The Family of Man (1956) in Tokyo, Japan: Kenzo Tange's Pursuit of the Notions of Humanity / Humanism through His Exhibition Design
Citation
Nakamori, Yasufumi. “The Family of Man (1956) in Tokyo, Japan: Kenzo Tange’s Pursuit of the Notions of Humanity / Humanism through His Exhibition Design.” Grant record, Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts. URL: http://www.grahamfoundation.org/grantees/5467-the-family-of-man-1956-in-tokyo-japan-kenzo-tange-s-pursuit-of-the-notions-of-humanity-humanism-through-his-exhibition-design (accessed 2026-04-30 via search results; page not directly fetched).
Tier justification
Tier 2: grant record from the Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts, a recognised institution that funds research at the intersection of architecture and the arts. The grant record documents a research project by Yasufumi Nakamori, a named scholar and curator (Minneapolis Institute of Art; formerly MIT List Visual Arts Center, Whitney Museum, MoMA, Rice University) with an established publication record in Japanese photography and architecture. The Graham Foundation grant record is a stable institutional source for the research project’s existence and scope.
Relevance
Documents Nakamori’s research on Kenzo Tange’s exhibition design for the 1956 Tokyo presentation of The Family of Man at the Takashimaya Department Store (and six other Japanese cities). Tange — later one of Japan’s most celebrated architects — ‘scaled and sequenced approximately 500 photographs’ for the Japanese tour, his first significant exhibition design work. This research connects the exhibition’s visual argument to the post-occupation Japanese architectural and cultural landscape, and to Tange’s broader interests in Bauhaus spatial thinking, democratic space, and pre-modern Japanese design. The only known dedicated scholarly project on the spatial installation of the Tokyo stop.
Key excerpts / pages
- Grant project title (search result, 2026-04-30): ‘The Family of Man (1956) in Tokyo, Japan: Kenzo Tange’s Pursuit of the Notions of Humanity / Humanism through His Exhibition Design.’
- Scope of Tange’s contribution (search result, 2026-04-30): ‘scaling and sequencing approximately 500 photographs for the 1956 presentation of the MoMA exhibition The Family of Man in Tokyo and six other Japanese cities.’
- Research framing (search result, 2026-04-30): ‘examining Tange’s exhibition design in relation to his interest in the functional Bauhaus and his desire to create a democratic, dynamic, and utopian space through architecture, while also considering his interest in pre-modern Japanese design and the discourse known as dento ronso (tradition discourse).’
- Nakamori’s affiliation and prior work (search result, 2026-04-30): ‘curator of photography and new media at the Minneapolis Institute of Art’; authored ‘the 2010 award-winning catalogue Katsura: Picturing Modernism in Japanese Architecture.’
Notes
- Grant page NOT directly fetched this round — URL returned in search results (2026-04-30) but Chrome navigation and WebFetch both denied. All content from search-engine excerpts.
- Verified: false — grant page not directly opened; content from search results only.
- Year assigned as 2018 provisionally, based on Graham Foundation grant database conventions; the exact grant year is NOT confirmed from what was fetched.
- It is unclear whether Nakamori has published a book or article resulting from this grant as of 2026-04-30. The search results describe the project as intended for publication (‘a book examining the significance of this important design project’) but no publication was confirmed in this session. A future pass should check the Graham Foundation grantee page directly and search for any resulting book or article.
- The Takashimaya Department Store venue and the March–April 1956 dates for the Tokyo opening are confirmed by the CNA education portal image caption (fetched in a prior session; recorded in
research/world-tour.md). - A future pass should fetch the grant page directly and search for any resulting Nakamori publication in architecture or photography journals.
- Perspective: architecture history / exhibition design. Complements
src-takenaka-2022-atomic-bombings(Japanese press reception) with the spatial / design dimension of the Tokyo stop.