When Riken Yamamoto received the 2024 Pritzker Prize, he became the ninth Japanese architect to be awarded architecture’s highest honour. Japan has now produced one-fifth of all recipients in the 45-year history of the prize.
Tokyo, especially, wears its Pritzker associated architecture like jewels adorning the urban fabric of the city. The ultra-luxury shopping street in Omotesando is full of works by Japanese and foreign Pritzker-winning architects. Even the Tokyo Toilet Project includes four works by Japanese laureates.
Tokyo Toilet Project by Tadao Ando.
Image:
Linda Cheng
The five early-career architects on the 2024 Dulux Study Tour – a prize that they themselves have received – observed high quality of craftsmanship in Japan.
Jamileh Jahangiri said, “What the Japanese do perfectly is they keep what is there and do it in a modern way. You see the celebration of traditional culture but not in an ornamental way. It’s been truly transformed into a new way of living or a new way of understanding the environment.”
What we saw from the projects and practices visited was career-long dedication to the study of one aspect of architecture. Riken Yamamoto stressed the importance of community, particularly his own community of Yokohama in which he’s predominantly worked, so much so that he has a bar nearby, in a building he designed in 1986, where his staff all have lunch together every day. His practice is truly embedded in the community with this space where the architects can mingle with members of the public on a daily basis.
The 2024 Dulux Study Tour winners with Pritzker Prize laureate Riken Yamamoto. L–R: Emma Chrisp, Flynn Carr, Riken Yamamoto, Mike Sneyd, Jamileh Jahangiri and Simona Falvo.
Image:
Linda Cheng
“I found Yamamoto-san’s practice the most fascinating one,” Jahangiri said. “I heard so many times in the office people talking about community, and you could see it in the office culture. It wasn’t just about doing a project for the community outside but the actual office was a perfect community that you want to be a part of.
Another example is Studio TAB, a small practice in rural Japan whose director Keigo Kawai travelled to Tokyo to meet with the group, presented a series of Super Low-cost Big Houses (SLBH), some created for as little as $21 million yen (or a little over $200,000). All are made from simple and readily available materials and designed to maximise flexibility. In fact, Kawai said he gave the owners of his houses complete freedom in designing the layouts of their houses, he preferred to focus on flexibility.
“I think fundamentally it’s the people who make the project,” Mike Sneyd observed, “particularly for those small-scale ones, it’s the occupants, it’s not the project.”
This scholastic dedication breeds a sense of continuity in the work of many Japanese practices. “While every project is to some degree unique based on site or context, there are underlying elements that you do see repeated and I think there’s such a sophistication to that – seeing an architectural practice’s development through the years – it has been something that’s recurring through all the practices, regardless of the diversity of the work that they’re doing,” Simona Falvo said.
Models on display at Kengo Kuma and Associates.
Image:
Linda Cheng
Many of the Japanese practices we visited also engaged in model-making, both as a part of their design process as training tool for students entering practice. SANAA, Kengo Kuma and Associates, and Riken Yamamoto all had model making workshops, as well, the Archi-Depot museum has a basement warehouse full of models from Japanese practices.
For the practices that are able to work through physical models, I think it is an integral part of their design process and design practice,” Falvo said. “It’s also a very important part of my own practice and it’s something that I really enjoy doing and I learn so much from it in terms of my own architecture.”
Chrisp added, “It seems like it’s a part of the evolution in terms of what you get to do in the practice. You have a foundational period where you’re working with models. You’re probably learning a lot about how to think, how to put things together, and it’s probably embedding a lot of understanding of sequence.”
Tokyo itself is “a constant juxtaposition,” Chrisp observed. “You get really old buildings alongside really new and big-scale buildings next to tiny quaint entrances.”
Flynn Carr added, “It was really also interesting to see how curated and controlled the environment is here. We were shown images by our tour guide of how barren the landscape was [at the site of Meiji Shrine which is now a dense forest]. It really puts into perspective how much has been done to facilitate a city that has just grown exponentially.”
“There is also an element of people caring about what they care about,” said Sneyd. “When you look at the urban fabric, it’s really obvious what they care about and what they don’t care about, for better or for worse. That was a learning experience for us.”
“I was completely fascinated by the urban fabric of the city and the complexities that are at play there,” Falvo said. “It is a tremendous experience of being in the dizziness of Tokyo.”
Linda Cheng is travelling with the 2024 Dulux Study Tour. Follow #2024DuluxStudyTour on social media and the blog.
Source: Architecture - architectureau
