Archinect - News

Junya Ishigami receives the 13th Kiesler Prize in Vienna

2024-06-18T18:38:00-04:00

Junya Ishigami, the Japanese architect and creative force behind his country's continued dominance on the international scene, has accepted his 2024 Austrian Frederick Kiesler Prize for Architecture and the Arts via a special awards ceremony held yesterday in Vienna.

The 2019 Serpentine Pavilion designer and founder of Tokyo's Junya Ishigami + Associates was recognized by the Prize's jury this January for a boundary-pushing approach that has largely and by many measures contributed to contemporary architecture's embrace of more ethereal and open public space-oriented designs while earning his reputation as the “Master of the Void.”

House & Restaurant, Ube/Japan, 2022, photograph © junya.ishigami+associates

"Junya Ishigami is one of the most interesting architects of the younger generation. Both his persistent attitude and his visionary work make him the perfect Kiesler Prize winner," Kiesler Foundation president Elke Delugan-Meissi said prior to his acceptance. "His poetically sculp...

Junya Ishigami 'excavates' concrete cave for restaurant and residence in Japan

2022-09-23T13:56:00-04:00

Junya Ishigami + Associates has completed a residence and restaurant for a French restauranter in the city of Ube, Japan. Asked by the client for a space that "has to look as if it has been there and will continue to be there for the longest time," Ishigami responded with a cave-like structure punctured by three courtyards.

Photograph ©︎ YASHIRO PHOTO OFFICE

Photograph ©︎ junya.ishigami+associates

The scheme’s construction saw the site excavated to shape an inverse volume of the final design. Concrete was then poured in situ and the surrounding earth excavated further to reveal the final form. Finally, glazing was fixed to external threshold arches to form interior spaces.

Photograph ©︎ junya.ishigami+associates

Construction process diagram ©︎ junya.ishigami+associates

"When the structure was excavated after concrete solidification, it was caked with mud," Ishagimi recalls in a reflection for the Japanese magazine GA Houses translated by Fraze Craze. "With the range in geology, the natu...

Oliver Wainwright on rethinking the Serpentine Pavilion

2019-06-18T15:49:00-04:00

Ishigami’s structure is a striking object, but it could have been so much better, and it is a frustrating outcome in what has been a troubled year for the Serpentine. [...] After almost 20 years of commissioning novelty structures to host summer parties for sponsors, it feels like the format could do with a rethink and look beyond the bounds of the gallery’s garden, and the collectors’ estates where the structures end up.

A few days before the opening of the 2019 Serpentine Pavilion, Oliver Wainwright of The Guardian wrote a piece calling for the Serpentine Galleries to consider rethinking the format of the yearly Serpentine Pavilion program (like appointing the architects earlier, for starters). It's been a rough year wrought with controversy for the Serpentine — from Junya Ishigami's practice being criticized for employing unpaid interns, to the troubles of working with a tight construction schedule for highly conceptual pavilion designs (and it shows in this year's pavilion), to the sudden resignation of the gallery's CEO Yana Peel.

First photos of Junya Ishigami's 2019 Serpentine Pavilion ahead of this week's opening

2019-06-18T13:13:00-04:00

A flowing canopy roof of slates has emerged in recent weeks in the pristine gardens of London's Serpentine Galleries. Supported by a forest of superslim columns, the cavernous space will begin welcoming guests this week as the galleries' 2019 Serpentine Pavilion, designed by Japanese architect Junya Ishigami.

"My design for the Pavilion plays with our perspectives of the built environment against the backdrop of a natural landscape, emphasizing a natural and organic feel as though it had grown out of the lawn, resembling a hill made out of rocks," Ishigami said describing his design.

"This is an attempt to supplement traditional architecture with modern methodologies and concepts, to create in this place an expanse of scenery like never seen before. Possessing the weighty presence of slate roofs seen around the world, and simultaneously appearing so light it could blow aw...

Junya Ishigami's lecture at MIT cancelled following revelations of unpaid internships at his eponymous firm

2019-04-24T18:03:00-04:00

A lecture at MIT that was to be given by the Japanese architect Junya Ishigami has been cancelled following revelations that Ishigami's Tokyo-based studio was relying on unpaid interns—a controversy that has prompted wide discussion and raised questions over the value of labor in architecture.

