‘Quiet and deep.’ This is how architect Kengo Kuma describes Miyagawa-cho, a Kyoto neighbourhood famed for its community ties, traditional wooden architecture and rich geisha culture. The same words reflect the essence of its newest arrival: Capella Kyoto.

The long-awaited Japan debut for the luxury Singapore brand, the new hotel recently opened in the heart of the district. Rebuilt on the site of a former elementary school, it’s one of a trio of new Kuma-designed structures – including a historic geisha theatre and community centre – together creating a connective hub between past and present, tradition and innovation.

Wallpaper* checks in at Capella Kyoto

What’s on your doorstep?

Capella Kyoto is very close to tourist-packed Gion, also famed for its time-etched streets and layered geiko (Kyoto geisha) culture. However, the hotel is in fact in nearby Miyagawa-cho, which is a little quieter and has a more local atmosphere. Capella Kyoto sits directly opposite a low-key side entrance to Kenninji, the city’s oldest Zen temple complex, a soul-soothing sanctuary of stone walkways and historic structures. Along the same street are generations-old family stores, from wooden bucket artisans to sandal makers.

Softly mirroring its surroundings, the hotel rises from the site of a former elementary school (whose vintage lighting and trodden floorboards are reborn in restaurant Yoi). Intimate and low-rise, the four-storey building has layers of roofs, dark wood frames, gently curved roof brackets and lattices of bamboo – a modern riff on the low curved inuyarai fencing that lines local houses, marking a boundary between home and street. The crafted beauty of noren curtains in dusty sakura pinks, by Kyoto-based textile artist Mae Engelgeer, marks the entrances (these will change with the seasons).

‘We applied the wisdom of the machiya to the hotel design,’ explains Kuma. ‘I wanted to evoke the image of smallness, local materials, tiered roofs, hidden inner gardens, layered internal spaces – just like a Japanese home.’

Who is behind the design?

Inspired by the intimacy of the traditional machiya townhouses on surrounding streets, the 89-room hotel is rooted in a pared-back serenity and crafted Kyoto touches, with architecture by Kengo Kuma & Associates and interiors by Brewin Design Office. Picture a deepening journey through sliding screens, an inner garden mirroring the micro-seasons, contemporary artworks and an elemental material palette (wood, stone, bamboo, paper) – harmonised with the effortless sense of modern luxury that goes hand in hand with the Capella brand.

‘This area is very connected to traditional house design,’ says Kuma, taking Wallpaper* on an exclusive tour of the hotel ahead of opening. ‘The uniqueness of a machiya lies in its layering, creating small spaces with multiple atmospheres. I wanted to show the quiet depth of this neighbourhood in the design of the hotel.’

When arriving, it’s all about transitioning: from street to home, outside world to inner sanctum. Rather than entering directly, sloped pathways of natural stone gently guide visitors inside. Along the way is a curved installation of earthy straw by artist Momoko Fuji, leading into the stillness of an intimate inner space. Here, floral arrangements in ceramic vases rest on sculptural wood tables, while timeless gold panels and calligraphic artworks hang in earthen-walled alcoves.

The journey continues along a light-flooded corridor, an internal tsuboniwa courtyard garden on the left – a serene composition of cherry blossoms, camellias, rocks, stones and cloud-reflecting pond; while on the right, paper screens filter the sound of flowing water from a basement fountain composed of large rocks from Gifu (‘to bring inside the sounds of nature,’ says Kuma). A sense of intimacy arises in the unwrapping of the hotel’s layers: ‘We used many sliding shoji screens to control privacy and soften natural light. These screens are the most important architectural vocabulary for a machiya.’

The light-shifting walkways lead into the Living Room – a screen-wrapped sanctuary. Here, staff in contemporary outfits fastened with Kyoto obi sashes sit at desks. Sunlight flickers on a paper screen behind a delicately gnarled bonsai. Historical books sit among flower arrangements and artworks, which range from the rhythmic paper folds of a hanging work crafted from geisha books to monochromatic Kyoto photography. It is here, every day before dinner, that a geiko or trainee maiko performs – a moment balancing intimacy with connection (guests are encouraged to chat at the end).

The room to book

Serene, spacious and soft in palette, the 89 rooms are elegant showcases of craftsmanship. Light filters through screens, alongside carpets marked with tatami mat lines, gently curved oak furniture, minimalist artworks by Kyoto creatives, including paper artist Kamisoe, textured tubular lighting and deep black bathtubs in granite bathrooms (or hinoki cypresswood tubs in suites). A highlight is curved sweeps of calligraphy on woven panels above the bed – a collaboration between avant-garde Okinawan calligraphy artist Daichiro Shinjo and Kyoto’s 17th-century kimono textile innovators Hosoo.

Views are firmly rooted in the surroundings – be it temples, old streets, or distant mountains. Six onsen suites are intimately fitted with private hot spring bathing and Zen gardens. ‘Our approach was to create spaces that felt grounded in the city’s architectural traditions while interpreting them in a contemporary way,’ Robert Cheng, founder of Brewin Design Office, tells Wallpaper*. ‘Rather than referencing history directly, we looked at underlying qualities such as proportion, materiality and atmosphere. We drew inspiration from the warm timber tones of a traditional Kyoto machiya to create spaces that feel more enveloping.’

Staying for drinks and dinner?

Behind a white noren curtain is scene-stealing SoNoMa restaurant by SingleThread. Created by Kyle and Katina Connaughton of wildly acclaimed SingleThread in California, the new outpost is the sensory culmination of decades spent exploring Japan’s culinary heritage, farming practices and earthy Iga ceramics. ‘It’s about the story of the day,’ says Kyle, highlighting its microseasonality. Inspired by an ochaya teahouse, the 12-seat counter restaurant – helmed by chef Keita Tominaga – serves up an omakase journey that is surprising and sensory, modern and creative, balancing Japan’s crafted flavours with a touch of California – from a forest-wrapped medley of early spring treats (fava beans, Hokkaido sea urchin, lily bulbs with sakura) to Kyoto duck sprinkled with fennel pollen from their Sonoma farm. ‘We use mainly Japanese ingredients but like to include an expression of California, even if it’s hidden,’ explains the chef.

Shaping the hotel’s daily rhythm is Lanterne – a light-flooded all-day restaurant with elegant sweeps of marble, herringbone floors and garden views. French cuisine with Japanese imprints is on the menu (a favourite is King Crab pain perdu with zesty kinkan kumquat and bisque); plus a fresh, buzzy breakfast (opt for an outdoor table when it’s warm). At the threshold is The Patisserie, serving SingleThread Entremets – otherworldly sweet treats displayed among foliage and flowers.

Yoi is a refreshingly laid-back spot for modern Japanese cuisine. Sit at the counter and enjoy a relaxed mix of treats – from sashimi platters served in a cloud of mist to chrysanthemum, spinach and young bamboo shoots in sesame dressing – alongside crafted cocktails such as Japanese Loafer (midori, bergamot, Kyoto craft gin and yuzu citrus).

Where to switch off

The basement is a temple to wellness. Start the day with gentle stretches and singing bowls by the fountain. The Ofuro Suites offer private onsen soaks overlooking a Zen-style garden. Auriga Spa has a menu inspired by the moon cycles, unfolding in four treatment rooms – where massages are perfectly executed in an aromatic cloud of curated oils and herbs – plus saunas and steam rooms in changing areas.

In addition, the hotel shines particularly brightly with its Capella Curates programmes. Inventive experiences tap into Kyoto’s layered culture – with a playful twist. I lost track of time with charismatic Seiji Naito, who helms Gion Naito, a century-old family-run wooden sandal company, a few minutes from the hotel, talking about the meaning of life, nature and the universe, while playing book games (yes, really) and trying on shoes. Other experiences include visiting a surf-loving lacquerware artisan and kintsugi workshops. The friendly staff are also accomplished at bespoke experiences.

The verdict

A smooth mesh of Kyoto culture and contemporary warmth, intimacy and connection, nature and city, tradition and innovation – all threaded together with a luxurious dose of Capella’s signature hospitality.

Capella Kyoto is located at 130 Komatsucho, Higashiyama Ward, Kyoto, 605-0811, Japan

'Japanese design has this ability to combine precision with a poetic dimension. Minimalism is not a stylistic choice, but a way of thinking – removing what is not necessary to give more clarity and strength to what remains.' Maria Porro, president of Salone del Mobile, was speaking to Wallpaper* about the ever-growing influence of Japanese design in Milan – and true to her words, the city was awash with high-quality projects from Japan. Design innovations spanned the spectrum: from architectural rugs, quiet paper innovations and crafted chairs designed to “not to be noticed” to textiles created by sound.

Japan's creative output has perhaps never been more relevant, according to Porro: “Japanese design offers clarity at a moment of global complexity. It demonstrates a strong ability to translate cultural values into contemporary forms, while maintaining continuity. For me, its relevance lies not only in its aesthetics, but in a way of thinking that is rigorous, responsible and increasingly necessary in shaping the future of design.”

Here, Wallpaper* highlights a fraction of the many Japanese projects that left an imprint on Milan’s designscape this year.

Best Japanese design at Milan Design Week 2026

‘bit by bit’ by Haruka Misawa at ADI Design Museum (until June 7)

Paper – with thread, wood, wire, nail, leaves, stones, pencils, glass beads, acrylic pipes. These ingredients shape the quiet beauty of ‘bit by bit’, Haruka Misawa’s first solo exhibition in Italy. Spanning long rows of steel displays are time-slowing creations – cut, pasted, stitched, layered and minutely crafted. One paper work has tiny squares containing the miniature intricacy of staircases; another has a small missing segment – the cut out part transformed into a cloud-like puff of light paper shreds. A highlight? Tiny paper shapes that dance, float and spin – the otherworldly result of a meticulously researched combination of washi paper containing metal powder with a hidden magnetic system. 'Paper is thin and flat yet it has many possibilities,' Misawa, a respected designer who helms Misawa Design Institute at Nippon Design Centre, tells Wallpaper*.

Koyori at Salone del Mobile

Sunrise – or hinode in Japanese. This is the inspiration behind Vincent Van Duysen’s debut collection for Koyori, a Japanese furniture brand rooted in quality craftsmanship and contemporary design, launching at Salone for the first time. Showing Wallpaper* his warm T-shaped chair and tables with softly twisted wood edges, Van Duysen explains: 'Hinode is about new beginnings and a homage to nature. Wood is a material I carry in my heart. Natural. Timeless. Real textures. The beauty of imperfection. In terms of executing details, the craftsmanship at Koyori is on another level.'

Ronan Bouroullec also unveiled the pared-back beauty of his Ichirin chair, its structural purity and lightly sensual edges sharpened by a clean-lined wood grain. 'I wanted this to be a chair you don’t notice,' he explains. 'You just feel good in the room. Like a teabag in a glass of water. It’s almost nothing. Just function.' Added to the mix were GamFratesi’s latest Koyori pieces, including their playful Kinomi side tables – acorn-like forms balancing lightly on tripod legs. 'Not everything needs to be big,' says Enrico Fratesi. 'We want to create a memory and an emotional connection.'

Oke by Junichiro Yokota Studio at SaloneSatellite

Oke – or wood bucket. This everyday Japanese object is the inspiration behind the Oke chair, a curved sweep of vertical wood components, rising in clean lines around two minimalist panels – crafted from leftover wood. The chair was created by Junichiro Yokata, a Tokyo product designer, who explains: 'the feeling of being enveloped in the surrounding wood teaches us the inherent richness of materials.' Also exhibited was his atmospheric Toi table lamp (a pendant version launched last year), a softly-curved glow of organic washi paper; plus Extra, a contemporary basked shaped by two interlocking circles – all explorations of the 'ordinary' in everyday life, anchored in a pared back beauty and minimalist simplicity.

Unseen Objects / Overflow by We+ and Heiwa Gokin at Galleria Rubin

Burr – the surplus metal removed during traditional casting processes – shines in the spotlight in Unseen Objects / Overflow, a new furniture collection brought to life in an innovative collaboration between Tokyo design unit We+ and century-old foundry Heiwa Gokin based in copper casting hub Takaoka. A contemporary excavation of traditional craftsmanship, the project taps into the 'imperfect' formations that trace material surfaces during large-scale metal castings in sand moulds – delicate fringes of metal known as burrs which are typically removed in the making process. Leaving these material imperfections in place, cast panels were layered into a puzzle of aluminium panels to create unique shelving and low-level tables – creating structural furniture imbued with an elemental, primitive and organic essence. The furniture launch follows last year’s launch of small objects such as vases, using the same technique.

NII at Salone del Mobile

Playful, contemporary, flexible: NII is a high-end new office furniture brand created by Itoko, a long respected Japanese office solutions company dating back 125 years. Its launch collection included the clean Lego-like modularity of sofa system Bitmap by Todd Bracher; light filtering shingle-like wood screens Pigna wrapped around seating, by AMDL Circle; the transparent river-like flow of glass table Connexa, on a structural base with hints of shrine gates by Rodolfo Agrella; the organic curves and ergonomic modularity of Parlamento sofa system by Jun Aizaki of Créme; and the super-smooth glide of Allround stools with clean modern silhouettes in glossy shades (red, blue, beige).

'It’s about ingenious design,' says Hirotaka Tako, creative director at NII, his red socks matching the red stool he is gliding on at Salone while chatting to Wallpaper*. 'The boundaries between office design and hospitality design are increasingly blurred. There is flexibility and freedom in these spaces – and furniture needs to adapt to this.'

Faces by Kengo Kuma for Jaipur Rugs at Crespi Bonsai Museum

Architecture and rugs don’t often tangibly overlap – yet Faces is a new Jaipur Rugs collection designed by Kengo Kuma, which translate facades from his building designs into woven rug creations. Handwoven surfaces are imbued with the Japanese architect’s spatial language, expressed through light, shadow and rhythm motifs. Launched with an atmospheric installation at Crespi Bonsai Museum on the outskirts of Milan, the new rugs were scattered among light-filled greenhouses and gardens.

Five designs include Sukima – the space between forms, allowing light and air to flow – inspired by the Suntory Museum of Art in Tokyo, with subtly shifting linear planes; while small square motifs imprint the surface of Chirashi, a reimagining of the stone structure of the Museum of Kanayama Castle Ruin and the Kanamaya Community Centre. Jaipur Rugs MD Yogesh Chaudhary tells Wallpaper*: 'These are all inspired by actual buildings. But it’s not just the facades – it’s how it interacts with light and air. It’s a way of seeing.'

Wave Weave by Hosoo with Carsten Nicolai at Hosoo Milan

A sublime mesh of textiles, music and technology shapes Wave Weave, by centuries-old (and ever-innovating) Kyoto textile company Hosoo, with German sound artist Carsten Nicolai. Unravelling the auditory poetry of textiles, the exhibition – unfolding in the intimate elegance of Hosoo’s Milan flagship – centres on a 22-minute film of Hosoo’s workshop. Nicolai’s soundtrack was then translated into a textile design, with sound visualised as a sonogram – resulting in an exquisitely otherworldly silk obi (kimono belt), with cloud-like woven abstractions (a minimalist installation light moves just above the textile, matching the exact musical notes being played to the material).

Nearby is another digital expression reborn in material form: new textile collection Raster Gradient. Monochrome silk panels are peppered with a gradated spectrum of tiny white dots emerging from deep black oblivion before dissolving into pure light – the result of years of experimentation (each handmade panel contains 9,000 warp threads alternating black and white). 'Technology and textiles are very close,' explains Masataka Hosoo.

Karimoku Case at Salone; Karimoku Research at Capsule Plaza

Intimate, minimal and quiet, it had all the ingredients of a hotel – from the wooden front desk and calm lobby to a spacious suite. Karimoku Case created 'A Thoughtful Stay' at Salone del Mobile, tapping into its holistic philosophy of designing objects and spaces in harmony, as envisioned by Norm Architect and Keiji Ashizawa Design. Layers of wood harmonised with natural materials (paper, stone, textiles), alongside signature triangular lanterns and the smooth crafted lines of Karimoku Case furniture. 'The goal was to showcase the brand in a holistic boutique hotel environment,' says Frederik Werner of Norm Architects.

