ABSTRACT

Japan's contractors are an unusual resource for architects. There are over half-a-million licensed contractors. Many of these are quite small; according to statistics published by Japan's Ministry of Construction for 1998, almost half of all contractors billed under 5 million yen (approximately $48,000) a year.2 Nonetheless, only about one-third of the licensed contractors are estimated to operate as general contractors. Furthermore, Japan's largest contractors operate at In entirely different level from their smaller brethren; in the early 1990s eighteen of the world's twentyfive construction firms with revenues over $5 billion were Japanese.3 Although revenues have

since fallen, the country's biggest contractors remain among the largest and most sophisticated in the world, and six - including Sekisui House - were among the top ten contractors in the world in the most recently aggregated figures, from 1997.4

In Japan, large contractors are called zenecon, a word adapted in the post-war period from the English term " general contractors. .. The zenecon and other "special contractors" hold licenses that permit them to subcontract work out, allOwing them to take on larger and more complex projects. The largest firms operate nationally, which requires special registration; less than 1 per cent of all contractors are

licensed by the Ministry of Construction to operate in more than one prefecture.5