Kengo Kuma is one of Japan’s most significant living architects, thanks to his sophisticated integrations of traditional architecture with up-to-the-minute technologies. Unusually sensitive to materiality and technique, Kuma’s designs are irresistibly tactile, often resembling hand-woven fabrics or an ornate beehive. As part of our partnership with PLANE—SITE (a Berlin-based creative agency working at the interface of urban form, cultural space and social life), we are sharing another video from their Time-Space-Existence series featuring the prominent Japanese architect discussing his work. 

In this new short video, PLANE—SITE travels to the Tokyo offices of Kengo Kuma & Associates to discuss the topics of time, space, and existence as they relate to his work. Widely regarded as one of Japan’s most eminent architects, Kuma's most significant buildings include Stone Museum in Nasu, which repurposed stone from old rice stores, the Nagasaki Prefectural Museum and the environmentally harmonious Commune by the Great Wall of China. Projects currently underway include Scotland’s first design museum the V&A Dundee and the highly contested 2020 Tokyo Olympic Stadium.

Within the interview, Kuma meditates on the ebb and flow of being an architect. He discusses the role of humility in architecture, and his desire to bring architecture and nature closer together. He also discusses Japan’s so-called ‘lost decade’ after the 1991 financial crash, which necessitated his studio’s move from Tokyo to the Japanese countryside. During these years, Kuma worked on smaller scale projects, learning about materials from local craftspeople — “a most fruitful period”, as he recalls in the video. Many of these techniques and ideas influenced his later, bigger projects.

Produced by PLANE—SITE, the video has been commissioned by the GAA Foundation and funded by the ECC in the run-up to the Time-Space-Existence exhibition during La Biennale di Venezia Architettura, opening May 2018 in Palazzo Bembo and Palazzo Mora. The series has already featured interviews with both prominent and emerging architects such as Arata Isozaki and Tatiana Bilbao.