KKAA Newsletter #35 (March 28, 2024) See in English 日本語で見る

#35 October 21, 2020


I was very saddened and experienced a strong feeling of loss to hear that both Kansai Yamamoto and Kenzo Takada passed away one after the other, fashion designers whom I have respected from the time I was young and worked with recently.

I admired them for their freedom ever since I was a student. The way in which architectural design is taught at school which has the feeling of being lectured on morals and ethics sort of made me feel like I was suffocating. Being told that you could not do this, and would not be considered a serious architect if you tried to experiment or go beyond what was accepted as a norm was very overwhelming. This is why I sort of envied the freedom of the world of fashion. There is a theory that modernist architecture has a deep relationship to the asceticism of Protestantism, and I think that Protestantism was connected to the collectivism of Japan, resulting in the creation of this type of rigidly formal education. The designs of Kansai and Kenzo cleared away and freed me from this gloomy mood. This led me to an attraction for Africa, and gave me the courage to jump off on a trip to study the villages in the Sahara Desert.
After I got to know Kansai and Kenzo, I learned that it was the wonderful characters of these people which made it possible for them to create designs that set people free. I would like to carry on their tradition of freedom and pass it on to the future through architecture.

山本寛斎事務所提供
山本寛斎事務所提供
Kengo Kuma © Onebeat Breakzenya

ProjectsKenzo HouseWe converted Kenzo Takada’s former residence in Paris into a house and a restaurant for its new owner, a French entrepreneur. Kenzo succeeded in creating a unique world in the heart of Paris by designing a beautiful Japanese garden with a stone-studded pond containing nishiki carp. We therefore performed planning centered around this pond. We reorganized the house and made all the rooms as transparent as possible so that the garden could be viewed from every corner of the house. In addition, we changed the entire texture of the house to provide more warmth and softness by applying wood and clay as the materials. We finished the claywork with the assistance of plasterers called ES in Paris. Kenzo also used to have a swimming pool facing the courtyard, which signified his passion for the tropics. Given the climate of Paris, we changed it into an engawa (veranda which is in between space) made with wood and lattices. Read More
ProjectsYawara NurseryThis wooden nursery that was built in a grassy plain in Hokuryu town in Hokkaido which is known as the home of the largest sunflower field in Japan was based on the theme of “Sunflower Geometry”. The frame was built with larch wood which is locally produced, and larch panel boards were combined with larch plywood to create warm gentle interior space that envelops the children in which a portion of the structure is exposed. The centripetal geometry of sunflowers was used as a hint to create a hall where all of the children gather around the center of the building, and lighting fixtures covered with yellow cloth that was dyed using sunflowers were suspended around the center as symbols of a hanging garden. All of these features resulted in the birth of energetic warm space that perfectly suits a town known for its sunflowers. Read More