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L E N K U T Y L
A
An American Architect in
Japan
An Architectural
Travelogue
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Cigar
Society board member and Chicago architect
Len Kutyla will talk about his
travels in Japan and the architecture he
found there. Len writes:
Japan is a nation of islands in a
region of the world that is precariously
situated with respect to geography,
history, and tectonics. While
Japan’s location kept it mostly isolated
from China’s hegemonic tendencies, Japan
and China struggled for dominance of the
islands for centuries.
Despite its success at keeping the
outside world at bay for millennia,
Japan was forced to confront global
reality in the modern era. (Commodore
Perry, for example, worked on behalf of
the US government to force Japan into a
trade agreement with the United States
in the 1850s.) As a result, Japan
has evolved into a unique modern nation:
inscrutable to western eyes at times,
but often painfully transparent to
eastern eyes.
As a result of these dual
pressures, Japanese art and culture have
become a magnificent blend of harmony
and dissonance, point and counterpoint,
rigor and fluidity, technology and
nature.
I had the pleasure of visiting
Japan in the company my daughter, her
classmates, and the Japanese scholar who
was teaching them Japanese history,
culture, and language at the Andrew
Jackson Language Academy here in
Chicago. While this trip was to
only a few parts of Japan (Tokyo, Kyoto,
and Hiroshima), it gave me an
eye-opening, instructive, and enchanting
window onto Japan’s heritage, its
people, and its architecture.
I look forward to sharing my story
of that trip.
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FREE and
ONLINE
Tuesday, September 1, 2020
5:30-7:00 pm CDT
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Sign in 5:00-5:30 pm for
informal cigar and cocktail chatter.
The event will be
called to order at 5:30.
There will be a Q&A session
following the lecture. Audience
participation is invited.
The event will conclude at 7 pm.
An optional cocktail party and
discussion will continue after the
event.
Be sure to have your
cocktails and cigars at ready
hand.
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| Len Kutyla is
a long-time member of the Cigar
Society and for 34 years has been
a founding principal at his firm,
James and Kutyla Architecture.
With his partner Bill James, his
architectural work includes
theaters, TV studios and
galleries, office interiors,
retail spaces, as well as hotels,
ecclesiastical facilities,
multi-unit residential buildings,
restaurants, and single-family
residences. James and Kutyla have
won awards for their work at Avec,
Blackbird, and the Steppenwolf
Theater. Len has a master's in
architecture and urban design from
Columbia University and a
bachelor's in architecture from
UIC.
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About
the
Cigar Society of Chicago
ONE OF THE OLDEST AND
greatest traditions of the city clubs of
Chicago is the discussion of intellectual,
social, legal, artistic, historical,
scientific, musical, theatrical, and
philosophical issues in the company of
educated, bright, and appropriately
provocative individuals, all under the
beneficent influence of substantial
amounts of tobacco and spirits. The
Cigar Society of Chicago
embraces this tradition and extends it
with its Informal Smokers, University
Series lectures, and Cigar
Society Dinners, in which cigars,
and from time to time pipes and
cigarettes, appear as an important
component of our version of the classical
symposium. To be included in the
Cigar Society's mailing list, write to the
secretary at
curtis.tuckey@logicophilosophicus.org
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