Across town at Capsule Plaza, a different rhythm shaped 'Research Published as Furniture'. Shoji paper screens and bright colour pops were the backdrop for the Milan debut of four new brands developed through Karimoku’s research projects. Among them was a structural glass table from CMPT by Lichen, plus the soft olive leather textures of ZE Sofa from Karimoku Re:issue by Lichen, reimagining an iconic 1982 design; alongside stacked formations of modular wooden containers from Stakko, a brand created with Postalco. A second space was filled the modern playfulness of sculptural shapes in jewel tones by wagetsu わ月, a brand made with LA-based Waka Waka – including angular low tables with high-shine surfaces, made using a technique typically used for pianos.

Meeting Horizons at Time & Style Milan

A light tangle of wood curves floating like a cloud. Solid wood shelving with softly tapered edges and traditional joinery. Cantilevered chairs, hovering above stone floors. Time & Style unveiled the Meeting Horizons collection in the near temple-like serenity of their Milan flagship, with a thoughtful layering of Japanese and Western influences. There is Yoshino Breath Armchair, its clean-lined cubic cedar form assembled without metal fittings; Soe, by Wohl Hütte, its layered planes and vertical bamboo element riffing on traditional Japanese alcoves; a lightly hovering mobile of steam-bent wood by Drill Design and a natural new textile of cotton and wool by Noriko Tsuiki. An exhibition in the paper-wrapped vaulted basement also showcased the minimal white curves of stone artist Ayako Ueda on wood blocks with traditional Japanese joinery.

Future Memories by Roberto Sironi with Sansui at Rossana Orlandi

Picture a circle of light-reflecting polished steel, its water-like surface floating above an angled base of sturdy pine beams darkened with time – fragments of wooden carpentry from an abandoned house in rural Japan. This mix of new and old, lightness and strength shapes Future Memories, a contemporary installation of sculptural objects which gives a fresh lease of life to salvaged beams from Japan’s empty kominka farmhouses, by Italian designer Roberto Sironi in collaboration with Sansui, a century-old Japanese carpentry company. Centre stage in a vaulted stone space are fragments of beams reconfigured to create sculptural objects, chairs and tables. Written into the material are traces of time, with nail-free joinery and hints of human touch on hand-carved surfaces. 'Each beam has its own story,' Sironi tells Wallpaper*. 'There’s no painting, no vanishing, just the patina of time.'

Noritake Design Collection at Alcova

Curved, flowing, fragmented, in earthy tones – just like the earth. This idea shapes the abstract beauty of Landscape, a debut ceramics collection by Michele De Lucchi of AMDL Circle for Noritake, a Japanese company dating back to 1904.

Studio Toogood also launched Kiln: a harmony of sculptural curves and lines, cleanly shaped in monochrome black and white. 'I wanted to bring some strong geometry to the Noritake table, taking influence from its incredible relics of manufacturing,' says Faye Toogood. The new Imperial Peacock Collection was also displayed, a collaboration with the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation, inspired by stone carvings at the Imperial Hotel in Tokyo. These new additions to Noritake Design Collection were showcased at Baggio Military Hospital – where talented master artisan Masami Okada from Japan, sat surrounded by paints and brushes, showcasing his quiet mastery of ceramic painting, throughout the week.

Lesson in Relations by Takt Project at Chiesa di San Bernardino alle Monache

The atmosphere tilted at the threshold of Chiesa di San Barnardino alle Monarche: inside the empty church was Lessons in Relations by Takt Project, a conceptual exploration of nature, humans and materiality. Scattered on the ground were branches collected from forests in Nagano, completed with 3D-printed white elements – looping, knotted, tied, threaded, wrapped around the wood. Each 'branch' was placed in a delicate white circle of instructional text on the floor, in Italian and English – such as 'find a circular fragment within the branch'. The result was poetic record of a human-forest relationship – as the Tokyo studio explains: 'This project takes the branch as a motif to explore a contemporary way of relating to materials.'

Sur+Plus by Atma at Alcova

Sitting in a quiet concrete space in the basement of Villa Pestarini was a sculptural scattering of unique chairs created from fragments of material offcuts (stones, marbles, wood, tiles, carpet). Created by Tokyo studio Atma, the Sur+Plus chairs are made from a simple tilt of two panels, attached by a clean-lined metal fixture. Minimally visible design intervention amplifies the beauty of the pastel-toned textures, disparate fragments and organic material edges that shape the chairs, each unwaveringly unique. 'What emerges is a form of co-existence – elements connected while their differences remain,' explain the studio founders.

Hideo at Salone del Mobile

Behind a white curtain in pavilion 10 at Salone del Mobile was a small pocket of Japanese bath serenity. It was the Salone debut of Hideo, a company created by the so-called Japanese master of modern bathtub design Hideo Shimizu. The Japanese designer, based in Italy, has spent decades reimagining traditional Japanese design and craftsmanship into contemporary form. On display in the Time & Style-designed space were two white bathtubs designed in Japan and made in Italy, using a high-tech material rooted in a plant-derived bioresin – including keyhole-shaped Chiave and the curves of Infinity.

The National Gallery in London has announced that Tokyo-based architect Kengo Kuma and Associates, in collaboration with UK firms BDP and MICA, will design a major new wing – the gallery's most significant expansion in two centuries.

The decision follows an international competition launched in September 2025, which shortlisted practices including Norman Foster, Renzo Piano, Farshid Moussavi and Annabelle Selldorf. In the end, however, the jury awarded Kuma’s design the highest score, praising it as ‘both innovative and beautiful, meeting the ambition and sensitivity required for an international gallery commission’.

The £350 million wing, expected to open in the early 2030s, will be built on the site of St Vincent House, a 1960s hotel and office complex owned by the gallery, just north of the Sainsbury Wing (which was revamped last year). Clad in Portland stone, the new addition will feature landscaped gardens and a rooftop terrace overlooking Leicester Square.

Inside, the ground floor will host public facilities and temporary exhibition galleries. The main gallery floor will echo the Sainsbury Wing with vaulted arches and simple, clean interiors, while the upper floor will adopt a more geometric design, described by the jury as adding ‘variety and a change of design pace’. A bridge will connect the new wing to both the Sainsbury Wing and the original Wilkins building.

The expansion will add 1,500 square metres of permanent hanging space – a 15 percent increase – and 800 square metres of temporary exhibition space, nearly doubling the capacity of the Sainsbury Wing basement.

The new wing is central to Project Domani, a £750 million initiative to redefine the gallery for the coming century. The project also marks a shift in its collection strategy: previously focused on works up to around 1900, in line with a longstanding agreement with Tate, the National Gallery will now display paintings from the late 19th century to the present, making it the only museum in the world where visitors can experience the entire history of Western painting.

Kuma, whose projects include the V&A Dundee and Tokyo Olympic Stadium, described it as ‘a privilege’ to work on the expansion, adding that ‘the National Gallery's collection is a treasure of humanity’.

Substance is the new monograph from the Japanese master architect Kengo Kuma. Featuring 35 pavilion projects from around the world, it is not only a chronicle of Kuma’s recent work but an exploration of his use of material, in particular wood, bamboo, metal, paper, textile, and stone.

In the pages of ‘Substance’ by Kengo Kuma

The watchword here is integration, and the ways in which Kengo Kuma’s approach brings together traditional Japanese design and construction methods with new technologies.

Since Kengo Kuma & Associates was established in 1990, the firm has overseen everything from the acclaimed V&A outpost in Dundee, with its geologic solidity, to the ephemeral Paper Clouds installation at Somerset House created for the 2025 London Design Biennale.

The book, from Images Publishing, includes projects like the reimagined forest of salvaged timber, Domino 3.0, created for the 2025 Venice Architecture Biennale, the Wakuni Shoten tobacco store in Tokyo, temples, bridges, pavilions, tents and tea houses, as well as other installations, like the Krug x Kuma pavilion for the champagne brand.

To mark the publication of Substance, Wallpaper* asked Kuma about his experience with craft, technology and innovation in architecture.

An interview with Kengo Kuma

Wallpaper*: Have the technological innovations (CAD, 3D printing and modelling, AI) that have happened during your career changed your approach to design?

Kengo Kuma: Our design is greatly influenced by technology. Fabrication through technology has made architectural possibilities even more organic. Organic architectural design, cost management, and the way we draw plans have all become easier, while evolving our imagination.

W*: In your opinion, how has technology impacted our understanding and application of traditional craft processes?

KK: I believe technology has revealed a flexible attitude and respect for natural materials inherent in traditional human craftsmanship.

W*: Do you think that architecture’s relationship with nature has improved over the past few decades?

KK: I particularly feel that the relationship between architecture and nature has changed dramatically since 2000. The increase in natural disasters has revealed the limitations of modernist architecture represented by concrete and steel and has fostered the awareness that prioritises natural materials as a way for humans to survive.

It has further intensified during the Covid-19 pandemic and, I believe, has had a significant impact on architectural design.

W*: Are there any natural spaces or environments that influence your approach to creating architectural space?

KK: I consider myself an architect particularly sensitive to topography. Whether in urban areas or in nature, I walk around the site and think about what kind of terrain the place is situated on.

W*: Which is more important for architects, a relationship with space, with materials or with technology? Or are they increasingly related?

KK: Space, materials and technology are all indispensable to architecture and are interrelated, but if I must prioritise, it should be materials. By thoroughly studying materials, how the space and the technology should be designed emerges naturally.

In Beijing's ritzy Sanlitun district, where luxury retail jostles for attention amid the capital’s kinetic sprawl, Christian de Portzamparc has conjured House of Dior Beijing, the Pritzker Prize laureate's third commission for the French house after Seoul (2015) and Geneva (2024). From every angle, the building – head-turning in its outer sheath of gigantic white petals – is his most ambitious: a freestanding temple to fashion that channels the very gesture of couture into architectural form.

Unlike its Korean and Swiss counterparts – which share the same petal vocabulary but emerged from existing streetscapes with two or three facades apiece – Dior's largest store in China stands exposed on all four sides within Kengo Kuma's Taikoo Li Sanlitun North development. This 360-degree visibility presented Portzamparc with both opportunity and dilemma. Early iterations that wrapped petals continuously around the perimeter proved visually overwhelming. The solution? Alternating those signature resin shells – 14 in total, each shaped differently – with soaring panels of handcrafted golden glass tiles whose subtly varied surfaces shimmer and breathe between the sculptural volumes.

Inside House of Dior, Beijing

The petal forms themselves trace their lineage to the Dior atelier, capturing that decisive moment when flat fabric transforms into three-dimensional silhouette through cutting and draping. In Beijing, Portzamparc pushes this vocabulary further, sculpting each 65-foot-tall element to evoke the caryatids of Athens’ ancient Acropolis: graceful, vertical, dignified. Built using resin-casting techniques in a factory located just outside Beijing, the petals spent 18 months in production.

The golden tile panels – a nod to imperial China, where such hues were reserved for royalty – required equally exacting craftsmanship. Their placement creates crucial breathing space, breaking the mass while generating a play of shadows that shifts throughout the day. At night, the building becomes a lantern, petals backlit from within, curves casting elegant shadows across the plaza.

‘This project has taken four years, and it's a dream come true,’ says Delphine Arnault, chairman and CEO of Christian Dior Couture. That dream rises five stories filled with clothes and accessories: the ground level hosts Monsieur Dior, Anne-Sophie Pic's restaurant in a separate wing with after-hours access; floors one and two present the women's Dior universe; three belongs to men’s.

The top floor presents an OMA-conceived space populated by white toiled mannequins and a dramatic red ball gown. This leads into a soigné set of VIP salons dressed in hand-embroidered dandelion wall panels in yellow and blue in one salon, and gently indented botanical motifs in another, alongside access to an outdoor terrace.

Connecting these dreamy spaces is a circular white staircase that spirals upward, punctuated by a chandelier of clay petals – an intimate echo of the building's larger gesture – that clink softly with the slightest air movement.

Glass vitrines at each landing display miniature Dior creations, while throughout the interiors, works by Chinese artists animate the rooms. Xiyao Wang and Xu Zhen contribute paintings, Hong Hao created special commissions including three artworks in the restaurant that celebrate red as Beijing’s ceremonial colour, while furniture from Claude Lalanne, Franck Evennou, and Gio Ponti punctuates the spaces.

Throughout, Portzamparc's signature preoccupations assert themselves: the porous facade inviting light and views to permeate inward and outward, the commitment to opening constrained spaces, the calibration between solid and void. It is, incidentally, a quality visible across his Chinese work, from the slender columns and apertures punctuating the China National Convention Center to the north in Olympic Green to this Sanlitun venue.

For Portzamparc, whose portfolio spans cultural landmarks from the Philharmonie Luxembourg to the Shanghai Opera House, the Dior commissions represent something both particular and personal. When he completed the LVMH Tower on New York's 57th Street in 1999, Philip Johnson told him, ‘You are very lucky to have a client like Bernard Arnault’, a tacit recognition of an appreciative patron with both resources and the rare willingness to take creative risks. Two decades on, that relationship has evolved into what Portzamparc has described as ‘an architectural style dedicated to Dior’ – a collection united by principle, yet irresistibly responsive to place.

The result in Beijing? A building that mirrors the couture inside by taking something flat and making it sculptural, structural, alive.

House of Dior Beijing, N6 Taikoo Li Sanlitun North, Chaoyang District, Beijing

dior.com

The Seto Inland Sea in Japan, nestled between the Hiroshima, Okayama, Hyogo, Kagawa and Ehime prefectures that form the Seto Inland region, is a treasure trove of 20th and 21st-century architecture gems. This is not only the result of the local architects' inspiring visions. It also stands as testament to a series of clients with a forward-thinking stance and deep ambition – a confluence that created the perfect breeding grounds for pioneering building design.

Join our architecture tour to find out more.

Seto Inland Sea: context and origins

The emergence of avant-garde post-war architecture in the Seto Inland region owes much to the presence of the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum, built by Metabolist architect Kenzo Tange in 1955. Commissioned by the state to mourn the victims of the nuclear attack, the institution was designed by Tange, a native of Ehime Prefecture's Shikoku island, which faces the Seto Inland Sea.

Instead of Japan's traditional timber frame style, it was constructed using concrete, a cutting edge material for the time.

'Tange applied the Japanese-specific timber construction method, built with columns and beams, to concrete used in Western structures. This method spread throughout Japan,' says Terunobu Fujimori, an architectural historian who interviewed Tange during the architect's lifetime. The technique is particularly evident in the Seto Inland region's buildings.

There was plenty to build following the destruction of WWII. Kagawa Prefecture suffered particularly from air raids by US bombers. In Takamatsu City alone, 73 public buildings were destroyed, including the prefectural office, 264 factories and companies, and 90 temples and shrines.

Politicians and local business leaders wanted new public buildings that would be cherished by all and that would demonstrate the ideals of Japan's newly-formed democracy. The charge was led by Masanori Kaneko, who served as Governor of Kagawa Prefecture for 24 years. Guided by the conviction that ‘politics and art are one and integrated as a whole. Both must be dedicated to enriching the life of the citizens,’ Governor Kaneko commissioned the construction of several civic buildings and cultural facilities, which earned him his nickname, ‘design governor’.

The result is one of the richest assortments of architecture in Japan, by some of the world's leading design names. Here are eight highlights from the Seto Inland Sea region.

8 buildings to see around Japan's Seto Inland Sea

Kagawa Prefectural Office, Kagawa Prefecture

Architect: Kenzo Tange
Year: 1958

The Kagawa Prefectural Government Building was designed by Kenzo Tange (1913–2005), who was deeply influenced by Le Corbusier and practised with the latter's disciple, Kunio Maekawa. The building incorporates traditional Japanese design elements – such as columns and beams reminiscent of timber construction, and balconies with handrails – but uses concrete, just as he did at the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum.

Responding to then-Governor Kaneko's request for ‘an civic building befitting the democratic age,’ Tange conceived a ‘prefectural office open to the citizens.’ This spirit is most strikingly embodied in the ground floor's pilotis – a column-supported, wall-less atrium. The pilotis created a dramatic, publicly accessible space that allowed free passage for all citizens who might not otherwise have ventured in.

The ceiling features wooden louvres made from local pine timber, while the floor incorporates paving stones of Aji stone and Shodo island granite (both found nearby), alongside pebbles collected from the ocean floor. Tange's distinctive design, blending Japanese and Western elements, remains a powerful statement today.

