#53 May 13, 2023

I’ve held a big exhibition in Venice for the first time in 28 years. For me, Venice means a lot and I have many fond memories of the city. In 1995, I was invited as an artist to the Venice Biennale 1995 – not to the Architecture Biennale, but the Art Biennale, which turned out to be the starting point of my working abroad. At that event, I filled the entire floor of the Japan Pavilion with water, and declared that we would retrieve the "materiality" of architecture.

Twenty-eight years later, I’ve held a solo exhibition at the Palazzo Franchetti on the Grand Canal with the theme of “onomatopoeia.” I use onomatopoeia as a key tool when designing architecture. Starting with such expressions as “para-para” meaning “flaky”, or “fuwa-fuwa” - fluffy, I chose 13 kinds of onomatopoeia that I commonly use, we exhibited some of the architectural works that embodied my concept, while manufacturing two new pavilions for the event. I began my career aiming to “discover materials”, and had always been in search of ways to create conversations between human bodies and architecture. As a result of the journey, I’ve landed on a rather primitive language called onomatopoeia. Having gone through the Corona’s physical crisis to humans, I feel I am beginning to understand how to design those conversations.