Japan: Nobuko Tsuchiura
Born in 1900 in Tokyo, Japan, Nobuko Tsuchiura was the first woman to practice as an architect in Japan. Since no formal higher education institution located in Japan would allow women to study architecture, she trained as an architect apprentice, working at the office of Frank Lloyd Wright in Los Angeles, U.S. (1923-1925) alongside her husband Kameki Tsuchiura, an architect who studied at the Imperial University (now the University of Tokyo). Nobuko Tsuchiura and her husband established their own architectural firm in Tokyo (1933). She also co-founded the “Ladies’ Photo Club” (1937), which shifted her focus to the practice of photography. During World War II, she relocated with her husband to China, where she was able to publish her photographs. After their return to Japan, she continued her practice of architecture. Their firm hired Nobuko Ogawa, the first woman to graduate with a diploma in architecture in Japan (1953). The work of Tsuchiura has been posthumously featured in the exhibition, “A Dream of Modern Architecture: The Work of Kameki and Nobuko Tsuchiura” at Tatemono-en in Tokyo (2014). Nobuko Tsuchiura died in 1998.
References
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