Case Studies of Collaboration between Architects and Contractors in Japan

The aim of this paper is to show some typical cases of collaboration between architects and contractors on Japanese building construction projects. To be concrete, this paper deals with real projects of two famous Japanese architects, Mayekawa Kunio and Murano Togo, and considers how they collaborated with contractors. The Tokyo Metropolitan Art museum is examined as Mayekawa’s project and the Kyoto Takaragaike Prince Hotel as Murano’s project. To grasp the collaboration methods of Mayekawa and Murano, I conducted the following surveys: analysis of both projects’ records, and interviews with architects and contractors who joined each of the projects. Then I show organizations and sharing roles and responsibilities and, building construction process of the both projects.