36The Electric Meter Research Institute and Tamisuke YokogawaYokogawa originated from an electric meter research institute that was set up in Shibuya, Tokyo on September 1, 1915.The small factory had only four sta: Ichiro Yokogawa (29, later the rst president), Shin Aoki (26, later the rst chief engineer), and two others. Even after the institute was renamed Yokogawa Electric Works in the spring of 1916, their main focus was on analyzing imported instruments and studying how to make similar ones. Yokogawa literally started from scratch.Tamisuke Yokogawa (1864–1945), founder of Yokogawa, was a pioneer of modern Japanese architecture. He was born in Hyogo to the west of Osaka and graduated from the Department of Architecture, College of Engineering, Imperial University (currently, the Department of Architecture, Faculty of Engineering, University of Tokyo). He designed major buildings, including Japan’s rst steel-frame structure for the Mitsui Main Building, the Yurakuza Theater, the Imperial Theatre, the Mitsukoshi Main Store in Nihonbashi, Tokyo, and the Tokyo Stock Exchange.His modus operandi, which reveals his magnanimity as an architect, was not to draw designs himself but to instruct key points to his subordinates and let them get on with the designing. He produced architectural masterpieces mainly by utilizing the latest knowledge acquired by visiting Western countries and relying on an artistic sensibility that had been cultivated by studying and collecting Asian ceramics. He served as the president of the Architectural Institute of Japan (1925–1927).He was a man of wide horizons, too. His business talents were acclaimed by business dignitaries of those days, such as Sanji Muto, then president of Kanegafuchi Spinning K.K. When Yokogawa was founded, Tamisuke had already set up such companies as Yokogawa Komusho (currently, Yokogawa Architects & Engineers, inc.) and Yokogawa Bridge Works (currently, Yokogawa Bridge Corp.). He even translated publications on Taylorism, a system of modern factory-management, to introduce it to Japan.Tamisuke also considered starting businesses related to electricity, which was beginning to be widely used in Japan and was closely related with the eld of architecture. He was advised that the electric meter business was promising because it could be started with relatively little capital and there were few competitors in Japan. He sent his nephew, Ichiro Yokogawa, who was working at the Ministry of Communications’ laboratory, to Germany to study electric meters. Moreover, he met Shin Aoki just before Aoki went to England, and promised him nancial aid. Aoki was also working at the laboratory. With the support of Tamisuke, the two young engineers visited Western electric meter factories and returned home after procuring the equipment needed to start an electric meter research institute in Japan.From Company Founding to Postwar Reconstruction (1915–1947)Yokogawa’s History —— Chapter 1Shibuya factory in 1930Ichiro YokogawaShin AokiTamisuke YokogawaMitsui Main BuildingImperial TheatreYEW trademark registered in 1927
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