Seto Inland Sea History and Folklore Museum, Kagawa Prefecture

Architect: Tadashi Yamamoto
Year: 1973

Perched atop the Goshikidai hills overlooking the waters between Okayama and Kagawa Prefectures, the Seto Inland Sea History and Folklore Museum is a facility conceived to convey the life and culture of the region. It displays fishing gear, wood boats and domestic items from the area. The stone-built structure was designed to harmonise with the natural surroundings by architect Tadashi Yamamoto (1923–98), who was also an official at the Kagawa Prefectural Government.

During his tenure at the prefectural office, Yamamoto nurtured his architectural philosophy through collaborations and exchanges with figures such as Tange, artist Isamu Noguchi and designer George Nakashima through which he was exposed to a new wave of post-war modernist design. The stone-piled exterior, made from the volcanic rock andesite, evokes a pirate's castle. The stone-piling was overseen by Masatoshi Izumi, a stone sculptor and production partner of Noguchi, who had a workshop in Kagawa. The concrete walls were built using formwork techniques to reveal wood grain patterns, blending naturally into the hilly landscape of Goshikidai.

Teshima Art Museum, Kagawa Prefecture

Architect: Ryue Nishizawa and Rei Naito
Year: 2010

Perched on a hill near Karato Port in Teshima – an island between Shodoshima and Naoshima in the Seto Inland Sea – the Teshima Art Museum is a collaborative work by architect Ryue Nishizawa and artist Rei Naito. Built on a section of land where terraced rice fields, once left fallow, were regenerated with the help of the locals, the architecture evokes an image of a water droplet. Measuring 40 metres along its short side and 60 metres in length, with a maximum height of 4.5 metres, the building is a concrete shell structure without a single pillar. Its smooth volume, made of free-form curves, appears to merge seamlessly with the surrounding terrain.

Integrated with this architecture is Rei Naito's installation work ‘Matrix’, which explores the animating force (anima) of nature. This piece incorporates an underground spring and throughout the day, water emerges from numerous points on the floor, creating a fountain. Surrounding sounds of nature, light, wind, and rain come through the two openings above, creating a space where environment – which changes seasonally – art and architecture are integrated.

Inujima Seirensho Art Museum, Okayama Prefecture

Architect: Hiroshi Sambuichi
Year: 2008

The Inujima Seirensho Art Museum – approximately a ten-minute cruise ride from Hoden Port on mainland Okayama prefecture – is a museum centred on the theme of ‘heritage, architecture, art, and environment.’ It was created by renovating a copper smelter that operated for only ten years from 1909 before falling into disuse. The environmentally conscious architecture, conceived by Hiroshima-based architect Hiroshi Sambuichi, incorporates existing chimneys and Karami bricks – slag bricks made from the residue left after copper is removed during the smelting process – while utilising natural energy sources like solar and geothermal power.

The museum incorporates an advanced water purification system harnessing the power of surrounding plants, evolving like a living organism as part of Inujima's perpetual natural cycle. Art works evoking the spirit of novelist Yukio Mishima, who rang a wakeup call to Japan's rapid modernisation, fill the space which once contributed to the country's industrial evolution but now exists only as a shadow trace – making a comment about the future of the country and its relationship to its past through art and architecture.

Kurashiki International Hotel, Okayama Prefecture

Architect: Shitaro Urabe
Year: 1963

Opened in 1963, the Kurashiki International Hotel is as popular now as when it first launched. Founded in response to growing post-war calls from local businesses and the government for an international-standard hotel in Kurashiki, a local city in Okayama prefecture, the hotel was born from the vision of its founder, Ohara Soichiro, who sought to create a modest but practical establishment where heartfelt hospitality prevailed.

When architect Shintaro Urabe (1909–1991) designed the building, he intended it to blend into Kurashiki’s landscape. Constructed in reinforced concrete, it was conceived as a fusion of Japanese and Western styles. The traditional namako kabe – a type of wall in coloured tiles found in Kurashiki’s historical district – appears alongside pitched kabe hisashi eaves, resembling mini roofs, which are layered on top of each other across all floors and nod to local construction typologies. Urabe’s vision described that, ‘by the time the ginkgo trees planted by the hotel at its opening have grown into spreading trees, this hotel too will have put down deep, strong roots in local and among the people of Kurashiki, welcoming visitors from around the world.’

Elements like the staircases, handrails, and wall clocks remain unchanged since the hotel's opening. Urabe, while planning the design, sat with the hotel's general manager, gaining deep insight into how the hotel might operate – such as the importance of maintaining the line of sight for guests seated in the lobby and how international guests spend their time in their rooms. This resulted in his meticulous detailing of the interior. The hotel is a source of pride for the local citizens of Kurashiki, and a piece of architecture that is truly embedded in the local life.

Honpukuji Temple, The Water Temple, Hyogo Prefecture

Architect: Tadao Ando
Year: 1991

One of the Buddhist Shingon sect’s temples, Honpukuji, dating back to the 12th century, is located on Awaji Island in Hyogo Prefecture, overlooking Osaka Bay. Enshrined here is a statue of Yakushi Nyorai, which is also designated an Important Cultural Property. In 1991, Tadao Ando designed the new main hall, Mizumido – Water Temple – to honour this deity. Accessed by a wooden approach leading to the new main hall, Ando’s temple is not something one would expect from an ordinary Japanese temple: an austere concrete wall divides the secular world from the sacred realm.

Circling it to enter, visitors encounter a 40m long elliptical pond cast in concrete. Floating within are water lilies, a Buddhist symbol. A staircase leading underground is positioned centrally, bisecting the lotus pond. Descending these steps, as if burrowing beneath the earth, leads to the main hall. In the late afternoon, when the sunlight streams in from the west and layers different colours on the vermilion-painted walls, the hall is bathed in a tapestry of crimson hues, offering visitors a unique experience where time and space seem to merge.

Yodogo Geihinkan, Hyogo Prefecture

Architect: Frank Lloyd Wright
Year: 1924

In 1924, Frank Lloyd Wright (1867–1959) designed this residence for Taizaemon Yamamura, a local who ran a sake brewery. Shortly after the Second World War, it became the property of Yodogawa Steel Works Co., Ltd., and has been open to the public since 1989. Wright undertook the original design in 1918, but soon returned to America, so completion was entrusted to his disciples in Japan, Arata Endo (1889–1951) and Makoto Minami (1892–1951). Following Wright's exploration of the fusion of nature and architecture, the architecture exploited the site's undulating terrain, extending from the nearby Rokko Mountains, and the floors are arranged in a stepped configuration running north-south.

A notable feature is the 120 small windows arranged throughout the house, which allow natural light to filter through during different hours of the day, creating an ever-changing interior atmosphere. The use of sculpted Oya stone is another unique and unusual element. The material is commonly used for exteriors, but here, it features expansively in the interior. Oya stone sourced from Oya town in Tochigi Prefecture is soft and easy to work with, and was a favourite material for Wright when he worked on the Imperial Hotel in Tokyo.

Kiro-san Observatory, Ehime Prefecture

Architect: Kengo Kuma and Associates
Year: 1994

Kiro-san Observatory crowns the 307.8 metres-high Kiro mountain Observatory Park in Ōshima in Ehime Prefecture. As Oshima is among more than 700 islands dotted around the Seto Inland Sea, the site commands panoramic views of the world's first triple suspension bridge, one of Japan's three major tidal currents, as well as the highest peak in western Japan – Mount Ishizuchi – when the weather is clear. However, as the site sits within the Kiro-san Observatory Park, part of the Seto Inland Sea National Park, regulations prevented the construction of a conventional protruding structure that might unduly spoil the mountain scenery.

Kengo Kuma, whose studio designed the Observatory, says, ‘We attempted to make architecture disappear on the summit of Ōshima’. Avoiding the fate of conventional protruding observatories – where the act of construction distracts from the landscape – Kiro-san Observatory is instead folded into its environment. Its structure is buried within the terrain, forming an observation deck that remains imperceptible from the outside while offering views from within.

Paper Clouds, Kengo Kuma’s installation for the London Design Biennale 2025, floats through the grand geometric space of the Nelson Stair at Somerset House as if someone had scattered wafers from the top step. Around 70 panels of washi paper are suspended by gold thread and cascade around the interlocking stone steps, which were designed by Sir William Chambers in 1790. The combination of Japanese lightness and craft with classical solidity and verticality is pleasing for Kuma, who says that ‘dialogue between East and West’ is the central theme of the work.

The installation is a collaboration between London-based Clare Farrow Studio and Sekisui House – Kuma Lab, the Tokyo University research department founded by Kuma in 2009. In 2020, at the official retirement age of 65, Kuma handed over to co-director Toshiki Hirano, a Kobe-born architect who specialises in post-digital architecture. This is Hirano’s third collaboration with Farrow in London, following Bamboo Ring in the V&A Courtyard in 2019 and Reinventing Texture at the 2021 London Design Biennale.

Step inside Kengo Kuma’s ‘Paper Clouds’

Described as a ‘poem’, Paper Clouds is deceptively light in meaning. Its design refers to the Japanese notion of Suyari-Gasumi – the trailing mist that is depicted in traditional paintings – but its purpose has weight: to further ongoing research into the use of washi paper in construction.

In order to produce elements that would combine strength and lightness, Hirano worked on a new technique using the same kōzo plant fibres as a traditional washi paper. Instead of creating a slurry that is drained on a screen, he made a thick paste, which he trowelled over a series of CNC-cut moulds. Using his fingers, he pressed the paste into a lattice texture that would produce structural stiffness. Once dry, each ‘wafer’ was peeled away from the mould, leaving a shallow-bowl shape with minimal weight and maximum strength.

Over time, Kuma and Hirano hope that the research may result in permanent buildings and they are working on coatings for the paper that could allow it to be used outdoors. The next step for Hirano will be to use the washi paste for 3D printing.

Small experimental projects continue to be important for Kengo Kuma & Associates (KKAA) even though the practice is prolific, with more than 400 staff working on projects in 50 countries. Kuma somehow manages to combine a pragmatic way of working with clients, who, he says, are usually ‘very safe and only wish to repeat the previous design’, with smaller projects that allow him to introduce a challenge or to test out a new material.

A recent example is the CS Somme café in the southern Japanese prefecture of Fukuoka, completed earlier this year, which combines an arched steel truss for earthquake resistance with a delicate fabric mesh for shading. Lightness and ethereality are also the themes of a tent structure in the West Bund of Shanghai, completed in 2023. KKAA wrapped two ventilation towers by manually winding lightweight, 2mm aluminium wire in spirals onto a base of stainless-steel cables.

Elsewhere in Shanghai, KKAA is working at a completely different scale with very different materials. At the former Jiangnan Shipyard on the Huangpu River, construction has started on a major new museum to document and celebrate the history of industry in Shanghai. Located on the site where steel was first produced in China in 1891, the building will be made from steel and aluminium, a significant break from Kuma’s recent work, with his recent work celebrating craft and nature.

Paper Clouds is at Somerset House as part of the London Design Biennale, until 29 June 2025.

kkaa.co.jp

Decorating your own Christmas tree is certainly an art form – although for most of us it may not extend too far beyond choosing a colour scheme and whether to go with or without lights. However, hotel Christmas trees are often elevated to the next level and will wow even the most discerning amateur. Whether adorned with AI baubles or 400 bellboy teddy bears, these are some of the most intriguingly decked-out trees around the world this year.

Hotel Christmas trees around the world

The Tokyo Edition hotels

The Tokyo Edition Toranomon, and The Tokyo Edition, Ginza, offer an alternative take on a classic Christmas tree. This year, the hotels have unveiled two sculptural installations by art director Yuni Yoshida in collaboration with the design brand 130 One Thirty. The concept was to create a ‘hotel within a hotel’. The result is two white ‘trees’ which have a delicate paper quality, and glow from within. Small windows have been carved into the installation to mimic that of lights or tinsel around a tree. Each ‘tree’ incorporates delicate design variations unique to each property.

The Tokyo Edition Toranomon is located at 4 Chome-1-1 Toranomon, Minato City, Tokyo 105-0001, Japan www.marriott.com

The Tokyo Edition, Ginza 2 Chome-8-13 Ginza, Chuo City, Tokyo 104-0061, Japan www.marriott.com

Ritz Paris

At Ritz Paris, the hotel’s bespoke Christmas tree has a focus on childhood nostalgia. The tree was designed by florist Anne Vitchen, who filled the tree with over 400 Ritz bellboy teddy bears. The hotel’s beloved mascot hasn’t just taken over the tree, but can be found in every corner of the hotel in a playful manner.

Ritz 15 Pl. Vendôme, 75001 Paris, France ritzparis.com

The Ned

The Ned has collaborated with whiskey brand The Macallan to unveil a collaborative Christmas tree which focuses on heritage and craftsmanship. The 22ft tree is inspired by the stunning distillery and the natural beauty of Speyside. The tree is adorned with red velvet bows, with copper baubles, an elegant nod to the distillery’s copper stills

The Ned is located at 27 Poultry, London EC2R 8AJ thened.com

Claridge’s

The unveiling of Claridge’s Christmas tree is always a momentous occasion. Last year, Paul Smith took over the 19ft tree in an ode to traditional toy making. This year, it is the turn of Burberry and its creative director Daniel Lee to imagine Claridge’s 2025 Christmas tree. At the centre of the 16ft tree’s design are the numerous bows that adorn it, each one crafted from surplus Burberry fabric (Lee said he chose the leitmotif because the bow was a ‘Victorian symbol of unity’). The top of the tree features a golden crown in lieu of a star or fairy, while the floor around the tree is piled with Burberry cushions and populated with oversized chess pieces.

Claridge’s is located at Brook St, London W1K 4HR www.claridges.co.uk

The Barcelona Edition

With avant garde flare, The Barcelona Edition has collaborated with Fabricio Giordano, founder and creative director of Flore Studio, a floral design studio and flower, plant and orchid boutique. Giordano gave a classic Christmas tree a contemporary twist by wrapping it in a net casing. Sharing on Barcelona Edition’s Instagram, Giordano said, ‘To wrap is to embrace, to contain, to turn inward, and a loving gesture. This year’s festive tree stands as a manifesto to embrace who we are and what we live, through abstract beauty.’

Barcelona Edition is located at Av. de Francesc Cambó, 14, Ciutat Vella, 08003 Barcelona, Spain www.marriott.com

The Rome Edition

You can find the Rome Edition's tree nestled in the hotel entrance. Designed by Milan-based artist, Sara Riccardi, she worked in close collaboration storied Turin workshop, Antica Fabbrica Passamanerie Massia Vittorio for this commission. The result is a striking tree comprised of textile compositions and cascading fringes in various shades of red. More than just a visual spectacle, it also engages sight and sound, with aluminium rods which echo vibrations. This is a contemporary tree not just to be admired, but also experienced.

The Rome Edition is located at Salita di S. Nicola da Tolentino, 14, 00187 Roma RM, Italy editionhotels.com

The Connaught

Outside The Connaught stands a 31-foot-tall Nordmann Fir tree, sourced from Denmark and designed by contemporary visual artist Urs Fischer. This is Fischer's 10th tree for The Connaught, and for 2025 he has taken inspiration from his installation ‘People’. AI-generated faces are placed within spheres, each lit with LED light – the tree captures people sharing collective experiences, and is rooted in togetherness.

The Connaught, Carlos Pl, London W1K 2AL www.the-connaught.co.uk

45 Park Lane

At 45 Park Lane, the evergreen Nordmann Fir has been designed by British sculptor Ian Turnock. For this year’s tree, Turnock was inspired by the stillness of winter, which he captured through sculptural decorations which reflect light and shadow in intricate patterns. There are metal finishes to the decorations which elevates the tree into a mesmerising installation, rather than a decorative object.

45 Park Ln, London W1K 1PN dorchestercollection.com

Forget baubles and tinsel. When iconic Japanese architect Kengo Kuma decided to design Christmas trees for the first time in his decades-long career, it was maybe no surprise that the material palette was simple, minimal and natural – crafted purely from wood. Kuma this week unveiled his two Christmas trees, each carefully designed to harmonise with their settings in two hotels he also designed: The Tokyo Edition, Toranomon and The Tokyo Edition, Ginza.

