'Distillation of Architecture': Japanese craft on show in London

AA show view Distillation of Architecture

(Image credit: Elena Andreea Teleaga)

published 25 January 2025

A new AA show at the famed London architecture school has opened exploring the relationship between architecture and makers. On display on the ground and first-floor gallery spaces of the Architectural Association (AA) on Bedford Square, 'Distillation of Architecture' brings craft to the spotlight through the lens of the Japanese creative. It aims at a playful distilling of architectural thinking and design into furniture and objects.

Four pairings have made an equal number of collaborative groups between architecture practices and material and craft specialists in an exploration of a distinct, traditional method or matter. Participants include Schemata Architects with Ikuya Sagara; Studio MNM with Kittaka Brothers & Corp, Bansyo, iskw_sss and Imatoku Kogei; Suzuko Yamada with Yuki Murakami; and Tsubame Architects with Hidakuma Studio.

AA show Distillation of Architecture view of exhibition showing timber structures

Tour the new AA show ' Distillation of Architecture'

Each group has been asked to 'rethink a piece of furniture', resulting in weird and wonderful interpretations of things such as a mobile pub to lanterns, rugs and even an entire thatched canopy. There are timber constructions made of wood offcuts and blue-dyed fabric used in flexible furniture items.

Shin Egashira, Head of the Koshirakura Landscape Workshop Visiting School and Diploma 11 Unit Tutor at the AA who has been central to the school’s Maeda collaboration, says: ‘The architects and makers in this exhibition challenge the conventions of mass-produced and mass-consumed furniture in their designs. They combine architectural elements with furniture, playfully echoing the diverse forms that contemporary lifestyles can take. These practitioners pursue mobility, connectivity and compactness in their work, sharing an affinity with makers who apply traditional techniques to modern materials to achieve an economy of means.’

The exhibition, which is open at the Architectural Association AA) on Bedford Square, London until 7 March 2025, was made possible with the support of the Maeda Corporation and celebrates its 30 years of collaboration with the AA.

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Ellie Stathaki is the Architecture & Environment Director at Wallpaper*. She trained as an architect at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki in Greece and studied architectural history at the Bartlett in London. Now an established journalist, she has been a member of the Wallpaper* team since 2006, visiting buildings across the globe and interviewing leading architects such as Tadao Ando and Rem Koolhaas. Ellie has also taken part in judging panels, moderated events, curated shows and contributed in books, such as The Contemporary House (Thames & Hudson, 2018), Glenn Sestig Architecture Diary (2020) and House London (2022).