Cooking Up Dinner Speeches: Ise Gropius in Japan / ARCHIZOOM
Event details
| Date | 28.10.2025 |
| Hour | 18:00 |
| Speaker | Irina Davidovici, Almut Grunewald, Léa-Catherine Szacka |
| Location | |
| Category | Conferences - Seminars |
| Event Language | French, English |
17:00 — Guided tour of the exhibition by Léa-Catherine Szacka
18:00 — Book launch Cooking Up Dinner Speeches: Ise Gropius in Japan, edited by Almut Grunewald, Zurich: gta Verlag, 2025. Discussion with Almut Grunewald and Irina Davidovici moderated by Léa-Catherine Szacka
In May 1954, Ise Gropius (1897–1983) embarked on a three-month trip to Japan together with the famous architect Walter Gropius. Their tightly timed tour, organized by the International House of Japan and financed by the Rockefeller Foundation, brought both of them into exchange with architects, artisans, artists, journalists, and university lecturers. In addition to promoting and writing speeches for her husband, Ise Gropius proved to be a gifted chronicler.
In detailed reports – her only known cohesive texts from the postwar period – she vividly describes the country and its people. She comments on lectures, discussions about reconstruction, evening parties, or the Bauhaus exhibition in Tokyo with as much humour and understanding as she does on the role of Japanese women, Zen Buddhism, or the local cuisine.
Extensively annotated by the editor and supplemented by contributions from Anne Hultzsch and Shuntaro Nozawa, this volume publishes Ise Gropius’s travelogues, in facsimile, for the first time.
This event take place on the occasion of the exhibition Crossed Histories, Gae Aulenti, Ada Louise Huxtable, Phyllis Lambert, on Architecture and the City at Archizoom, curated by Léa-Catherine Szacka.
18:00 — Book launch Cooking Up Dinner Speeches: Ise Gropius in Japan, edited by Almut Grunewald, Zurich: gta Verlag, 2025. Discussion with Almut Grunewald and Irina Davidovici moderated by Léa-Catherine Szacka
In May 1954, Ise Gropius (1897–1983) embarked on a three-month trip to Japan together with the famous architect Walter Gropius. Their tightly timed tour, organized by the International House of Japan and financed by the Rockefeller Foundation, brought both of them into exchange with architects, artisans, artists, journalists, and university lecturers. In addition to promoting and writing speeches for her husband, Ise Gropius proved to be a gifted chronicler.
In detailed reports – her only known cohesive texts from the postwar period – she vividly describes the country and its people. She comments on lectures, discussions about reconstruction, evening parties, or the Bauhaus exhibition in Tokyo with as much humour and understanding as she does on the role of Japanese women, Zen Buddhism, or the local cuisine.
Extensively annotated by the editor and supplemented by contributions from Anne Hultzsch and Shuntaro Nozawa, this volume publishes Ise Gropius’s travelogues, in facsimile, for the first time.
This event take place on the occasion of the exhibition Crossed Histories, Gae Aulenti, Ada Louise Huxtable, Phyllis Lambert, on Architecture and the City at Archizoom, curated by Léa-Catherine Szacka.
Links
Practical information
- General public
- Free
Organizer
- Archizoom
Contact
- Cyril Veillon