Dōjunkai


Dōjunkai was a corporation set up a year after the 1923 Kantō earthquake to provide reinforced concrete collective housing in the Tokyo area. Its formal name was Zaidan-hōjin Dōjunkai, i.e. the Dōjunkai corporation. The suffix kai means organization, and dōjun was a term coined to suggest the spread of the nutritious benefit of the water of river and sea. It was overseen by the Home Ministry.
The corporation was in existence from 1924 through 1941; it was involved in construction between 1926 and 1934, primarily 1926–30, building 16 complexes. The last complex, Uenoshita apartment, was finally demolished in 2013.

History

From 1926 to 1930, Dōjunkai created fifteen apartment complexes, two in Yokohama and the rest in Tokyo. Among the latter, the best known is Dōjunkai Aoyama Apartments, which stood on the avenue of Omotesandō toward its Harajuku Station end. Toward the end of what was by Tokyo standards a long life, the ivy-covered building was increasingly used for ateliers and small independent shops. It was demolished for the 2005 construction by Mori Building of Omotesando Hills, a conventional shopping mall. Dōjunkai built one last complex in Tokyo, Dōjunkai Edogawa apāto, between 1932 and 1934.
Dōjunkai was wound up in 1941.
Remarkably, all the apartment complexes survived wartime bombing.
After the war, the government sold the land of most of the complexes to real estate companies, notably Mori Building. Thereafter, the combination of desire for greater profits, lack of advance publicity, and lack of government interest in this genre of architecture, in addition to inadequate maintenance and the lack of amenities now taken for granted, have led to the destruction of most of the complexes in the name of "site development".
Currently the only original building can be seen at a conversion project at Dojunkan building, Omotesando Hills. Some shops and galleries are in the building with its facade of a genuine three-stories apartment.

List of Dōjunkai Apartments

ApartmentsJapanese nameCompletedLocation
Demolished
Nakanogō Apartments1926Sumida, Tokyo1990
Aoyama Apartments1926-7Shibuya, Tokyo2003
Yanagishima Apartments1926-7Sumida, Tokyo1995
Daikan-yama Apartments1927Shibuya, Tokyo1996
Sumitoshi Apartments

1927-30Kōtō, Tokyo1994
Kiyosumidōri Apartments

1927-9Kōtō, Tokyo2002
Yamashita-chō Apartments1927Naka, Yokohama1989
Hiranuma-chō Apartments1927Nishi, Yokohama1984
Minowa Apartments1928Arakawa, Tokyo2009
Mita Apartments1928Minato, Tokyo1988
Uguisudani Apartments1929Arakawa, Tokyo1999
Uenoshita Apartments1929Taitō, Tokyo2013
Toranomon Apartments1929Chiyoda, Tokyo2000
Ōtsuka Joshi Apartments1930Bunkyō, Tokyo2003
Sumitoshi Apartments

1930Kōtō, Tokyo1994
Edogawa Apartments1934Shinjuku, Tokyo2003