The Japanese architect Kerio Maekawa was pivotal in the consolidation of a Japanese architectural Modernism. He was born into a noble family in Niigata prefecture and studied at Tokyo Imperial University (1925–1928). Having served his apprenticeship under Le Corbusier (1887–1965) in Paris for nearly two years, he went on to develop his teacher’s L’Art d é coratif d’aujourd’hui (1925) in 1930. On his return to Japan, he worked under Antonin Raymond for five years before establishing his own firm. He was a champion of international Modernism and Auguste Perret’s innovations with concrete, but also developed an individual aesthetic that was more attentive to tradition and context, using his signature cast-in-place ceramic tiling.