This being Kuma, these are no typical Christmas trees. The creations are made up of minimal curves and lines by skilled craftsmen from respected Japanese woodmakers Karimoku, in a medley of quality woods (oak, magnolia, walnut, maple) – and, in a sustainable festive twist, after Christmas, the trees will be dismantled and transformed into furniture.

At The Tokyo Edition, Toranomon, the tree is centre stage in the cloud-brushing 31st floor lobby. Here, among green leafy plants, minimalist wooden Kuma-designed eaves and sweeping skyscraper views, the 2.8m high tree – called Komorebi, a word referring to sunlight filtering through treetops – is made up of countless wooden circles.

These rings are connected by small hidden popper buttons so they can easily be attached, removed and arranged in an array of formations, in stacked units. Adding further depth, some rings are empty, while others contain discs of wood or mirrors, evoking a reflective sense of light, both during the day and after dark. Following its festive moment in the spotlight, this tree will be transformed into units of furniture – tables made up of a circular glass table-top, sitting on a trio of rings. One special table will be created from the rings that form the 'star' apex of the tree, which includes a trio of rings coated in gold.

The festive atmosphere shifts a short distance away at The Tokyo Edition, Ginza, where a very different tree called Kigumi – a word referring to nail-free Japanese joinery – sits in the hotel’s intimate dark walnut-panneled lobby on the ground floor.

This tree consists of countless thin vertical sticks in a variety of wood textures, with a scattering finished in silver and bronze metal paints, evoking a sharply elegant atmosphere. These components can be smoothly interlocked into tall thin stacks of three pieces of wood – which are then connected collectively to form a Christmas tree, with its angular lines echoing the weaving-like effect of the latticed façade of the hotel, also designed by Kuma.

The Ginza tree will also be dismantled and transformed into tables, with tall stacks of wood sitting beneath a circular tabletop of walnut. All the furniture will sell online, while two special tables made from with the apexes of the two trees will be sold via a silent auction.

Here, Kuma talks to Wallpaper* about his Christmas tree project – from its inspirations and craftsmanship to its wooden material palette.

Kengo Kuma unwraps the creative inspiration behind his Christmas tree project

Wallpaper*: What’s the idea behind this project?

Kengo Kuma: Christmas trees are usually displayed indoors, but they can also be placed in the garden. In this project we interpreted the Edition hotels as the garden, and aimed to design a friendly space respectively, where people can relax with the tree as the main attraction.

W*: What connects the two tree designs in Ginza and Toranomon – and what differentiates them?

KK: In the Toranomon hotel, we used wood with sharp-edged designs in the architecture. To complement the sharpness of the design, we came up with a round, soft geometry for the tree. To the contrary, in Ginza, wood is used basically at 90 degrees in terms of the geometry, so we designed the tree with the pointed tip to add natural sharpness in the architecture.

W*: How did the idea of turning the trees into furniture come about and how will they be reborn?

KK: These Christmas trees won’t be thrown away after the event, but are to be dismantled and recycled as furniture, in order for them to live a much longer time. We wanted to use wooden materials so that people visiting there could feel the cycle of nature behind the Christmas trees.

W*: Can you tell me about your relationship with Karimoku – and the appeal of working together?

KK: Karimoku is a company who knows the nature of wood and has inherited a high-level of craftsmanship. We work with them often. The trees in this project required techniques to achieve great strength while using small and thin members. They did a wonderful job that could not be done by anyone else.

W*: Which woods were used?

KK: Oak from Tohoku, Sen from Hokkaido, Magnolia from Gifu, Japanese walnut from Tohoku, Itaya Maple from Hokkaido. And only for Ginza, walnut from North America.

W*: Can you explain the sustainability elements, in terms of both material and concept?

KK: In Japan, it has been a problem that tree plantations had been leaning toward coniferous trees, causing an imbalance with broadleaf trees that could affect the natural environment. We wanted to raise awareness by using broadleaf trees.

W*: Finally, what imprint do you hope these trees will leave on hotel visitors during the festive season and beyond?

KK: In addition to the trees, visitors would recognise wooden material is used throughout the interior of the two hotels – I would like them to be aware that wood is essential in our daily life, and extend their imagination further to the forests behind the trees.

https://www.editionhotels.com/tokyo-toranomon/festive/

‘A sanctuary of ethereal beauty’: these are the words Japanese architect Kengo Kuma uses to describe his new hotel project, Banyan Tree Higashiyama Kyoto, which sits in the magical bamboo forests of the Higashiyama Mountains.

With a harmony of contemporary lines, meticulous craftsmanship and a natural material palette, the new hotel – the first Banyan Tree in Japan (joining seven other establishments in sister brands) – is intimate and self-contained. Its essence is perhaps best reflected by a signature highlight at the rear of the property: a contemporary reimagining of a traditional Japanese Noh theatre, designed by Kuma to blend into the surrounding bamboo forests. ‘In Japan, there is a tradition of seeking retreat in nature, known as in-sei, which emphasises withdrawing from the bustle of daily life to find peace and spiritual renewal,’ Kuma tells Wallpaper*.

Banyan Tree Higashiyama Kyoto, Japan, by Kengo Kuma

‘Higashiyama, with its serene landscape and rich history, embodies this tradition perfectly. We wanted the hotel to be a place where guests could devote themselves to spiritual fulfilment and reflection,’ the architect adds.

With the hotel located a short walk from the celebrated (and always busy) Kiyomizu-dera Temple on Kyoto’s mountainous fringes, the transition from a ‘tourist trail’ to an ‘ethereal hillside’ sanctuary begins with a shrine-like wooden gate at the threshold.

The façade then shifts into focus: spanning one wall is a sweeping expanse of organic stones once used in the ryokan inn that formerly sat on the same site. The exterior matte black walls are further sharpened by vertical timbers, rafters and eaves crafted from woods including hinoki cypress, harmonised with the curved lines of traditional kawara roof tiles. ‘Kyoto has a strict landscape ordinance and the use of tiled roofs is a rule,’ Kuma says. ‘However, this restriction has created a beautiful landscape around Kyoto, and we took advantage of the tiled landscape to create stretching, deep eaves and soft shadows with continuous rafters under the eaves.’

Inside, the triple-height reception, designed by DWP International, has sweeping glass walls at the rear, framing a minimalist garden, alongside a sculptural ceiling installation evoking a sea of bamboo plus calligraphic abstractions by washi artist Wataru Hatano on the wall behind the front desk. The nearby lobby lounge is loosely compartmentalised with a scattering of artworks and a tea area, where welcome matcha is whisked for guests.

The Yukio Hashimoto-designed guest rooms – divided into two adjacent buildings – have a light purist beauty, fusing traditional Japanese aesthetics with a comfortable contemporary edge. There are swathes of tatami, low-lying window-side platforms with sunken seating and tokonoma alcoves with works by ceramic artist Eiichi Shibuya. Other details include expanses of gold leaf above the bed, gently dividing sliding screens, plus Japanese-style bathtubs crafted from aromatic hiba wood – and, in front-facing rooms, breathtaking views across city rooftops.

Guests can also enjoy onsen bathing and a serene spa with high-quality massages; plus fine dining at Ryozen restaurant, tapping into a wealth of seasonal ingredients, including Kyoto vegetables, and a signature dashi broth made using five-year-aged Rishiri kelp from Hokkaido.

The restaurant – plus three guest rooms above – directly overlooks the Noh stage, as brought to life by Kuma. A skeletal outline of a theatre, crafted in aromatic wood, mirrors the meticulous structural dimensions that underpin the traditional vernacular of the Noh theatre.

Yet, in a contemporary twist, the theatre is constructed without a roof or walls filled in. As a result, its frame-like lines of wood, minimalist, crafted and clean, seem to dissolve into the greenery of the bamboo forest – resulting in a unique sense of spatial lightness and transparent beauty, as it hovers in its natural setting.

For Kuma, the creation of a Noh stage creates a ‘groundbreaking connection’ between Japanese ryokan-style inns and contemporary hotel, as he adds: ‘We hope that the Noh stage will evolve more as one of the hotel’s charms and become a symbol of Kyoto's new culture, a place that will be loved for many years to come, where guests will want to come back again and again.’

Banyan Tree Higashiyama Kyoto is located at 7 Seikanji Ryozan-Cho, Higashiyama-Ward, Kyoto City, 605-0861 Kyoto, Japan, banyantree.com

Young Chinese architecture practice Tsing-Tien Making joins the Wallpaper* Architects’ Directory 2024, our latest annual round-up of exciting emerging studios.

Who: Tsing-Tien Making

Suzhou-born Freja Bao's studio, Tsing-Tien Making (TTM), was founded following the architect's education in London's Bartlett School of Architecture and stints in Japan, in the offices of KPF Architects and Kengo Kuma & Associates. Bao set up her independent practice in her home town in 2023 and has been going from strength to strength since.

'As a collective deeply passionate about architecture, we at Tsing-Tien Making thrive on embracing challenges and infusing each project with innovative experimentation,' she says. Beyond her first completed project, featured here, Bao adds that there's more to come: 'Our focus extends to a range of exciting undertakings, including the development of a retirement house, the restoration of a scientist’s former residence, and the conceptualisation of a private collector’s room.'

While Bao credits her travels and exposure to international architecture as key influences in her work, she stresses that her roots are equally important. 'Upon returning to Suzhou, I observed a discernible gap in public awareness and perceptions of design. This challenge presents an opportunity to introduce and experiment with novel architectural concepts that could enrich the local landscape. My intention is to bridge this gap by integrating global architectural principles with local sensibilities, thereby fostering a more informed and appreciative public discourse around design.

‘Moreover, my vernacular roots have profoundly shaped my architectural perceptions and methodologies. Growing up immersed in the rich cultural and historical heritage of Suzhou, I developed a deep-seated appreciation for traditional aesthetics, craftsmanship, and the harmonious integration of built environments with natural surroundings. This background has instilled in me a unique perspective that values both the preservation of cultural identity and the pursuit of contemporary innovation.'

What: Zhang Taiyan's former residence

Twentieth-century Chinese scholar Zhang Taiyan's former residence has been redesigned and reopened as a domestic museum in his home town of Suzhou. Also known as Zhang Garden, the residence was built between 1911 and 1949 and comprises three buildings, surrounded by a green, walled garden.

The southernmost structure was preserved as a museum, while the other two contain the extensive bookshop and its café – both designed by Tsing-Tien Making – and communal areas.

Tsing-Tien Making worked on a design that draws on the setting's natural foliage tones, bringing a selection of shades of green into the composition. Materials blend timber in natural tones and metal, which was used in a modular manner in the shelving and displays.

Why: Architects’ Directory 2024

Conceived in 2000 as an international index of emerging architectural talent, the Wallpaper* Architects’ Directory is our annual listing of promising practices from across the globe. While always championing the best and most promising young studios, over the years, the project has showcased inspiring work with an emphasis on the residential realm. Now including more than 500 alumni, the Architects’ Directory is back for its 24th edition. Join us as we launch this year’s survey – 20 young studios from Australia, Brazil, British Virgin Islands, Canada, China, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, India, New Zealand, Nigeria, Portugal, Singapore, South Korea, Spain, Thailand, Tunisia, the UK, the USA, with plenty of promise, ideas and exciting architecture.

ttmaking.com

The Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation’s complex in Lisbon has been one of the city’s best-loved landmarks since it opened in the 1960s. The foundation aims to improve quality of life through art, charity, science and education, and its Lisbon campus encompasses a main office, library, the Calouste Gulbenkian Museum, scientific research centre and contemporary art museum, Centro de Arte Moderna (CAM), which reopens this year following an extensive four-year renovation by Japanese studio Kengo Kuma & Associates. Designed in collaboration with landscape architect Vladimir Djurovic, the update cleverly reconfigures the space and extends the foundation’s gardens to craft a more cohesive relationship between the existing structures.

Explore Centro de Arte Moderna at Gulbenkian Foundation in Lisbon

The original CAM building was designed in 1983 by British architect Leslie Martin, who led the team behind London’s Royal Festival Hall. The museum already holds almost 12,000 artworks, spanning paintings, sculptures, installations, drawings, prints, photographs and films by some of the country’s most renowned artists, such as Helena Almeida, Joana Vasconcelos, Paula Rego and Maria Helena Vieira da Silva, as well as a significant collection of works by international and British artists, including Sonia and Robert Delaunay, David Hockney and Bridget Riley.

Keen to expand its growing collection, in 2019, the foundation held a competition in a bid to better integrate the museum with its garden setting, » which was originally designed by António Viana Barreto and Gonçalo Ribeiro Telles. Rather than create an extension that ate into the garden, Kuma’s suggested design added galleries underneath the building, while a new entrance at the rear would open it up on to a public plaza. In choosing this proposal, the foundation selected a design that put contemporary art at its heart, as well as allowing the venue to connect with its surrounding context.

The reimagined building has glass doors on either side of the new entrance, affording visitors views of both the old and new gardens. In the main exhibition hall, girders add an industrial feel, while on the lower ground floor, light is brought in through windows that look up on to the garden. In CAM’s main gallery, Nave, is an installation by Leonor Antunes, who also curated an exhibition by around 30 women artists for the museum’s reopening. The crowning glory, meanwhile, is the engawa, a 100m canopy that spans the entire width of the building. Featuring planks of ash covered with white Portuguese ceramic tiles, and flowing in a wave-like form that ripples out from the top down, the canopy is held up by twin pillars that Kuma describes as like pine needles.

‘There is much to consider when looking at art, and sometimes it is very stressful to process these powerful messages. The engawa serves as a meditative space in the shade,’ says Kuma. Providing shelter, seating and a spot for quiet contemplation, the engawa acts as a transitional zone between the museum and the garden. Connecting with the community and the landscape was a key concern during the project’s conception, and that extended to the use of local materials and the celebration of their natural variations through the design.

‘A building should be connected with us and with its location. Using local materials is necessary to make this kind of connection,’ says Kuma. For him, surface variations echo the diversity of the city. ‘In industrial materials, there is no variation. I chose materials for their natural roughness and variations. I was drawn to them because we, ourselves, are diverse, we are not industrial products and we feel a certain sympathy for these kinds of materials.’

The use of solely native plants in the gardens complements this approach. A year of research went into selecting the species that now include polypodium vulgare (a native fern), euphorbia characias and polygonatum odoratum. They were collected in the wild and grown in a nursery before being planted. Some of the larger trees, such as the quercus suber (cork oak), quercus rotundifolia (holm oak) and quercus faginea (Portuguese oak), were also transplanted from the wild, creating a garden that, when fully grown, will be completely self-sufficient.

‘We approached this project with a lot of humbleness and respect for what had already been done,’ says Djurovic. ‘We knew that if Gonçalo Ribeiro Telles had been here today and he had had to do that extension, he would have let nature talk – the garden would have been as natural as possible.’

This project has transformed the Gulbenkian campus, benefiting both the environment and the local community. Dramatic changes have been made to what was already there, but with a lightness of touch, as the new design updates the original to create a seamless transition between the site’s various spaces. Says Kuma, ‘In our vision for CAM, we crafted a new outdoor narrative, where architecture and nature converse in harmony, inviting visitors to slow down and make this space their own.’

kkaa.co.jp

gulbenkian.pt

The idea of evoking the atmosphere of a private residence lies at the core of architect Kengo Kuma’s latest hotel project, The Tokyo Edition, Ginza – which he likens to a Japanese home, ‘warm, intimate and spiritual’. The new hotel flows through a 14-level structure on a quiet corner spot in the Ginza district, mixing a material warmth and a minimalist simplicity with edgy Edition touches in a network of intimate spaces.

The new Ginza hotel is the 19th global opening for The Edition brand – hot on the heels of The Singapore Edition, and chapter two for its Japan journey. It opens three years after the brand debuted in Japan with The Tokyo Edition, Toranomon, also designed by Kuma alongside Edition creator Ian Schrager. The latest outpost boasts expanses of deep-toned walnut juxtaposed with ivory textiles; 86 guest rooms with low-rise city views; a lobby with a gold bar and white scissor staircase; Japan’s first Punch Room; a modern brasserie; and a rooftop natural wine bar.

