APPRENTICES

Raku Endo     1927 - 2003

Schooled first by innovative educators Motoko and Yoshikazu Hani at Jiyu Gakuen, then by his father, Arata Endo, and finally, by Frank Lloyd Wright, Raku developed a philosophy that synthesized all these influences — and then some.

In the late 1940s, Raku worked with his father on school designs, buildings for Jiyu Gakuen's Minamisawa campus and a Baptist church, before branching out when his father died in 1951. He longed to study with Wright, but couldn't afford to travel to Taliesin until 1957. The great architect was in his final few years when Raku arrived — and he was to become the last Japanese apprentice to share the drafting room with him.