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Spacial Magazine

Monumentality across Media and Sizes

By: Eva Slunečková Photo: Kengo Kuma, Lasvit
#Leaders
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When you vis­it his muse­um or drink from his glass, in both cas­es you feel that you are part of some­thing spe­cial. The world’s lead­ing archi­tect, design­er and nature lover Ken­go Kuma man­ages to infuse mon­u­men­tal­i­ty into projects across sizes, mate­ri­als and pur­pos­es. His tal­ent for tran­scend­ing con­ven­tion­al cat­e­gories is impres­sive enough that Ken­go Kuma has tak­en over the patron­age of the sec­ond issue of Spa­cial mag­a­zine on the mul­ti­fac­eted theme of wonder.

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.

Lasvit: Kengo Kuma - Monumentality across media and sizes

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.

Lasvit: Kengo Kuma - Monumentality across media and sizes
Swirling Kaf­ka
A dream­like fas­ci­na­tion with nature and move­ment in con­nec­tion with a new Con­stel­la­tion col­lec­tion by David Rockwell.
Some­thing Mes­mer­iz­ing
Inter­play of glass, light and imag­i­na­tion lies behind extra­or­di­nary bespoke instal­la­tions. Regard­less of whether it is an inti­mate space or a large interior.

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.

Lasvit: Kengo Kuma - Monumentality across media and sizes

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
Allow your­self to switch off and let your imag­i­na­tion take over. Awak­en them with the sym­bol­ism embed­ded in hand-blown artworks.
Beau­ty is a Rel­a­tive Thing
Art can touch even the most inti­mate cor­ner of the human soul. Which works have recent­ly moved Lasvit’s design­ers and artists? Get inspired by the ulti­mate selec­tion from across the world.
Enjoy read­ing accom­pa­nied by a playlist with favourite songs by this issue’s per­son­al­i­ties such as Ken­go Kuma, Vic­to­ria Yakusha, Jan Plechac or Marek Effmert.

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.

Lasvit: Kengo Kuma - Monumentality across media and sizes
PS Send­ing Flow­ers
How to trav­el when you can’t move from your house? Through an art installation!
The Unex­pect­ed Sym­boll-ism of Funghi
Mush­rooms are more a part of our every­day lives than we think. The Czech stu­dio LLEV has now fig­ured out how to incor­po­rate myceli­um into glass pro­duc­tion. Meet their rev­o­lu­tion­ary idea: glass moulds grown from 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.”

Lasvit: Kengo Kuma - Monumentality across media and sizes
Tac­tile Touch
Mut­ed, dif­fused, coloured or oth­er­wise dis­tort­ed light pass­ing through glass in archi­tec­ture is what aston­ish­es us and stim­u­lates our senses.
How Thin Can Strong Ice Be
Join us on a tour through a unique glac­i­er cave designed by Wan­da Val­ihra­chová. It‘s ice-like, yet daz­zling, and ele­vat­ing the shop­ping expe­ri­ence to alpine heights.
Hand-made Exper­i­ments
Design­er Jan Plecháč cel­e­brates a decade of test­ing shapes, sur­faces and mate­ri­als and the launch of the new Hid­den Light col­lec­tion. Togeth­er with Hen­ry Wiel­gus, they have imprint­ed it with a rela­tion­ship to craft and post-industrialism.

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.

Lasvit: Kengo Kuma - Monumentality across media and sizes
Back to the Roots with Vic­to­ria Yakusha
Design as a tool for nam­ing the chang­ing Ukrain­ian soci­ety and its redis­cov­ered iden­ti­ty. Inter­view with Vic­to­ria Yakusha, founder of Faina Studio.
Of Ice and Men
Fol­low our futur­is­tic tribe on a way to tran­scen­dence out of a flawed world. They are tread­ing the path for each one of us. For every­one who yearns for ascension.

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.

Lasvit: Kengo Kuma - Monumentality across media and sizes

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

Draped in a Translu­cent Gown
Even the wall of the house should not pre­vent the con­nec­tion with the imme­di­ate sur­round­ings. Be part of the view thanks to inno­v­a­tive glass walls.

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.

Lasvit: Kengo Kuma - Monumentality across media and sizes

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.

Lasvit: Kengo Kuma - Monumentality across media and sizes
Turn­ing Dreams Into Real­i­ty
Hum­ble and tal­ent­ed. Invis­i­ble and indis­pens­able. Por­trait of the glass­mak­er Marek Effmert, who is bridg­ing the gap between the wildest fan­tasies of the artists and their final phys­i­cal form.
The Elu­sive
World-famous archi­tect, design­er and glass­mak­er Bořek Šípek, whose dri­ving force was exper­i­men­ta­tion. Across styles, dis­ci­plines, mate­ri­als or forms. Get to know his eccen­tric and quite excep­tion­al work through imag­i­na­tive collages.

 


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.

 

 

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Lasvit: Kengo Kuma - Monumentality across media and sizes
Lasvit: Kengo Kuma - Monumentality across media and sizes
Lasvit: Kengo Kuma - Monumentality across media and sizes
Lasvit: Kengo Kuma - Monumentality across media and sizes
Lasvit: Kengo Kuma - Monumentality across media and sizes
Lasvit: Kengo Kuma - Monumentality across media and sizes
Lasvit: Kengo Kuma - Monumentality across media and sizes
Lasvit: Kengo Kuma - Monumentality across media and sizes
Lasvit: Kengo Kuma - Monumentality across media and sizes

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