Monumentality across Media and Sizes

SUBJECT 1:
MONUMENTALITY

When I was a lit­tle boy, I saw the sta­di­um that Ken­zo Tange designed for the 1964 Tokyo Olympics. I was fas­ci­nat­ed by its oth­er­ness. It was very dif­fer­ent from the oth­er build­ings. It’s a unique engi­neer­ing struc­ture of two columns with a roof sus­pend­ed between them. At the time, Japan was recov­er­ing from World War II. The aim of the mon­u­men­tal­i­ty of that era was to “touch the sky”, which Tange accu­rate­ly cap­tured – he con­nect­ed the earth and the sky with a dra­mat­ic ges­ture. It reminds me of Mount Fuji. It’s a dra­mat­ic build­ing, but at the same time a very nat­ur­al one.

That day, I was ten years old, I decid­ed to become an archi­tect. An unfor­get­table day. In 2021, when I designed Mei­ji-Jin­gu Park for the sec­ond Tokyo Olympics, I took a dif­fer­ent approach. For me, mon­u­men­tal­i­ty of 2021 is about bal­anc­ing. It’s about using local, nat­ur­al mate­ri­als and prac­tices, and it’s about atmosphere.

Swirling Kaf­ka

Some­thing Mes­mer­iz­ing

SUBJECT 2:
ATMOSPHERE

In the 20th cen­tu­ry, we’re think­ing about archi­tec­ture more like an image. Then the build­ing is very pho­to­genic but the rela­tion­ship to the con­text is very poor. I want to recov­er the con­nec­tion between mate­ri­als, nat­ur­al light and loca­tion. This com­bi­na­tion can bring strong impact to the peo­ple. Atmos­phere is com­ing from the mate­ri­als and from the har­mo­ny cre­at­ed between them and the nat­ur­al light. Because light is one of the most impor­tant ele­ments in any inte­ri­or. How to man­age the shad­ows and reflec­tion, that’s much more impor­tant than the shape of the build­ing itself.

For exam­ple, my project of Hans Chris­t­ian Hus in Odensee is very much linked with the town itself. Odensee is full of very hum­ble build­ings, which I didn’t want to over­come. The house had to be part of the com­mu­ni­ty. At the same time, I want­ed to give some kind of suprise to the vis­i­tors. Carved walls and wood­en frames are star­tling to the vis­i­tors, espe­cial­ly the kids, who are the main guests here. The goal is for them to walk away with an unfor­get­table expe­ri­ence, which is a role very impor­tant for archi­tec­ture and design.

“You need patience and time. Many small steps lead you to climb the wall at the end.”

Dare to Dream

Beau­ty is a Rel­a­tive Thing

SUBJECT 3:
NATURE

When we talk about the use of mate­ri­als in gen­er­al, one thing that gets for­got­ten is scale. For exam­ple, con­crete is a great mate­r­i­al but we can’t find a human scale in it. Wood as a nat­ur­al mate­r­i­al is always com­pat­i­ble with the size of the human body. That’s why you can give an inti­mate human scale to the build­ing because it’s much more famil­iar to us. 

You can feel inti­ma­cy from tra­di­tion­al Japan­ese build­ings made of nat­ur­al mate­ri­als because in Japan we use a unique mod­u­lar sys­tem based on the size of the human body. But even in mod­ernistic build­ings, such as Tugend­hat vila in Brno you can see how beau­ti­ful feel­ings come from nat­ur­al mate­ri­als such as stone. Nat­ur­al mate­ri­als tell you how to use them.

PS Send­ing Flow­ers

The Unex­pect­ed Sym­boll-ism of Funghi

SUBJECT 4:
TEXTURES

Tex­tures cre­at­ed by nature are very inspir­ing to me. They always exceed our expec­ta­tions and hide many sur­pris­es. My long-stand­ing desire has been to trans­late these tex­tures into glass, which is also a nat­ur­al mate­r­i­al. I was fas­ci­nat­ed by the flow of water in the for­est, which for me cre­ates a very spe­cial feel­ing of encoun­ter­ing a liv­ing organ­ism. Also, glass can bring that kind of feel­ing to peo­ple, like unbri­dled water, and con­vey it to them in ordi­nary activ­i­ties such as drink­ing a bev­er­age. The Yak­isu­gi col­lec­tion should be such a memen­to of the for­est in people’s every­day life.

