Kazuyo Sejima & Associates   Japan   As part of Pavilion Tokyo 2021, this sinuous installation was set up in the Hama-rikyu Gardens, with water smoothly flowing on a mirrored surface, reflecting the surroundings. Until 5 September the public can visit a series of temporary pavilions sca

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

Sou Fujimoto   Japan   Tokyo’s exclusive shopping district of Omotesando has become an architectural showcase with boutique buildings like that of Dior by SANAA, Prada by Herzog & de Meuron, and Tod’s by Toyo Ito. This collection of unique buildings mixes with the green of

Sou Fujimoto   Japan   A group of dwellings with the prototypical ‘house’ shape pile up in this apartment building in the residential section of the center of Tokyo. It consists of four dwelling units, each made up of two or three independent rooms connected by outdoor sta

Herzog & de Meuron   Japan   The Swiss firm Herzog & de Meuron has turned the Marroniere Gate department store in Tokyo’s Ginza neighborhood into a new global flaship store for the Japanese clothing and accessories brand Uniqlo. The conversion of the 1984 edifice revolves around

Heatherwick Studio   Japan   Toranomon-Azabudai is the studio’s first built project in Japan. The site is located in the center of Tokyo. The existing piece of land had not been redeveloped since the Second World War and was in a state of decay. The project became an opportunity

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   Japan   Built with cypress columns with a cross-sectional dimension of 120 x 120 mm, this house stands out in the suburban environment of Tokyo for its uniformity. The beams, columns, and enclosure are all formed by prisms of the same size in section and dif

Kengo Kuma   Japan   Zuishoji Temple (Minato-ku, Tokyo) is the main temple in Tokyo of the Obaku Sect, one of the three Zen schools brought to Japan from China by the Priest Ingen during the Edo Period. The building, listed in 1992 as jubun or Important Cultural Property

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

Herzog & de Meuron   Japan   Contrary to expectations for a site that is home to so many luxury brands, Miyuki Street in Aoyama Tokyo is not particularly beautiful or elegant. The architecture is heterogeneous – a hodgepodge of freestanding buildings of different heights and sha

A symbol of Japanese metabolism, the Nakagin block of apartment capsules in Tokyo (1972), a work of Kisho Kurokawa, is a double tower with 140 prefabricated cubicles piled up around two vertical circulation shafts. Having much fallen into disrepair,

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

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

The design of the Iraqi-British architect Zaha Hadid for the New National Stadium in Tokyo was one of the strong points of the Japanese capital’s bid to host the Olympic Games of the year 2020, which it won over Istanbul and Madrid. But two years lat

In spite of unfounded expectations, Madrid’s bid to host the Olympic Games of 2020 turned out the loser in a race with Tokyo and Istanbul where the Spanish capital was weighed down, most of all, by the economic and political difficulties afflicting a

The Japanese photographer and editor Yukio Futagawa passed away on 12 March in Tokyo. He was born in 1932 in Osaka, where he studied architecture and took an interest in vernacular construction on discovering photos by Yoshio Watanabe that establish

La propuesta de Zaha Hadid ha sido finalmente la seleccionada en el concurso para construir en Tokio el nuevo Estadio Nacional de Japón. Concebido con el lenguaje recurrente de su autora, el proyecto (abajo) ha sido preferido a los presentados por lo

Situada en uno de los barrios más densos de Tokio, la Casa H de Sou Fujimoto juega con las exigentes ordenanzas locales para proponer un escueto paralelepípedo blanco que oculta, tras su sencillez minimalista, un singular y rico espacio interior. La

La casa Room Room, diseñada por el japonés Takeshi Hosaka para una pareja con niños, tiene dos plantas y consta de dos espacios envueltos en un volumen único. Este cuerpo está perforado con más de cien aberturas cuadradas, de veinte centímetros de la

La biblioteca de la Universidad de Arte Musashino, en Tokio, es la última obra de Sou Fujimoto. Con una superficie de 6.500 metros cuadrados, el edificio alberga un total de 200.000 libros. La estructura está formada por estanterías que van de suelo

El País   Luis Fernández-Galiano   We can’t pretend to understand Japan. Anyone visiting this empire of signs empathizes with the perplexity of Bill Murray and Scarlett Johansson in Sofia Coppola’s film. Like them, we know that the essential is lost in translation, and that we are lef

Jin Taira   Gijón  2011  
Satori   - 396 Pages