#65 December 24, 2024

I received the Oris Keraterm Award from Croatia in November 2024. Oris is an architectural magazine that is widely read in Croatia and other parts of the Balkan peninsula. I was surprised that there was an audience of 2,000 people from all over Ballan for the award ceremony in spite of the fact that Croatia is a small country.

Oris was one of the first magazines in Europe who introduced me as an architect and I even feel a kind of special connection with them. I have fond memories of the warm welcome I received and the delicious wine when I was invited to Croatia in 2002. I felt that there was a special chemistry between Croatia and Japan at that time. Neither country is large, but they are both long in the north-south direction, have diverse climates, and geographies with extensive ocean coastlines, islands, mountains, valleys and other such features, making them intricate and beautiful.

I think that the sensitivities and aesthetic sense which were created in these locations made people feel something when they saw my architecture.

Furthermore, Croatia is one of the rare countries in Europe that has earthquakes. Minamisanriku was the theme that they selected for the exhibition that was held at the same time as this award ceremony. We designed a number of projects for the rebuilding of Minamisanriku town which suffered catastrophic damage from the 2011 Tohoku Earthquake and Tsunami, and models and visuals of the Nakabashi (2020) and Minamisanriku Memorial (2022) were displayed at the event. The beauty of the national land in these two countries is connected to the volume of natural disasters, which I think unfortunately inseparable. When I told them about the shock I felt when I visited Minamisanriku shortly after the 3.11, they nodded their heads deeply. This feature generates empathy, and resulted in a talk that had a quiet and warm feeling that differed from talks that are generally given. Many terrible things have hit the earth since that day, and I remembered that day, once again.