The Kengo Kuma-designed Tokyo Edition, Ginza

A similar design language – woods mixed with minimalist lines and a luxe material palette – underpins both hotels, yet each retains a unique identity. The Toranomon hotel floats 36 floors above the ground in a cloud-brushing skyscraper, with a buzzy jungle-like lobby inspired by temple architecture, light oak wood and 206 guest rooms. In contrast, The Tokyo Edition, Ginza has a deeper palette and ambience, reflected in its comparatively human-scale proportions.

In an interview with Wallpaper*, Kuma explains: ‘Toranomon is mainly oak wood while Ginza is walnut – this is because Toranomon is a contemporary skyscraper, and I wanted to show lightness in the sky. But in Ginza, connectivity to the street is most important. In this way, it reminds me more of a traditional building.’

‘The Ginza location is key,’ says Kuma. More precisely, it’s the district’s uradori (back streets), where a grid of low-rise lanes with countless layers encloses generations-old businesses, galleries, restaurants, and bars. He explains, ‘There are many big shops on the main street of Chuo Dori. But the back streets, or uradori, are more vibrant and active, often only wide enough for humans. That kind of hidden feeling is the basis of Ginza.

‘The Edition Ginza faces these back streets, so the life and activity of the uradori and the Edition are very much connected. We tried to bring this into the interior to create a continuity with the exterior. That’s the basis of my design.’ The idea of ‘weaving’ together the different elements of Ginza is embodied in the fabric-inspired façade: interwoven ‘threads’ of extruded aluminium in three colour tones flow irregularly across the building, both horizontally and vertically, among vertical gardens.

‘I wanted to show some randomness – it’s not an industrial product, it’s handwoven,’ notes Kuma. ‘Fabric used to be in an important business in Ginza, so we thought the woven image would fit well. We wanted to show our respect for the cultural context of Ginza.’

Diaphanous white curtains flutter as the ground floor doors open onto the lobby – an intimately scaled space with warm walnut walls; the contemporary lines and curves of bespoke seating in ivory and soft lavender; and a scallop-edged gold bar, serving pastries, craft coffees and cocktails. A highlight is the strong lines of a white metal scissor staircase, contrasting sharply with the dark wood, while a discreet check-in desk sits on the side.

‘This atmosphere is like being invited to a private home,’ says Kuma. ‘The entrance is very subtle. The conversation is very intimate. Creating this kind of intimacy is important to us. That’s why, compared to Toranomon, the wood is darker, there are fewer plants, and the furniture is like what you would find in a home. Scale-wise, it’s also very different from a normal hotel. Hotels often like big spaces. But a key concept of Edition is intimacy – especially as we are in Ginza, I wanted to show the intimacy of the location.’

He adds: ‘Besides, walking into the lobby reminds me of a traditional Ginza shop. Many shops have a long history, often over 100 years old. My father loved Ginza very much. He had some favourite shops. There was one shop master whom my father had a long relationship with. That kind of human relationship happens often in Ginza.’ The intimacy continues at the top of the strong-lined white lobby staircase, which flows into the Punch Room.

The mezzanine-style space is wrapped in grid-like woodwork inspired by Japanese lattices known as koshi – alongside an eclectic array of furniture, from long leather Chesterfields to a jolt of electric blue sofas, with modern lantern-like lighting. The atmosphere hovers somewhere between traditional Japanese house and the heritage-rooted eccentricity of an old-school British gentleman’s club – as the Edition’s signature Punches (with a Japanese twist) are served from silver bowls with traditional ladles.

‘Koshi [lattices] is the vocabulary for Japanese private homes,’ says Kuma. ‘Koshi can also represent different types of shops – shops selling cakes have a different koshi pattern in contrast to shops selling fabrics. In Ginza, the type of koshi is crucial.’

The weaving theme continues in the plaited leather-wrapped handrails in the lifts. Minimalist yet warm, the rooms are wrapped in walnut panelling alongside crisp ivory textiles, travertine tables, cream leather, and white faux fur throws. Sharply framed monochrome photography by Japanese artists Sayaka Maruyama and Takay Photography hangs on the walls. Meanwhile, bathrooms have solid sweeps of dark green marble beneath circular mirrors on walnut walls, with clean-lined white standalone bathtubs in ten suites. Windows capture a completely different Tokyo atmosphere compared to its skyscraper sister in Toranomon – a low-rise patchwork of blocks, the skies above and shoppers flowing steadily below along the neat back streets.

According to Kuma, the spaces evoke the Meiji era – a time of seminal modernisation in Japan (from 1868 to 1912): ‘I imagine an old house in the Meiji era, a time when brick buildings started lining Ginza’s streets, and Western lighting arrived. Meiji-era homes are a mix of Western and Japanese styles.’

The palette lifts in the 14th-floor modern brasserie Sophie at Edition – home to a buzzy atmosphere and a menu rooted in local ingredients (from Tokyo-made miso, burrata cheese and soy sauce to honey made by bees on nearby Ginza rooftops). The two-level space is open and bright, with shades of white and citrus bursts in its curved seating, light wood lattices, scatterings of plants and a wall of framed Tokyo street photography.

A highlight is the rooftop terrace, which serves natural wines when springtime temperatures rise. The space bursts with greenery, creating an unusual connection with nature despite the locations. This touch of nature is – according to Kuma – a vital ingredient: ‘After the pandemic, people want to go back to nature. I feel there is too much development in the city centre of the city’s centre, many skyscrapers, tower mansions. But without going back to nature, we can’t survive.

‘The roof terrace is open but intimate, with a sense of protection and privacy – but we can still feel the breeze and see the stars. I think our concept of Ginza is fitting for a post-Covid period. It is a real oasis in a big city.’

editionhotels.com

Aman is known for its architecturally stunning hotels and resorts that sweep the world's most scenic destinations. While drawing upon each location’s surrounding environment for design inspiration, Aman has taken the organic next step in expanding its world into interiors – creating a beautiful microcosm of the brand.

Aman Interiors launched at Design Miami 2023, showcasing its first collaboration with Japanese architect Kengo Kuma (Wallpaper* featured his recent design for Singapore’s Suzuki restaurant). The collection, titled ‘Migumi’, invites Aman’s clients to enjoy a slice of tranquillity within their own home.

Aman Interiors by Kengo Kuma

Like the hotel group, Kuma utilises the elegance of the natural world as part of his design inspiration. Drawing from an organic palette of white oak and Calacatta marble, the ‘Migumi’ chair and ‘Migumi’ table sit in the room like a complex puzzle piece. The intricate wooden foundations create a sense of dynamic movement.

The gentle sunlight is also another source of inspiration for the architect, nodding to his travels to Miami. The structural form of his furniture designs come to life as the sun casts different shadows throughout the day.

Aman Interiors will also release its ‘Foundations Collection’ in 2024, defined by a selection of furniture designs composed by artists and designers from across the world, who have handcrafted each piece. This includes the ‘Ekam’ lounge chair, ‘Trini’ side table and ‘Dvaya’ bench. The collection, designed in Aman’s London studio, embodies the brand’s minimalist aesthetic.

The chairman, owner and CEO of Aman Group and chairman of Aman Interiors, Vlad Doronin, said: ‘Design and architecture, including furniture design, have long been true passions of mine, and it was Aman’s elevated design aesthetic which first drew me to the brand as a guest. Today, I am delighted that we can bring the next phase of the Aman lifestyle to our clients with the creation of Aman Interiors.’

aman.com

Kengo Kuma has made his long-awaited Singaporean debut with Suzuki – a sushi bar, no less – and it’s a beauty. Located in a prime spot right by the entrance of the newly minted Mondrian on the edge of Chinatown, the bijou 22-seater is Kuma’s first commercial project in city-state, the Tokyo-based architect having previously designed some private residences there. 

Suzuki: a sushi bar by Kengo Kuma

First impressions count and Kuma sets the scene with a floor-to-ceiling glass façade clad in a bamboo collage that unfurls into a subliminal outline of waves. 

Inside, he has placed a small garden of Gifu rocks and pebbles anchored by a sōzu, or fountain, and a classic shishi-odoshi water spigot. The idea, he says, was to have a sushi restaurant set within a garden. ‘I wanted to have an element of nature within a small space. Even in Ginza, where all the good sushi places are located, it’s difficult to realise this kind of rock garden because real estate is so expensive. So in a way, this restaurant in Singapore is more authentic than most in Ginza.’

If the top notes of Kuma’s moodboard are stone and water, then his middle notes are washi paper, which clads the restaurant’s cupboards and the scrim for the private dining room, and bamboo, the latter harvested and cut in Kyoto, and then installed by local artisans on site. The long stems are found not just in the window façade but also in the dramatic ceiling above the open kitchen, their blond striations creating an almost cascading effect by drawing the eye up and then down towards the internal garden. 

The base note, and arguably the one that is designed to create the most lasting impression, is the L-shaped sushi counter, which is crafted from a solid piece of 150-year-old hinoki timber and lined with ‘NC’ chairs, which Kuma had designed for the café in Tokyo’s Nezu museum. Kuma was particularly insistent about using this wood, not least for its special connection to sushi bars. ‘It has a subtle perfume that creates a special harmony with fish. Most sushi bars, even those in Japan, don’t use hinoki, which I always find so disappointing.’

All of which is to say that a meal at Suzuki is a multi-sensorial experience, with head chef Suzuki Yuichiro gently teasing out seasonal flavours of seafood flown in four times a week from Japan – sea urchins from Hokkaido, tuna from Kyushu, and silver belt from Osaka – which he pairs with dashi stock made from freshly sliced bonito and water from Mount Fuji. Yes, really.

For Kuma – currently at work on the monumental Founders’ Memorial on Singapore’s Marina Bay – Suzuki is the synthesis of a life’s work in which simplicity is perfectly balanced with materiality. ‘I’m very pleased I was able to showcase Japanese culture within a very small space.’

kkaa.co.jp 

suzukiomakase.com

Alberni's distinctive outline is sure to make it a new icon for the West End neighbourhood of Vancouver. But its striking curves, created by Japanese architecture master Kengo Kuma, are not merely a creative's expressive gesture or an aesthetic decision. The 43-storey residential tower draws heavily on its locale, the two 'scoops' carved out from its slim, long volume, inspired by the context. The new geometries allow for better vistas and connections to the street and surroundings, both for Alberni’s inhabitants and its neighbours. 

Alberni by Kengo Kuma

Created by local, design-led property developer Westbank, headed by Ian Gillespie, Alberni has just been completed. The residential scheme shows off flowing lines that are combined with timber details and larger installations. It's a choice that links back to its architect's long-standing relationship with the material. This, along with the extensive moss garden on the ground level, brings nature into what is a substantial development. This continues in the swimming pool area just above the entrance. 'In keeping with Japanese spatial traditions, the emphasis is on the atmosphere rather than the object,' the project's authors write. 

'Westbank and Ian Gillespie have always pushed us to explore adventurous ideas with each new collaboration, and have been supportive in our effort to connect our works to the surrounding environment – natural and urban. We are very proud of our work at Alberni, not only the design but also the execution. Key design gestures and details are expressed with clarity. This is our ninth project with Westbank already, but our first high-rise residential work in Vancouver, as well as in North America, and this sets a high bar for us – as an expression of quality construction, engagement with city fabric, and architectural and living concept,' says Kuma. 

Intricate woodwork details can be found throughout, matching in refinement the carefully orchestrated amenities on site, which include a Kengo Kuma-designed Fazioli piano, the moss garden and swimming pool, and a contemporary Japanese restaurant concept, 'inspired by the Japanese culinary art form of Kaiseki the project team experienced in Tokyo'.

westbankcorp.com 

kkaa.co.jp 

As menswear month comes to a close, it is a chance to zoom into the finer details of the collections: like Fendi’s recent collaboration with pioneering Japanese architect Kengo Kuma, first presented as part of the house’s S/S 2024 men’s collection earlier this month. 

The show itself took place as part of Pitti Uomo 104, the latest edition of the Florentine menswear fair, which takes place each January and June. Attendees were transported to the recently inaugurated Fendi Factory, just outside the city in the Tuscan countryside, for a show that was an ode to craft and the atelier that creates the house’s handbags and leather goods in the location (the artisans continued to work, as the show’s backdrop, before joining accessories and menswear creative director Silvia Venturini Fendi for her bow).

Fendi unites with Kengo Kuma on new accessories

Craft was also central to the collaboration with Kuma, who created versions of Fendi’s ‘Peekaboo’ bag, ‘Baguette Soft Trunk’ and ‘Flow’ sneakers. The various pieces reflect Kuma’s deep-rooted relationship with Japanese tradition and use of natural materials, a philosophy that has informed much of his work.

Here, the various accessories were made using materials that include ‘waranshi’, a version of Japanese washi paper made from cotton and tree-bark fibres that is traditionally used for origami and lantern making. Here, it lends the bags a natural, gently speckled effect, evocative of handmade paper. Another fabric is made using the practice of ‘yatara ami’ weaving, using bamboo strands for a woven lattice-like effect. The sneakers include an architectural sole designed for the project by Kuma.

‘I've always thought of Kengo Kuma as a master of naturalist architecture. He was one of the first to understand the importance of building nature into architecture both inside and out,’ explains Silvia Venturini Fendi of uniting with Kuma on the project, which is titled ’Fendi Kengo Kuma’. Fendi calls it a ‘new artistic dialogue between Italy and Japan’, suggesting a possible further chapter. 

‘I feel a sense of kinship with his Japanese approach to savoir-faire – I think it is a strong value shared between Japan and Italy,’ she continues. 

‘Nature and craft have always been at the centre of my work as an architect and a designer,’ adds Kuma. ‘When Fendi asked me to reflect on their bags and shoes, I thought of them like small architectural projects on a human scale.’

fendi.com

Kenzo House is one of Paris' better kept secrets. The home of legendary fashion designer Kenzo Takada, it sits in the French capital’s 11th arrondissement, and while it was initially created by Takada himself in 1988, it was redesigned thoroughly by Japanese architecture master Kengo Kuma in 2017, which brought the property to its current iteration: an architectural slice of Zen within Paris' bustling metropolis. Now, following Takada's passing in 2020, it has come on the market via the property specialists at Christie's. 

Stepping inside Kenzo House in Paris

'Kenzo House is without rival in Paris,' said Marie-Hélène Lundgreen of Belles Demeures de France, which is the international subsidiary of Daniel Féau Conseil Immobilier, Christie’s International Real Estate’s exclusive affiliate in Paris. 'Built 35 years ago by Kenzo Takada and masterfully updated for the 21st century by architect Kengo Kuma, it is a world apart.'

Kenzo's work mixed Eastern and Western influences, as well as a passion for colour, light and nature. Kuma kept this spirit when reworking the house, blending in the Parisian setting traditional Japanese building materials, such as ceramic, stone, bamboo, and wood. 'With it, we can experience nature more deeply and more intimately,' Kuma said. 'Transparency is a characteristic of Japanese architecture; I try to use light and natural materials to get a new kind of transparency.'

Spanning four bedrooms, six bathrooms, and a Japanese suite opening onto a lush, serene garden, Kenzo House is expansive, but its carefully curated, human-scale design ensures it remains cosy, textured and warm. It also includes two reception rooms, two dining rooms, two kitchens, a music room, study, fitness room, elevator, and a wine cellar, as well as three self-contained studio apartments for staff. 

Kenzo House is offered for sale, price upon request. 

christiesrealestate.com 

New hotel One@Tokyo opens its doors this month in downtown Tokyo, with Japanese architecture maestro Kengo Kuma overseeing both the interior and exterior design for the new addition to Japan’s hospitality scene. Agora Hospitalities Co has partnered with Sky Hospitality for Tokyo’s fourth Alliance Hotel, creating a design that juxtaposes the traditional and the contemporary – an approach the architect has taken in past works too, including the recent hospitality design for Kai Yufuin, a hot spring hotel in Kyushu.

At One@Tokyo, an entrance, utilising classic materials with its traditional wood framing, makes a striking focal point, its textured form a sharp contrast against the building’s angular silhouette. 

The ten floors, including a rooftop level, and the hotel’s 142 guest rooms, nod to these contemporary codes, with wooden accents and textiles in muted hues creating a warm and welcoming atmosphere. City landmark the Tokyo Skytree tower can be admired from the rooftop, which also encompasses a geometric play of wood patterns, staying faithful to the design codes of the hotel.

