Kengo Kuma   Japan   The unobstructed space inside a shed with a striking roof is home to a school for environmental studies that uses the building itself as a lesson on sustainability. Exemplifying restrained use of forest resources, the structure of V-forming pillars w

Kengo Kuma   Japan   At the foot of the ancestral castle of Oka, a small information center tells the history of the enclave beneath an expressive play of roofs clad in a lattice of smoked bamboo. A bamboo gallery marks the garden’s boundary, leading to an elevator that

Kengo Kuma   Japan   A temporary space for open-air events in a residential area of central Tokyo features a vibrant lattice executed with oblong panels of cross-laminated cedarwood. Beneath its translucent skin of plastic resin fins, the pavilion features a recreation a

Kengo Kuma   Spain   To enrich the experience of visitors to the iconic building, an emergency staircase is walled with undulating aluminum link curtains, in what is a new take on sensual Modernisme lines. Paying tribute to the decoration of Gaudí’s light well, the insta

Kengo Kuma   Norway   In what is one of Norway’s oldest cities, birthplace of its most universal man of letters, the project of Kengo Kuma – in collaboration with the Norwegian firm Mad Arkitekter – has placed first in the competition to build a library devoted to the pla

Kengo Kuma   Japan   Situated next to Yoyogi Park in the Tokyo ward Shibuya, the Meiji Jingu Shrine is a Shinto temple dedicated to the deified spirits of Emperor Meiji (1852-1912) and his consort, Emperor Shôken (1849-1914). Blending with the surrounding trees, the new

Kengo Kuma   Turkey   Assembled together with wood strips, a series of stacked boxes house the new Odunpazari Museum of Modern Art in the Turkish city of Eskisehir, a university town with a large young population and a lively and active atmosphere. The plot is on the boun

Kengo Kuma   Japan   Located between the gardens of the Meiji Shrine – a Shinto sanctuary – and the Imperial Palace, in the heart of Tokyo, the new National Stadium contributes to preserving the natural environment of this historical area through restraint in size and th

Kengo Kuma   Australia   Surrounded by high-rises and residential blocks with shops in the lower podium, the project is conceived as a hub centralizing the circulations in the busy area of Darling Harbor, in Sydney. The cylindrical form addresses the need to create an urban

Kengo Kuma   China   Yangcheng Lake – located three kilometers from Suzhou in Jiangsu Province – is famous for producing the best mitten crab in China, a seawater crustacean that is considered to be a rare world delicacy. The growing interest in gastronomic tourism has s

Kengo Kuma   China   Zhang Xiaochun In September 2015, with an exhibition themed ‘Heavenly Creations: A World of Southern Rural Crafts,’ the Folk Art Museum of the China Academy of Arts – a project designed by the Japanese architect Kengo Kuma – officially opened to the

Time   Kenjiro Hosaka   Kengo Kuma champions an ideal of “losing architecture”—intricate buildings that disappear into their environs—although it’s hard to miss the new National Stadium in Japan when walking through the heart of Tokyo. His stylistic fingerprints can be seen

The opening ceremony for the 2020 Olympic Games in Tokyo has taken place in the Japan National Stadium, a work of Kengo Kuma, which presents a sophisticated composition of timber trusses and vegetation in its galleries. Sport events mark our everyday

When the eyes of the world see the Olympic flame in the cauldron of the Japan National Stadium, many will look at the sophisticated branches of its timber trusses and the soothing foliage of its galleries, and recognize the material discipline and lo

‘This will kill that.’ In Victor Hugo’s prophecy – which was also McLuhan’s – ‘this’ referred to books and ‘that’ to cathedrals. It was a process of creative destruction that lasted as long as it took digitalization to arrive, and with it a new proph

Kengo Kuma   The writer Haruki Murakami, a friend of mine, has written that both short stories and novels are indispensable for him. He develops the ideas that he discovers during the process of writing short stories in order to write novels. And when he is writi

Luis Fernández-Galiano   Monumental or minuscule, the oeuvre of Kengo Kuma could be described as pixelated craftsmanship. Its creative explosion, encompassing all scales and extending over four continents, is governed by a devotion to the material rigor of construction and t

Manuel Blanco   In the world of fashion, luxury is the ultimate quality, but it must be understood that it is not possible to create a luxury brand ex novo. Luxury has two inseparable ingredients: brand tradition, centenarian in many cases, and the careful use today

After a protracted process, a period of eight years, that has not been spared its dose of controversy (in 2015 it was announced that the building’s real cost would exceed the initially budgeted amount of 50 million euros by a good 70%), Scotland’s ow

The firm Kengo Kuma Associates has within the grounds of the Portland Japanese Gardens, opened in 1967, inaugurated a Cultural Village composed of four buildings of modest scale with tiered green roofs recalling pagodas. The design, which presents a

Li Xiangning   Zhang Xiaochun   Xitou Village, hidden in the green hills and clear waters of Baoxi Town, Longquan City (Zhejiang Province), is one of the birthplaces of the Celadon ceramic culture. Inconvenient transportation somewhat shields it from the influence of rapid urbaniza

In the wake of the shelving of Zaha Hadid’s project, the Japan Sports Council organized a second competition for the design of the new Tokyo National Olympic Stadium in the Shinjuku ward of the capital, and the winner was the Japanese architect Kengo

Diogo Brito   Addressing Design Process

Kenneth Frampton   Complete Works

Materials, Structures, Details