social stance is expressed in this message? The answers may be found in the history of the World Peace Church and the origins of the donations.

Christian Tagsold, "Landscapes of Japan’s International Hotel Culture: Two Case Studies of Togo Murano"

Throughout his long career, Murano Tōgo repeatedly ventured into the planning of international high-end hotels in Tokyo, Kyoto, and elsewhere. In two of his key projects, his work extended to the gardens and landscapes of the hotels and actively shaped their surroundings. At both the Miyako Hotel (Kyoto, 1959) and the Grand Prince Hotel Takanawa (Tokyo, 1982/85), Murano placed architecture coded as *sukiya* within Japanese-style garden landscapes embedded in the everyday operation of modern hotels, catering to international guests as well as Japanese corporate and private clients.

Murano’s interpretation and recreation of architectural forms associated with Japanese tradition in these settings raises broader questions about the trajectory of Japanese hotel culture in the postwar period. Japaneseness here became a mode of experiencing the surroundings, while at the same time being commodified for the requirements of modern international hospitality. Murano took elements associated with *sukiya* out of their earlier social contexts and put them to new uses within the modern hotel. His architecture and active use of gardens and landscapes thus helped create an appealing imagination of historical Japanese lifestyles, imbued with the comforts and infrastructures of modernity.