The industrial aesthetic is a natural fit for the well-connected area; a short walk from Oshiage Station, the hotel is also an easy journey to both Haneda and Narita international airports. 

The project is the latest addition to Kuma’s eclectic portfolio, which this year has encompassed everything from the aforementioned Kai Yufuin, which takes the form of a modern Japanese farmhouse in an elegant subdued colour palette, to the Hans Christian Andersen House in Denmark, an architectural celebration of natural materials. 

For Agora Hospitalities Co, One@Tokyo is the latest addition to a roster of hotels including Agora Tokyo Ginza, Tsuki Tokyo, Hotel Agora Osaka Moriguchi, Agora Fukuoka Hilltop Hotel & Spa, and Agora Kyoto Karasuma. 

onetokyo.com

Kengo Kuma is enjoying the perks of his most recent collaboration. ‘When I became a friend of The Dalmore, they began to send me many types of whisky,’ says Kuma from Edinburgh, in an exclusive interview with Wallpaper* on 21 October 2022. The acclaimed architect recently attended the launch of The Dalmore Luminary Series, for which he has created a sculpture to house one of the distillery’s rarest whiskies. 

‘I’ve learned the small differences between each [whisky]. I feel that whisky and wood are the same. Wood has great diversity: even in the same [species], wood has a different grain and smell. The same thing happens with whisky. This collaboration is to show the similarities between wood and whisky.’

The Luminary Series sees The Dalmore release a collection of ultra-rare single malts from the distillery’s vaults over three years, working with V&A Dundee and some of the finest talents in the fields of architecture and design to present and house the seminal whiskies in the way they deserve. First up with the Luminary No.1, 2022 Edition are the V&A Dundee’s lead architects, Kuma and his protégé Maurizio Mucciola, who have designed the housing and case for the Luminary Series’ inaugural Rare and Collectible whiskies respectively.

‘I’ve been a big fan of whisky for a long time,’ continues Kuma. ‘After we started the V&A project eight years ago, we often came to Edinburgh and Dundee. Maurizio and I drank whisky a lot after work. We understand the deepness of whisky culture here in Scotland, and how whisky culture and Scotland relate.’

Of course, a deep-seated affection and affinity for whisky is something that’s shared by Scotland and Japan, but it isn’t the only subject on which the two countries enjoy a close bond. After Japan opened its borders to outside trade in the second half of the 19th century, Scottish architects and professors travelled to Tokyo to share their design sensibilities with an eager audience. 

It’s a shared heritage that Kuma holds dear, and one that has informed his work with The Dalmore: ‘Engineering in Japan came from Scotland. This project is based on that similarity. A good example is Charles Rennie Mackintosh: he was very much inspired by Japan, he interpreted “Japaneseness” into his furniture. I learned many things from Mackintosh and the back and forth relationship between Japanese and Scottish design.’

Just three bottles have been filled with the Rare, a 48-year-old single malt nurtured by master distiller Richard Paterson, influenced by Oloroso sherry, vintage port and American white oak, and finished in Scottish tay and Japanese oak casks. 

What emerges is a cherry-filled, coffee-roasted dram with a maple chocolate body and a telltale sherry edge in the orange marmalade and sugar finish. It’s a whisky that Kuma responded to immediately: ‘With the 48, I feel as if my body is floating off the ground. It goes beyond liquid. My imagination is flowing through space, and I wanted to represent that kind of feeling in this sculpture.’

This flowing space between objects is reflected in the Rare’s housing, comprising 48 hand-crafted diamond-shaped panels of Scottish oak, Japanese oak and polished metal, each panel signifying a year the whisky waited in its various casks before revealing itself to Paterson. A growing number of distilleries are turning to architects for willing collaborators, and Kuma sees this as a natural step: ‘The whisky business and our business both work with wood, work with earth and work with climate,’ he explains. ‘They look like very different jobs, but our approach is very similar. This collaboration is very architectural – before we started, I didn't think the project was architecture, but after working together, I understood that we’d worked on an architectural project.

‘They have a strong passion for the whisky, and we had a strong passion for achieving the idea. Without passion, quality cannot be achieved.’

That passion can also be seen in the Luminary Collectible Edition, master whisky maker Gregg Glass’ 15-year-old contribution to the Series. Matured in American white oak barrels, the single malt Collectible honours the Japanese art of kintsugi – the repairing of broken ceramics with powdered gold, silver, or platinum – having been finished in virgin ‘kintsugi’ casks made from a combination of Japanese oak, American oak and Scottish oak from the banks of the River Tay. Its case, by Maurizio Mucciola, reflects Kuma’s geometric housing of the Rare.

This is only the start of V&A Dundee’s collaboration with The Dalmore, with a new Series release to come in each of the next two years. This relatively quick turnaround belies the years of maturation and expertise behind both the whisky and the skills of its collaborators. ‘What I learned from Richard [Paterson] is that time is necessary,’ reflects Kuma. ‘We don’t need to hurry. With architecture projects, sometimes the schedule is very tight. After completion, the architecture begins its ageing process. It’s the same as whisky – we should take our time, not rush. That’s the lesson.’

One bottle of the Luminary No.1 Rare with its accompanying sculpture will be available at auction on 16 November 2022 at Sotheby’s London, with bidding now open online. A portion of the proceeds will be donated to V&A Dundee. Approximately 15,000 bottles of the Collectible Edition will be available from a selection of retailers for £250 each.

thedalmore.com, kkaa.co.jp, pim.studio

Built around a cascading valley of rice terraces that reflect the horizon’s endless play of colours, the Kai Yufuin hot spring ryokan by Hoshino Resorts, is one of Kengo Kuma & Associates' latest works. Composed of a public building, a bathhouse, guest rooms and separate villa suites, the project is defined by elements of traditional Japanese architecture and the region's farmhouse vernacular that form the basis of the design. Located on the island of Kyushu in the Ōita Prefecture, famous for its hot springs especially in and around the city of Beppu, the Yufuin valley basin has an abundant resource of mineral-rich water. Both these elements unite in this project to form the identity of Kengo Kuma's newest Japanese hospitality offering. 

The lobby floor – made from a mixture of gravel, soil and lime – invokes tataki, or the traditional dirt floor entrance of an agricultural home; while the spherical shape of the front desk mimics kamado, the traditional farmhouse kitchen stove. Representative of an itama (room with wooden floor), the Travel Library has flooring made of bamboo, as well as lighting fixtures designed by Kuma from washi paper, inspired by the fluttering motions of local butterflies in the fields. Behind the library, the Rice Terrace Deck is a public space that looks out over the rice fields, with wooden flooring and seats composed of aromatic shichitoi (perennial grass) tatami, a material whose production and use are being revitalized in the region. 

The vaporous indoor pool of Kai Yufuin’s bathhouse has dark, subdued colours, with black wood-grain panels plus walls and floors made of black pebbles, allowing the views of the imposing Mount Yufu to remain unadulterated. In the semi-private dining area, the walls are made of washi paper designed with local elements such as straw, rice, bamboo and shichitoi grass, once more evoking the aesthetics of a traditional farmhouse. The modest lighting, hanging over each table and made from wrinkled washi paper and thin bamboo sticks, is another Kuma original. 

One of the most distinctive features of the property is its independent villa suites, bungalows nestled among the rice fields as single-storey farmhouses. Made of wood, the suites have a hipped roof shape – with black cedar planks typical of west Japan – which deviates from traditional Japanese architecture through the thin details of the eaves and the exterior's strong textures. The interior's cedar floors are finished with a technique called uki-zukuri, which allows the pattern of the wood to remain visible, while the veranda, in the back of the living room, opens it up further towards the landscape.

The structures, facing a Sawtooth oak forest, stand on a gentle slope and have their own private bathhouses made from cedar. Nodding to its location in a prefecture that produces the largest amount of giant bamboo timber in Japan, the hotel’s main guest building features rooms that are an expression of local bamboo crafts, and include bamboo headboards and sofas. Another distinct element in these rooms is the lighting, featuring a unique spiral shape made by shichitoi grass craftsman Chika Iwakiri and inspired by traditional firefly baskets, a further design detail directly connecting the property to its environment's rich heritage. 

INFORMATION

kkaa.co.jp

hoshinoresorts.com

Engulfed in greenery, featuring softly rounded, timber structures that peek elegantly among the foliage, the new Hans Christian Andersen’s House is now open in Denmark. Situated in Odense and designed by Japanese architecture master Kengo Kuma, the major cultural destination promises a home for the world of the great children's author to unfold. The new museum combines a take on fairytale architecture, wood design and sustainability, taking visitors on a journey through nature and fantasy.

The project draws inspiration from Andersen’s well-known fairytale The Tinderbox, in which a tree reveals an underground world. Covering some 5,600 sq m, the museum is laid out across various levels – the largest parts of which are underground – and aims to create an ‘enchanting children’s universe’. Kuma's elegant, nature-inspired, sustainable architecture is complemented by lush gardens by landscape architects MASU Planning. The result is a naturalistic, rich environment that is more wild nature than manicured, architectural garden. At the same time, inside, state-of-the-art technologies help imaginations run wild, with installations by exhibition designers Event bringing Andersen’s magical universe to life. 

Kengo Kuma weaves fairytale architecture at Hans Christian Andersen’s House

‘Andersen shows us that our world is deeper and richer than what we notice at first glance as we look around. He offers us a chance to spellbind the world anew. With the new museum, our starting point will be the fairytales that people know – but we will let the fairytales speak in a way that people have not experienced before,' says the museum's Henrik Lübker. 

A 110m-long ramp takes the visitor through the museum, across different halls and experiences linked to Andersen’s stories and life. A round, tall-ceilinged dining hall, and a dedicated education and learning centre for children, complete the experience, through Kuma's confident, yet sensitive architecture. The work celebrates nature and timber, and directs the eye to the green views out through large, wrap-around windows.

‘There are profound messages in Hans Christian Andersen’s writing that reflect the author’s life and his lifetime journey,' Kuma says. 'Andersen’s work projects the duality of the opposite that surrounds us; real and imaginary, nature and manmade, human and animal, light and darkness. Our aim is to reflect this essence of his work in architectural and landscape form.' He continues: 'The idea behind the architectural design resembled Andersen’s method, where a small world suddenly expands to a bigger universe. In this universe, there is no hierarchical order, no frontage and no defined direction. We multiplied this concept and created a museum assembled by a sequence of disjointed experiences.'

INFORMATION

kkaa.co.jp

eventcomm.com

‘My reputation, my notoriety is built on the art of assembling and blending, and this project has been all about assembling and blending the best possible team.’ So says Richard Geoffroy, former Dom Pérignon chef de cave (W*211), now creator of a progressive new sake brand, IWA. The team to which he refers consists of sake master Ryuichiro Masuda, designer Marc Newson, who created the distinctive bottle and glassware, and Japanese architecture master Kengo Kuma, who has designed this Wallpaper* Award-winning IWA sake brewery.

Kuma was Geoffroy’s first choice. They first met in around 2005 when working on another, unrealised, project, so this was a chance to set the record straight. ‘Kengo has been resetting the fundamentals of Japanese architecture,’ explains Geoffroy over a glass or two of IWA 5. ‘He has an undiluted and pure vision; he has put Japanese architecture back on the map. His architecture, like our sake, is rooted in Japan, but it has an international reach.’

The IWA sake brewery vision

But Kuma has been much more than an architect on this project: ‘He has guided me through the maze of Japan,’ explains Geoffroy. ‘Kengo opened my eyes to quintessential Japanness – the culture, aesthetics and philosophy.’ Kuma also helped to source the right sake master. ‘I’d been looking for the ideal partner, but had not been successful,’ says Geoffroy. ‘Kengo immediately suggested Ryuichiro Masuda.’

Kuma explains: ‘This is such an ambitious project and I realised a high-level partner was needed. Masuda-san is my friend and I have great respect for him. He has unique ideas for the future of sake, without compromising on the traditions.’

The location of the kura (brewery) was of prime importance. ‘We visited many options for the site, and finally we found this perfect place, says Kuma. The site of Shiraiwa (hence the company name, Shiraiwa, or ‘white rock’, and the brand’s name, IWA) is located next to the town of Tateyama, near Toyama on the Sea of Japan coast. ‘Masuda’s family brewery is on the ocean side of the old town and our location is totally opposite, in the mountains,’ continues Kuma. With some of the heaviest snowfall in the world, the area has access to pure local water. ‘Richard and I were very excited to find such a place,’ says Kuma.

IWA sake brewery architecture

But what of the actual building and architecture? ‘I was convinced that it should not just be a factory – not a big concrete box with only the function of production,’ says Kuma. ‘We tried to look back to the old-style system, where sake was often made in the house. We wanted this to work more like a home than a factory.’ Referencing the Edo period of domestic architecture in the Toyama region, the building features an extraordinary roof profile.

‘It accommodates and hides many functions,’ says Kuma. ‘Traditionally, this area was renowned for the production of silk, and at the centre of many old houses there would be a large hearth, which would not only heat up the private spaces but also the factory spaces, to dry the silk. This large roof is a symbol of that kind of living and producing.’ In Kuma’s factory/home, workers, executives, production, reception and guests all live and work under this same roof, and gather around the large hearth. ‘Everybody will meet there, talk there, eat there – it’s the heart of the house,’ Kuma explains. ‘I want to bring that type of centre to the contemporary building.’

This is Kuma’s first kura. ‘It’s a very special commission for a Japanese architect,’ he explains. ‘Both the making of sake and the making of architecture require attention to detail and the pursuit of perfection. The combination of tradition, craftsmanship and contemporary technology. I want to show that kind of harmony.’ With Kuma renowned for exporting Japanese culture globally, and Geoffroy taking his vision of French culture to Japan, we have the perfect blend. 

INFORMATION

iwa-sake.jp

kkaa.co.jp

The architectural and optical worlds may not be the most obvious of natural bedfellows, but over time their creative identities have become intertwined. Perhaps the most famous glasses style synonymous with the architectural profession was that sported by Le Corbusier: circular, thickly rimmed and crafted in opaque black acetate. IM Pei also favoured the full moon silhouette, and British architect Peter Cook sports a neon blue circular style of spectacles today. Scroll through websites of leading opticals brands, and you'll likely find a style titled ‘The Architect’.

Materiality, structure, utility: similar themes run between the fields of spatial design and opticals. Now, leading Japanese architect Kengo Kuma has set about firmly uniting the two. Kuma, who is renowned for his organic and holistic approach to construction and has had his architectural cannon drawn out in a new illustrated book by Hiroshi Miyazawa, has teamed up with Portuguese eyewear brand Vava, on a capsule sunglasses collection. Vava itself references the Bauhaus and minimalism as long-term influences, and views its silhouettes in relation to facial architecture: ‘Framed as buildings, our eyewear uses the face as a landscape.'

Kengo Kuma sunglasses are wearable structures

The capsule collection is composed of two 3D-printed styles, crafted using a high-quality polyamide bio-based powder, made from castor oil. The style ‘CL0013’, with a criss-crossing geometric shape, is inspired by traditional Japanese building techniques, which Kuma often alludes to in his designs, incorporating latticed or woven structures, and working in wood and bamboo.

The curving, interlaced framed of the ‘CL0015’ style’s silhouette, meanwhile, nods to weaving as a building form, a microcosmic take on Kuma's architectural aesthetic.

Both frames are available in a range of prismatic colours, including ‘Aqua Haze' and ‘Mellow Yellow'.

Le Corbusier, IM Pei… it's time to induct Kengo Kuma into the architecture-meets-optometry hall of fame. Now eyewear doesn't just allude to the style of architects, it's designed by them too.

INFORMATION

vavaeyewear.com

Fritz Hansen opens the doors to its new Tokyo HQ, including offices for the brand in Asia and a new showroom, taking over a 1991 triangular building designed by Kengo Kuma. Located in the Gaienmae quarter, known as Tokyo’s design district, the building now forms an important new chapter of Fritz Hansen's design legacy. 