Students and faculty at MIT were hoping his lecture could become an opportunity to engage with these issues, asking his office if they could host a separate discussion on labor practices during his visit. However, the firm declined to participate while also requesting a guarantee for no Q&A and a restriction of discussion on the issue.

After news that the 44-year-old was selected to design the 2019 Serpentine Pavilion, an email from Junya Ishigami+Associates listing conditions for an intern was made public by Adam Nathaniel Furman. Causing an uproar, the terms set out in the e-mail showed that the firm expected young architects to work 13-hour days, six days a week for free; supply their own...

2019 Serpentine Pavilion architect Junya Ishigami draws criticism for unpaid internships in Japan

2019-03-22T16:01:00-04:00

A few weeks after being commissioned to design the 2019 Serpentine Pavilion, Junya Ishigami + Associates and the Serpentine Galleries are now under fire after it emerged that the big-name firm uses unpaid interns in Japan, the Architects' Journal reported today.

An email sent by Junya Ishigami + Associates in response to a student seeking an internship opportunity lists a set of “conditions”, which include unpaid interns having to provide their own software and computer equipment, and working Monday-Saturday from 11 a.m. to midnight for a period of at least 8-12 weeks. Artist/designer Adam Nathaniel Furman tweeted a screenshot of the email last week...

Though controversial in the UK, unpaid internships are still common practice in Japan. Before opening his own practice, Ishigami worked for SANAA — who has also been criticized in the past for not paying their interns — until 2004.

According to the Architects' Journal, the Serpentine Gallery said “it was not aware the practice used ...

Japanese architect Junya Ishigami announces plans for design of 2019 Serpentine pavilion

2019-02-14T13:40:00-05:00

Japanese architect Junya Ishigami, known for his experimental works that blend nature and fantasy, has been tapped by the Serpentine Gallery to design their popular summer attraction, the Serpentine Pavilion. The highly sought-after commission follows the success of previous iterations by rising stars in the world of architecture, Frida Escobedo (2018) and Diébédo Francis Kéré (2017).

At 44, Ishigami, who worked at SANAA before starting his own practice, has amassed a unique body of work. In 2010, he was awarded the prestigious Golden Lion at the Venice Architecture Biennale for his installation “Architecture as Air," praised by the jury for pushing the "limits of materiality, visibility, tectonics, thinness, and ultimately of architecture itself.” Described by Oliver Wainwright as a magician of materials, Ishigami's gift for creating unfeasibly light structures is obvious in o...

Junya Ishigami: imagining other architectures

2018-04-04T13:52:00-04:00

Freed from the conventions of architecture and construction, what would this world look like? It’s a question Japanese architect Junya Ishigami has been trying to answer for the past decade, dreaming of structures that are as light as a cloud, as vast as the sky, as random as the trees in a forest or the stars in the sky.

Glass Pavilion, Park Groot Vijversburg, NL. Image: junya.ishigami+associates.

The Guardian's architecture critic, Oliver Wainwright, takes a closer at the fascinating work of Junya Ishigami, the bright new star on the Japanese architecture firmament, who is catching more and more mainstream attention with substantial commissions around the world. "[...] it’s tempting to close your eyes and fall under the spell of one of the most original minds in a generation – and be transported to a place where other architectures are possible," Wainwright writes.

Junya Ishigami's architecture models go on show at DeSingel, Antwerp

2013-02-26T14:29:00-05:00

Japanese architect Junya Ishigami has built a miniature landscape at DeSingel International Arts Campus in Antwerp. The former SANAA employee - who set up his fast-emerging practice in 2004 - has sited over fifty of his architecture models on a series of long tables inside the Campus, giving visitors a intimate overview of his varied oeuvre.

Live Blog: Junya Ishigami Lecture at Harvard

2011-03-23T16:40:00-04:00

Don't miss out on the excellent live blog "Junya Ishigami in Piper" by Archinect school blogger Lian at Harvard Graduate School of Design. The lecture is part of GSD's new series "A New Innocence: Emerging Trends in Japanese Architecture" which lists an impressive host of speakers, including Sou Fujimoto, Junya Ishigami, Toyo Ito, and Ryue Nishizawa and Kazuyo Sejima of SANAA.