In this project, a small canal with flanking pedestrian promenades runs between two interconnected sections of the complex, bringing a part of the nearby sea, the port area, and the public realm of the city into the domain of the museum. — Published 2009.1014
The Swatch Group's new flagship structure in Tokyo, the Nicolas G. Hayek Center, featured in ArchitectureWeek No. 416, is built with an array of innovative elements, ranging from elevating showrooms and multistory retractable glass exterior walls to moving floors for reducing seismic forces induced in the building. — Published 2009.0401
The new Swatch flagship store in Tokyo's Ginza district immediately stands out from the surrounding high-end fashion boutiques on this densely packed street. There is no doorway, no visible sign, and no glass storefront. Instead, a towering four-story void in the streetscape seems to signify a civic-scale entry. — Published 2009.0218
Kengo Kuma strikes a chord when he talks about the inspirations for one of his most successful projects: the new Suntory Museum of Art, built in 2007 into the side of the new Tokyo Midtown development. — Published 2008.0903
International practice sounds glamorous and fun, but is it something that your firm should consider?
Overseas work can be expensive, disruptive, and a serious distraction. Some firms have even destroyed their domestic practice by diverting too much energy and too many resources to foreign work. — Published 2008.0326
Some Westerners, when faced with Oriental creativity, have a tendency to get a little carried away. Instead of a balanced, rational approach, a tendency emerges to ascribe the aesthetic effect of what they see to some mysterious, spiritual force that is absent from their own culture, whether it be called Zen, Tao, wabi-sabi, or yin and yang. — Published 2008.0116
According to architect Kisho Kurokawa, the new National Art Center Tokyo is a perfect expression of his philosophy of symbiosis. Rather than trying to iron out irregularities and resolve contradictions into what he calls a "dull, flat harmony," his distinctly non-Western idea seeks to apply conflicts and tensions in positive ways to achieve interesting and energizing effects. — Published 2007.0404
Some architects pursue consistent themes that can be adjusted to any site or building type, while others take a fresh approach to every project, giving each a distinctive expression. FOBA, the firm that Katsu Umebayashi established on the outskirts of Kyoto in 1994, has a foot in both camps. — Published 2006.0927
Until recently, the site of Osaka Japan's National Museum of Contemporary Art, one of three national contemporary art museums in Japan, was at the far edge of the city, on the former site of the 1970 World's Fair. The museum had planned to move from this distant suburb to a central urban location in the middle of Nakanoshima Island, part of a planned cultural arts district that has great potential to activate and energize an integral part of the city. — Published 2006.0222
The designs of Japanese architect Kengo Kuma critically engage the materiality of architecture in order to challenge its usual meanings, and in so doing, to thwart the emergence of architecture as an object. As he has shown in many of his projects, Kuma is determined to "dissolve" the materials that he uses, or to choose materials that are less substantial, stating, "If materials are thoroughly particlized, they are transient, like rainbows." — Published 2005.0914
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