Fritz Hansen Tokyo showroom

The Fritz Hansen Tokyo showroom presents an inspiring, full lifestyle offering from the Scandinavian design brand, featuring iconic pieces by masters such as Arne Jacobsen and Poul Kjaerholm, as well as new designs, and projects with creatives such as the colour collaboration with Carla Sozzani from 2020. The space will also play a pivotal role for Fritz Hansen's 150th anniversary in 2022.

The building, Kuma explains, was created with European architecture in mind and was the architect's last project before the economic bubble of the time burst – what followed was a period of deep creative change as he started working with wood and discovered a new approach to design.

To mark the Tokyo HQ opening, Fritz Hansen presents a new film featuring architect Kengo Kuma, discussing Japanese and Scandinavian design and architecture, and his affinity for the work of Jacobsen (among others). ‘I think Jacobsen’s contribution towards 20th century modernism somewhat redefined the realm of architecture itself,’ says Kuma. ‘In most cases, architects tend to consider the role of architecture with the building as the protagonist, and furniture as secondary details. However, Jacobsen reversed this notion, by focusing on small details such as furniture and defining the architecture around this, and I find this to be particularly interesting.’

Kuma also touches upon the new domestic landscape and the changes to Japanese interiors driven by the pandemic, with a particular focus on the awareness of materials – something reflected in the pieces presented by Fritz Hansen throughout the space. When asked about the role of furniture in his work, Kuma explains: ‘I don’t consider myself to be an architect that much. Instead, I think of myself as more of a designer of human lifestyles. This is what inspires me, so I would like to continue working with this approach in mind.’

Watch: Kengo Kuma on Japanese and Scandinavian design

INFORMATION
fritzhansen.com

Massimo De Carlo Pièce Unique may be tiny, but it’s ambitious in concept. Located in the Marais, and breaking with the local tradition of hiding top galleries within enclosed courtyards, this first Parisian space of the influential Italian gallerist is scheduled to open to the public on 9 February. Unusually, it will only present a single art piece at a time.

Pièce Unique is ‘small by choice, in favour of the quality of the programme’, says gallerist Massimo De Carlo. ‘Art is always about ideas, never about scale. My desire was to question the true nature of a gallery, challenge the art system, and give artists a possibility to enhance new conversations between their work and the viewers. Its dynamic environment will give me – and more importantly, the artists – the chance to operate in a radically different way from the usual gallery exhibitions.’

The philosophy is echoed in the space’s understated design by Kengo Kuma, who worked hand-in-hand with London-based studio PiM (Maria-Chiara Piccinelli and Maurizio Mucciola). The renowned Japanese architect – whose latest projects include the Japan National Stadium, which international audiences will hopefully get to discover this summer for the Tokyo Olympic Games – was also willing to strip back and switch scales. ‘Our idea was to introduce as little as possible in terms of design elements, so the focus remains on the exhibited artwork,’ says Kuma, showing a respect for heritage that is characteristic of Japanese culture.

De Carlo was drawn to the architect’s reverent approach. ‘I felt the light and elegant Japanese touch of Kengo Kuma would be perfectly consistent with the nature of the project, for which the small detailing and the choice of materials are so important. The relationship we built was very meaningful,’ says De Carlo from Milan, where he has two large gallery spaces.

With Kuma directing the project remotely from Tokyo, his team carefully removed the plaster covering the space’s Lutetian limestone wall and wooden beams, to reveal the surfaces in their weathered beauty. As a calming counterpoint, the floor remains smooth, covered with beige clay and seamlessly connected to the wall by limestone skirting. The façade is a simple glazed vitrine, ‘to recreate the transparency of the shop window and maximise the visibility of the gallery’s interior from the street’, explains the architect. Above the window hangs a rectangular sign with a black frame, its white surface left intentionally blank.

Although the show can be appreciated from the street, perfect for the era of social distancing, it’s worth stepping inside to visit the office area, located just behind the white plywood wall which serves as a backdrop for the art piece on show. There stands a custom reception desk crafted from rough limestone, a piece that Kuma is particularly proud of. It commands the space like a huge block of nougat, sliced smoothly at the top – as if laser-cut – and then sealed with resin. On the left, a minimal and smartly functional shelf was also specially designed by the architect.

The inaugural show of Massimo De Carlo Pièce Unique comprises a new work titled Clay Baby (m.l.) by Kaari Upson, whose work reveals intimate inner worlds and fits perfectly with the gallery’s vision, says De Carlo. As for future shows, ‘experimentation shall always remain at the core of everything that we do, as the best artists always teach us’, he adds.

Photographed in 1989, the original Galerie Pièce Unique in Saint-Germain-des-Prés, with window concept and design by Cy Twombly

INFORMATION

Massimo De Carlo Pièce Unique opens on 9 February 2021 with Kaari Upson’s Clay Baby (m.l.)
57 Rue de Turenne, Paris 3e; @massimodecarlopieceunique

Architect Kengo Kuma’s proclivity to put the natural world at the heart of his designs made him the natural choice for Japanese watch brand Grand Seiko’s new studio. Characterised by clean lines and a pared-back simplicity, the space is a natural foil for the sharp technicality which forms the cornerstone of a Grand Seiko watch.

The new two-floor wooden space, located in Shizukuishi, sits alongside the existing Morioka Seiko Instruments building and is set to be home to the watchmakers who assemble the mechanical watches. The brand suggests there is the possibility of a greater space for production further down the line as the watch collections grow. An exhibition space where visitors can learn about the defining moments and pieces in Grand Seiko’s history, is also in the works.

With its abundance of natural light, the building stays faithful to Kengo Kuma’s design codes, adhering to his belief that transparency is a key characteristic of Japanese architecture. Appropriately for this new studio he has, in the past, referred to his work as a ‘frame’ for nature, and one that allows nature to be experienced more intimately.

It is a fitting space for Grand Seiko, now marking 60 years, whose Nature of Time brand philosophy looks to nature’s rhythmic cycles as inspiration for their own commitment to accuracy. It is one they have always married with traditional craftsmanship, first evident in the gently elongated classic silhouettes of their first pieces in the 1960s, and still apparent now in the cleanly elegant watch faces of their new collections.

INFORMATION

grand-seiko.com

A doughnut-shaped front desk made from hand-hammered copper; a large textile sign with a white coffee pot on an indigo background; and delicate light clouds hovering in a Japanese-style interlocked kigumi timber ceiling.

The lobby of the new Ace Hotel Kyoto – the first Asia outpost of the original US hipster hotel company – is not only bright and buzzy, spacious and colourful: it’s also a comprehensive showcase of modern Japanese craftsmanship.

The hotel has opened following several months of coronavirus delays in the new Shin-Puh-Kan complex on Kyoto’s Karasuma Street. Masterminded by longtime Ace collaborators Commune Design, plus architects Kengo Kuma & Associates, it’s a bold new addition to Kyoto’s hotel scene, where concepts of luxury have traditionally been equated with a more low-key minimalism.

In contrast, Ace Hotel Kyoto – unusually large, with 213 guestrooms and three restaurants – is a celebratory mesh of Ace’s DNA and Japan’s high quality craftsmanship, showcasing bespoke creations by around 50 artisans.

‘The hotel is a meeting between east and west through a love of the handcrafted,’ explains Roman Alonso, principal of LA-based Commune Design who masterminded the design, via Zoom. He cites Charlotte Perriand, Isamu Noguchi and Ruth Asawa as inspiration. ‘Ace is not a minimal brand. It likes a layered and informed environment. It’s not about being chic, it’s about personality.'

Centre stage is Kuma’s renovation of a 1926 building by modernist master Tetsuro Yoshida – a rare monolith of brickwork, high ceilings and arced windows, formerly home to Kyoto Central Telephone Office. Kuma also added a new building with an angular gridded façade, an abstract modern take on Kyoto’s traditional machiya townhouses, made from oxidized iron mixed with precast concrete panels.

Highlighting hopes of creating a ‘new street culture’ in Kyoto, Kuma explains: ‘I wanted to connect the human vibe of this historical street in Kyoto and the delicate design implemented by Tetsuro Yoshida in the old Kyoto Central Telephone Office, which was the driving force for modern architecture in Japan, with the unique industrial ambiance of Ace Hotel.'

Bright artworks line the lobby walls, beneath timber eaves inspired by Kyoto’s temple architecture, including textiles by Shobu Gakuen, an artist community in southern Japan, and neon goddess-like artwork by Hysteric Glamour creator Nobuhiko Kitamura. A long wooden table, tapping into Ace’s community concept, cuts through the centre, alongside mid-century inspired furniture, upon Edward Fields’ reissues of George Nakashima’s 1960s rugs.

A traditional stencil-dyed textile coffee pot sign by 97-year-old artist Samiro Yunoki – an original member of Japan’s mingei craft movement who also created the hotel’s logo and font – marks the entrance to Portland’s Stumptown Coffee Roastery Coffee Shop.

A chic collection of boutiques (from Maison Kitsune to kimono tailors Y.& Sons) line a courtyard garden, which has oak tambour walls, glaze test tiling by Shigaraki potters and Korean Pojagi-inspired curtains by US artist Adam Pogue.

The guestrooms showcase a similar east-west fusion: curved edges of Judd furniture-inspired benches in the genkan, Osvaldo Borsani’s Sputnik coat hooks and TEAC turntables, to tatami-lined bedside tables, and washi paper ceilings. The 27 guestrooms housed in the historic building are a particular highlight. Here, original high ceilings and wide, arced windows create a loft-style ambiance.

Food is a key draw, across three hotel restaurants. There is cosy Mr. Maurice’s Italian, with menus by Philadelphia chef Marc Vetri. Here, beneath indigo-dyed bamboo ceilings, the space is partitioned with pastel screenprinted canvases of abstract curves and lines and monochrome penny tiled flooring, both by Kori Girard (Alexander’s grandson). The nearby roof terrace has delicate woven copper lanterns, crafted by Kyoto’s Kanaami-Tsuji, in material normally used for Japanese kitchen tools.

It’s all about tacos in Piopiko, a lively party setting with a menu by Wes Avila of LA’s Guerilla Tacos – with curved ocean blue seating, terrazzo tabletops, a bar made of chunks of Californian red wood by artist Ido Yoshimoto (cut with a chainsaw in the late JB Blunk’s workshop), stacked lighting by Nara’s New Light Pottery and a cooper DJ booth.

A third restaurant by Portland chef Naomi Pomeroy – still unnamed and opening later this year – is housed in a double-height tearoom-inspired space, filled with eight-feet cut-out paper lanterns crafted by two brothers at Kyoto’s Kojima Shouten. Diners will be seated among Art Nouveau-inspired wall frescos, by Kyoto karakami paper artist Ko  Kado of Kamisoe alongside the metalwork of artist Junichi Shimizu, while overlooking a rooftop Japanese garden – using rocks found during the site’s excavation – by Shunsaku Miyagi of Placemedia.

INFORMATION

acehotel.com/kyoto/

It is Kengo Kuma’s ‘nth visit’ to the Amanpuri hotel on the island of Phuket in Thailand, which he first visited nearly 30 years ago, and it’s no wonder that the internationally renowned Japanese architect feels content here. On this paradise peninsula, abundant with nature and peacefully dotted with pitch-roofed pavilions, who wouldn't?

Yet perhaps it’s because Kuma and the Aman hotel brand both have some philosophies in common – the fusion of eastern and western cultures, the embrace of nature and simplicity, and a forward-thinking approach combined with traditional values.

Their relationship was further forged when Kengo Kuma and Associates (KKAA) designed a unique range of bottles for Aman’s new skincare range, released in 2019. So when Aman decided to embark on adding a new retail store for the Amanpuri, the first of its kind of the Aman brand, there was sure to be a meeting of minds.

With its peaceful setting and contextually sensitive design, the Amanpuri was the first Aman that set a high precedent for every destination (32 and counting) that then followed from Bali to Utah. Designed by architect Ed Tuttle in 1989, the resort is defined by its nature-immersed village of private pitched roofed pavilions connected by stepped pathways, inspired by the ancient Thai capital of Ayutthaya.

It was a good place to start for this first store, intended as a prototype for more to come, imagined as a curated stage for the best local and international design objects, clothing and jewellery. ‘This is a shop, but the concept of the shop is far beyond a shop,’ says Kuma, who has crafted show-stopping retail environments for Camper in Barcelona and Valextra in Milan. ‘We designed the space as a museum of the Aman resorts, where space has a special conversation with the philosophy behind the art and the product.’

Beautifully framed by KKAA’s columnless design, every piece for the store has been handpicked by Karen Schneider, global head of retail for Aman. From the softest bamboo and cotton mix leisure-wear, to the Kengo Kuma-designed Aman skincare range, and modern pieces informed by traditional craft – such as unique art objects from Lotus Arts de Vivre’s Bangkok gallery, atta grass bags handcrafted in Bali by Stelar and gold-lined bronze works by British-born Alexander Lamont, the offering is diverse and eclectic.

KKAA’s holistic approach imagined how an Amanpuri guest might find their way into the space – being visually welcomed by its soft geometry on arrival to the resort, casually meandering through from the spa, or walking through the entrance pavilion on the way back from breakfast perhaps. ‘The space is about the site and the pathway,’ says Kuma, ‘we just happened to cap it with a series of roofs’.

While the pitched roofs and strong axis of the building echo the traditional Thai architecture that informed Tuttle so strongly, there are some subtle differences to Kuma’s more Japanese approach, explains Balazs Bognar, design director at KKAA. ‘If you go to some of the temples in Bangkok, you can see series of stupas that appear like objects or talismans that you really cannot inhabit. In Japanese examples, it is about entry, sequence and the in-between. Our pavilion is about sequence, spatial flow, continuity.’

Both remarkably sculptural and beautifully precise, the layered roofs of the pavilion dissolve into their lush leafy environment, where the dark tiles absorb the midsummer light. This perceived lightness and simplicity however hides the challenge that came with combining two structural systems, one of cross-laminated timber, and one of steel, with glass partitions.

‘Creating the gaps between the roofs was not easy – structurally it is totally separated, and each roof is independent,’ says Kuma, who owes his success in combining the latest technology with traditional Japanese design principles, to collaborating with engineers from the very start of the design process.

The engineering explored in this pavilion has also been used for the Tokyo New National Stadium project, which uses the same system on a larger scale: ‘We learnt much from this experience to pass to the new building which will be one of the most unique CLT buildings. It is higher, with a bigger void and natural light comes through the gaps between the CLT panels,’ says Kuma.

All of this effort is geared towards helping the architecture diffuse into nature following the principles of Kuma’s 2008 thesis Anti-Object. Here at the Amanpuri pavilion, natural materials are at the forefront, construction is exposed, and a very special lighting effect occurs: ‘The light is filtered, which we call the komorebe effect, translated as ‘dappled light’. In the forest you feel dappled light through the leaves, and here we have tried and create that kind of atmosphere.’

A powerful connection to the earth is created by the sweeping roof composition, which grazes the sloping ground and shades the building with its extended eave. At the same time it also extends up high – the tallest roof is 9 metres, giving the retail space a special presence, like that of a museum, yet still levelling to a similar height to the neighbouring gallery pavilion.

‘Thai architecture and Japanese architecture both have some vocabulary in common,’ says Kuma. ‘Intimacy and human scale are important to both cultures, and sculpting the roof is one solution to creating intimacy. In Japanese architecture, we use the soffit and a small entrance to mediate the exterior and the interior, it’s a kind of Asian wisdom and a solution for [connecting the building to] the environment.’

Capturing both the dignity of a museum and the warmth of a living room, the pavilion might have been designed as a pathway that falls into step with its surroundings, yet it has also been designed as a new extension into the future for the Aman brand. And we have a feeling that this is just the beginning of a very fruitful journey for KKAA and Aman.

INFORMATION

kkaa.co.jp

aman.com/resorts/amanpuri

ADDRESS

Amanpuri
Pansea Beach Cherngtalay
Thalang District
Phuket 83110
Thailand

VIEW GOOGLE MAPS

Ample communal areas for socialising, outdoor space for everyone, and private quarters for rest and contemplation are all conditions that could easily define contemporary co-housing of the highest design quality; yet it was a different type of resident that Japanese architect Kengo Kuma and his team had in mind when they used the same principles on a recent project.

Built for the Casa Wabi Foundation, a non-profit art and community organisation based on Mexico’s Oaxacan Coast, this is a chicken coop like no other.

