When the competition for Japan’s Yokohama Port Terminal was announced in 1995, few predicted the changes that would ensue across the discipline.  A new generation of architects and theorists seized it as a platform to explore emerging modalities in design and design technology. The commission attracted more 600 entries from around the world in what became Japan’s largest international design competition to date, leading up to a watershed moment for the discipline of architecture.

A 2-day symposium hosted by the University of Tokyo from June 6-7 will mark the 20th anniversary of the Yokohama competition with a series of discussions featuring directors and design faculty from SCI-Arc alongside faculty and theorists from Columbia University Graduate School of Architecture, Princeton University School of Architecture, and the host university. Titled The Saga of Continuous Architecture, the event features SCI-Arc Director Eric Owen Moss, Graduate Programs Chair Hernan Diaz Alonso, Cultural Studies Coordinator Todd Gannon and visiting critic Jeffrey Kipnis, in conversation with architects Arata Isozaki, Alejandro Zaera-Polo, Jesse Reiser, Nanako Umemoto, Kazuyo Sejima, and Liam Young, among others.

The symposium aims to trace the birth and development of the notion of Continuous Architecture, which became the basis for the design of the Yokohama, inviting participants to reengage Yokohama with neither nostalgia nor negativity. Discussions will be complemented by a keynote lecture and closing remarks by Arata Isozaki, who served on the original jury for the competition.

A group of students enrolled in the SCI-Arc’s Japan study-abroad studio led by design faculty John Bohn will be attending the event, working with peers from the University of Tokyo in several related workshops.

A complete agenda for the symposium can be found at t-ads.org.