“I would like to change the def­i­n­i­tion of archi­tec­ture by cre­at­ing a much clos­er con­nec­tion of old arti­san crafts and technologies.”

Tac­tile Touch

How Thin Can Strong Ice Be

Hand-made Exper­i­ments

SUBJECT 5:
SHARING

My per­son­al child­hood mem­o­ries are very much con­nect­ed with the for­est. My fam­i­ly home was right next to the for­est, which was a play­ground for me. A place where I went instead of the gar­den, which was too arti­fi­cial for me. In the woods, I nat­u­ral­ly encoun­tered wildlife, insects, wild plants… 

The for­est is a mag­i­cal world that can change you for­ev­er and teach you many things about the world and about ris­ing from its mun­dan­i­ty. Its impor­tance in Japan­ese cul­ture is evi­denced by the fact that it is always locat­ed near a shrine or tem­ple and these spaces are often vis­it­ed. The for­est is a per­fect shared space where you can meet any­one. It is these places that are often miss­ing in cities and care should be tak­en to bring them back.

Back to the Roots with Vic­to­ria Yakusha

Of Ice and Men

SUBJECT 6:
CONNECTION

Human­i­ty should be a per­ma­nent part of nature. We are now delib­er­ate­ly sep­a­rat­ing the two. In mod­ernism, it was pop­u­lar­ized by Le Cor­busier and his pilots – it was a way to con­sis­tent­ly sep­a­rate humans from nature. I am try­ing to reverse this process and bring nature back to peo­ple. It’s def­i­nite­ly one of the chal­lenges for archi­tec­ture in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic. 

We’re enter­ing a whole new chap­ter. After Covid, peo­ple often think we should get away from big cities, which are stress­ful, dirty, chaot­ic… But I think that post-pan­dem­ic archi­tec­ture should bring a new rela­tion­ship with the envi­ron­ment and focus much more on the nature around the build­ings and the urban­ism. A new age of archi­tec­ture is com­ing and we are part of its creation.

“In the 20th cen­tu­ry we’re think­ing about archi­tec­ture more like an image.”

Draped in a Translu­cent Gown

SUBJECT 7:
INNOVATIONS

My stu­dio and I would like to change the def­i­n­i­tion of archi­tec­ture. Our goal is to cre­ate a new type of archi­tec­ture defined by inno­va­tion. We work with new tech­nolo­gies and com­bine them with old crafts and prin­ci­ples. We believe that this com­bi­na­tion can bring about a change in the field. We want to inno­vate archi­tec­ture and design and bring it clos­er to a more sus­tain­able future.

Old build­ings in par­tic­u­lar bring me great inspi­ra­tion. Last time it was Antoni Gaudi’s time­less Casa Batl­lo in Barcelona. I vis­it­ed it for the first time forty years ago and today, after so many years, I have found many new impuls­es in it again.

Turn­ing Dreams Into Real­i­ty

The Elu­sive

 

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Ken­go Kuma is a renowned Japan­ese archi­tect and pro­fes­sor at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Tokyo Grad­u­ate School of Archi­tec­ture found­ed Ken­go Kuma & Asso­ciates in 1990 after receiv­ing his degree from the Uni­ver­si­ty of Tokyo in 1979. His archi­tec­tur­al firm has com­plet­ed a num­ber of high­ly acclaimed and award-win­ning projects in Asia, Europe and the USA. Among oth­ers, he has designed the Japan­ese Nation­al Sta­di­um in Tokyo, V&A Muse­um, Dundee in the UK, Takanawa Gate­way Sta­tion in Tokyo or the mod­ern Odun­pazari Muse­um in Eskişe­hir, Turkey. He is known as a pro­lif­ic writer, with wide­ly read books pub­lished in Eng­lish, Chi­nese and Kore­an. Kuma has been part of the Lasvit fam­i­ly since 2017, when he designed the Yak­isu­gi col­lec­tion, inspired by nat­ur­al textures.