Working with a grid and lattice-type walls, the architects used the design to distribute structural loads across the building, keeping the aesthetic pure and simple. This modular approach helped define different types of spaces within, including sheltered areas for the general activities of the coop and individual cells for each of its inhabitants. The wood used is solid pine turned dark and patinated using the traditional Japanese yakisugi technique, and the hen house now provides eggs to feed Casa Wabi’s staff and artists in residence.

As originally featured in the December 2019 issue of Wallpaper* (W*249)

INFORMATION

kkaa.co.jp

casawabi.org

Since Frank Gehry’s Guggenheim docked on the Spanish shores of Bilbao 22 years ago, cities across the world have tried to emulate its success, attempting to cash in on the ‘Bilbao effect’. For some, this endeavour didn't yield the desired results: Santiago Calatrava’s City of Arts and Sciences and Opera House almost bankrupted Valencia, while it could be argued that the Centre Pompidou-Metz, France designed by Shigeru Ban and Will Alsop’s The Public in West Bromwich, England have fallen well short of regeneration hopes and dreams.

Still, however, those dreams live on. The Scottish city of Dundee commissioned Kengo Kuma Associates (KKAA) for the V&A Dundee and, despite being snubbed for this year’s Stirling Prize, the museum has enjoyed early success, attracting 500,000 since opening a year ago almost to the day. Indeed it was this project and KKAA’s Nezu Museum in Tokyo which persuaded Turkish businessman Erol Tabanca to approach the Japanese practice for a museum of his own, the Odunpazarı Modern Museum (OMM), in his hometown of Eskişehir, a city located between Istanbul and Ankara.

Of the criticisms thrown at those chasing the Bilbao effect is that buildings are alien to their context, keeping the rest of the ‘to-be regenerated’ city at arm’s length. KKAA has avoided this, eschewing a site in a park outside the city in favour of one in the centre nestled in to a quarter of 18th and 19th century Ottoman-style buildings.

The press pictures here show OMM’s 4,500 sq m worth of massing as a series of large boxes, each bound by interlocking timber beams. You could say it mimics giant jenga set. (Eskişehir, home to three universities, is a student city after all). However, approach from the South, navigating the narrow Depboy Street and the museum sneaks up on you, coming into view at the last minute. The result is a delightful birth into a bright, open, public space that cascades down towards the main road, Ataturk Boulevard.

But why so much wood? Odunpazarı translated into English means ‘wood market’ and that’s what the area was until the early 20th century. KKAA took this cue and ran with it, employing Yellow Pine imported from Siberia to form 11 ‘boxes’ which host nine exhibition spaces.

‘We were also inspired by the [surrounding] wooden cantilevered houses from the Ottoman era,' Yuki Ikeguchi, the partner leading the project KKAA, says. ‘We wanted to balance scales by breaking down [spaces] into smaller aggregations and putting them together and stacking the volumes creates a series of terraces.'

More timber can be found inside too: steps will be used as bleachers, a move, which Ikeguchi ‘brings the plaza inside', allowing for what is essentially the museum’s lobby to host public events.

At the centre of the museum is a light-well, which serves as the building’s structural core. Spanning the museum’s three floors, the space hosts films (with a projection screen) and is ensconced by more Yellow Pine which gently rotate around it. From these rotations the museum’s exhibition spaces are splayed.

‘We were fortunate to be allowed to explore the possibility of arranging exhibition spaces', Ikeguchi remarked. ‘We didn't have many specific requirements for how many rooms and how big each should be… Other museums, like at the V&A, had very fixed ideas as to how exhibition spaces should be. With this one we had the opportunity to really truly explore each one of the spaces in different proportions.'

The largest exhibition ‘box’ hosts a site-specific work by Japanese bamboo artist Tanabe Chikuunsai IV — an intricate, eight-by-six metre installation that appears to travel from the wall and into the floor. OMM’s 87 other artworks however, are mostly from young Turkish artists, the works coming from Tabanca’s collection.

Trained as an architect, Tabanca’s aim is to exhibit his collection outside Istanbul in his own city in a space that is as interesting architecturally as the art inside. So far, all is going to plan.

INFORMATION

kkaa.co.jp

In contrast to Western culture, furniture does not have much of a presence in traditional Japanese architecture and is extremely understated. At a recent exhibition jointly curated by Kengo Kuma and his long-term collaborator Time & Style, held in the manufacturer’s Amsterdam showroom, the architect explains, ‘The transparent nature of traditional Japanese architecture avoids heavy walls and uses slim pillars to support roofs, under which is an open-plan space. Paper-covered sliding windows called shoji act as walls, and even then these are often left open. Similarly, thin sliding doors divide interior spaces.’

Bringing large objects into such spaces would destroy the ambience and also the natural ventilation. From a cultural perspective, the Japanese traditionally sit directly on a tatami (a type of mat used as a flooring material) or on thin cushions called zabuton, and dine on small, low, single-person, tray-like tables called meimeizen. So ‘chair’ and ‘table’ in the conventional Western sense are not necessary to begin with and instead the Japanese opt for sophisticated, minimalist – and small-scale – furniture.

The conversation between Kuma and Time & Style began ten years ago, when the architect was designing the Nezu Museum in Minato City in Tokyo. ‘It surprised me that such a garden still existed in the very centre of the metropolis. So, the point was how to create a museum that would do justice to the lush greenery. My intention was to make the building and its furniture as light as a breeze, where people could feel the nature from the inside,’ recalls Kuma. The resulting NC chair illustrates the simplest form a chair could have – the backrest of the thin, flat seat has a graceful curve and the inside of the four thin legs are chamfered to accentuate the chair’s softness. The structural challenges of such delicate fabric were overcome by the artisans using Japanese traditional joinery techniques that build strength within the material.

The design of the GC Prostho Museum and Research Center in Aichi Prefecture was inspired by cidori, an old Japanese toy made of wooden sticks, and built with 6,000 pieces of cypress wood using joinery skills to create a space encased in three-dimensional wooden open grids. The accompanying stackable wooden GC chair follows the same philosophy of lightweight design with just one crest rail. ‘I want my design to be light and delicate. Such elegant pieces are content to play a supporting role and never attempt to steal the spotlight. The starring roles are performed by our human bodies or by the food or drinks we place on the table. To respect and complement these living entities, furniture should be as understated as possible,’ says Kuma.

The FU sofa is a contemporary manifestation of the traditional zabuton. ‘A conventional sofa is usually made of a box-shaped base covered in fabric. This gives it an unnatural volume compared to zabuton. Since my childhood, I’ve had zabuton cushions that could support the entire body with their softness and I wanted to bring that sensitivity into contemporary furniture,’ he adds. The same thinking is evident in the MA sofa, in the shape of a rolled-up shikibuton (Japanese traditional mattress) that was originally designed for the private villa owned by the Whitestone Gallery, which sits on slope in a forest overlooking Mount Asama in Nagano. ‘If we start to be particular about a zabuton, we need to consider the hardness of the inner cushion and variations in the fabrics for each season. However, I felt that the most important part was the stitching on the edge in the same way as we choose our clothing.’

Kuma’s continuous exploration and reinterpretation of traditional lifestyle, values and craftsmanship pave the way for contemporary Japanese furniture to be appreciated internationally. ‘My objective is to design modern furniture as an extension of the innovations in traditional Japanese furniture that have been honed over the centuries. I believe that people today need furniture of this nature and modern transparent spaces.’

INFORMATION

kkaa.co.jp

ADDRESS

Marnixstraat 148, 1016 TE Amsterdam, Netherlands

VIEW GOOGLE MAPS

Project: Exhibition centre of Strasbourg
Location: Strasbourg
Status: Scheduled completion 2021

Kengo Kuma and Associates (KKA) has won first prize in a competition for a new riverside exhibition halls and park complex in Strasbourg. The architects see the project as a way to create a new image for the city. Named ‘Lisières’ or ‘Edge of the forest’, the halls have primarily a metals structure, complemented with a series of locally-sourced wooden vertical elements, which both support the natural ventilated roof covering and filter the light. The vast roof is divided to reflect the internal functions and bring a human scale to the large building. 

Project: Odunpazari Modern Museum
Location: Eskişehir, Turkey
Status: scheduled completion 2019

Scheduled to open in June 2019, the Odunpazari Modern Museum is KKA’s first project in the country, and will bring a significant collection of modern and contemporary art spanning the 1950s onwards to the university town. Covering 4,500 sq m spread over three levels, the museum will offer an array of exhibition spaces, from open plan areas on the ground floor to smaller rooms on the upper levels. A central skylit atrium will welcome natural light into the building, permeating it throughout.

Project: Odunpazari Modern Museum
Location: Eskişehir, Turkey
Status: scheduled completion 2019

Kengo Kuma and firm partner Yuki Ikeguchi envisioned the museum’s stacked timber design: ‘We wanted the building to carry the history and memory of the town,’ says Ikeguchi, who looked to the local Ottoman wooden cantilevered houses for inspiration. KKA’s material choice also pays homage to the town’s history as one of Turkey’s thriving timber markets. Ikeguchi continues; ‘At the heart of this project was a desire to create a link between people and art.’

Project: Maritime History Museum of Saint-Malo
Location: Saint-Malo, France
Status: ongoing, scheduled completion 2022

Kengo Kuma & Associates won first prize in the international competition to design the Maritime History Museum of Saint-Malo, a museum that will focus on local city history. The architecture of the museum responds to the naval and industrial traditions of Saint-Malo. The three-part stacked structure overlooks the nearby Duguay-Trouin dock and is surrounded by seascape. Writer: Nurit Chinn

Project: Maritime History Museum of Saint-Malo
Location: Saint-Malo, France
Status: ongoing, scheduled completion 2022

Due to complete in 2022, Kengo Kuma’s museum appears as a ship on the side of the horizon. The dynamic elevation of the structure and strong cantilevers give the building an illusion of movement. The museum functions as both a marker, a destination, and a means to connect the historical city with the new districts. Its lightness and transparency almost renders it a part of the environment, as well as a place of attraction. Writer: Nurit Chinn

Project: Maritime History Museum of Saint-Malo
Location: Saint-Malo, France
Status: ongoing, scheduled completion 2022

The interior of the museum features warm, open woodwork, again evoking naval architecture with the use of structural tinder. Integral to Kengo Kuma & Associates’ vision is creating a unique museum experience from the inside of the museum outwards. A panoramic view of the city is visible from within the exhibition spaces – described by the architects as a ‘belvedere museum’. The offsetting three level structure of the museum ensures that viewers will have a different perception of the city from wherever they stand. Writer: Nurit Chinn

Project: Musée Albert Kahn
Location: Paris, France
Status: under construction, scheduled completion 2019

As part of a refurbishment and extension at the Musée Albert Kahn, Kengo Kuma & Associates is adding a new gallery space to the photography-based museum. Albert Khan was particularly interested in Japan and other Asian regions, and so Kuma & Associates has designed a three-storey pavilion that blends the new build with the pre-existing Japanese garden. Writer: Luke Halls

Project: Musée Albert Kahn
Location: Paris, France
Status: under construction, scheduled completion 2019

The paths through the garden linearly interact with the new gallery space, connecting the pieces on show to the surrounding natural landscape. An aluminium-and-wood frame is inserted between the pathways and garden space, subtly controlling the relationship between the two. Writer: Luke Halls

Project: Musée Albert Kahn
Location: Paris, France
Status: under construction, scheduled completion 2019

The building’s street elevation facade is made of aluminium, whereas at the rear it is made from wood. The two materials are interspersed and interwoven gradually across the extension – a seemingly biological skin adapting and interacting with the urban and natural environments across the new site. Writer: Luke Halls

Project: Gare Saint-Denis Pleyel
Location: Paris, France
Status: Ongoing

In 2015, Kengo Kuma & Associates won the competition to design the new Gare Saint-Denis Playel, one of three new stations joining the expanding Paris Metro system. The site is positioned to increase metropolitan flow considerably, opening up the district by acting as a point of connection for the two northern sides of the city. Writer: Luke Halls

Project: Gare Saint-Denis Pleyel
Location: Paris, France
Status: Ongoing

The project consists of 45,000 sq m of space, spread out over nine storeys, four of which are underground. The core station space will be joined by a scattering of new shops, a multimedia library and co-working space, extending the station’s use as a community hub beyond its core functionality. Writer: Luke Halls

Project: Gare Saint-Denis Pleyel
Location: Paris, France
Status: Ongoing

Visualising its new role, the steel frames found throughout the site evoke rail tracks, emphasising the passage of time and history. A new public plaza will accompany the station, embedding it within the urban Parisian backdrop as a new cultural hotspot. Writer: Luke Halls

Strange though it is to compare a face cream to a bunch of buildings, the new skincare line from Aman does it’s best to embody all the sense of place, architecture, nature and wellbeing that the resort chain famously espouses. Aman Formations is launching on the occasion of the resort’s 30th anniversary. Taking no risks on the bottle design they charged Kengo Kuma with shaping containers that would visually make the connection. The resort’s Eastern origins are channelled in the sake bottle silhouettes while stone, representing permanence, and water, representing the flow of time are referenced in the containers’ finish.

‘We wanted to combine a sense of Japanese material tradition with simple modern lines, into a new and timeless combination,’ Kuma explains of the design. ‘The starting point was a conversation between me, Mr. Vladislav Doronin [chairman and CEO of Aman], and our teams. Our aim was to arrive at something elegant and well considered, without anything superfluous. Careful consideration (that is: time well spent) is the hidden aspect of luxury, and we felt that this essence was necessary.’

With Aman's properties the world over, from Bhutan to the Caribbean via Morocco, all ingredients are arguably local. The exotic roll call includes powdered pearl, Palo Santo, cactus oil, algaes, wild-harvested butters and muds from the rainforest, amethyst and jade, copper and silver.

The active aspects of these ingredient gems have been targeted for their ability to restore, transport and transform, the same ambition the various destinations themselves boast. Grounding Amethyst Bath and Shower oil, purifying Active Marine Mask, nourishing Silk Cocoon Face Cream are examples from the three skincare families. They can’t replace a body, heart and soul nourishing trip to Amangiri in the Utah desert, but do go some way to plugging the gap.

A version of this article originally appeared in the July 2018 issue of Wallpaper* (W*251)

INFORMATION

For more information, visit the Aman website

Kengo Kuma cites the craggy coastline cliffs of north eastern Scotland as a key reference for the new V&A Dundee’s striking, angular form – but it wouldn't go amiss to liken the new building to a boat, moored on the River Tay, nearby the city’s old docks. Clad in stone, yet light in appearance, the new museum dedicated to Scottish design seems to have dropped anchor and following three and a half years of construction is now opening its doors to the public this weekend.

This is Scotland’s first dedicated design museum, and it’s also a gesture that has great significance for the beloved London institution – an idea born out of a suggestion by the University of Dundee. ‘We have a responsibility as a national museum to be truly national’, explains V&A director Tristram Hunt. Phillip Long, V&A Dundee’s director, adds: ‘it is a new institution with a new vision. Good design creates opportunity and entrepreneurship, and it can change people’s lives. We want it to be this place of inspiration, discovery and learning.’

Kuma won the completion back in 2010 with his ambitious design for a museum that takes references from its context and fuses them with the Japanese architect’s signature sensibilities and light touch. ‘When I first visited the site, the city and water felt separated by other buildings’, says Kuma. ‘Nature and the city should be integrated so what we tried to achieve was to create a gate.’ His design aims to merge nature and architecture and create a new landmark that celebrates architecture and design in the Scottish city.

The team used the city’s central Union Street as an axis for their design – this way, the building can be seen from the city centre, drawing people towards it. ‘We wanted to bring life back to the waterfront’, says project architect Maurizio Mucciola. A void between volumes helps attract people to the water. A second void in the form of a dramatic central lobby helps visitors orientate themselves and connects different internal areas. It also offers a new public space, ‘a new living room for the city’, as Kuma puts it.

Modern construction technology also played a key role. Its distinctive façade is made of 2,500 cast stone elements hanging off a concrete frame. It was important not to completely conceal the frame, both inside and out, explains Mucciola, so materials were carefully selected. ‘We wanted materials that can withstand the elements externally – but inside we wanted something that is warm and welcoming, an approach not dissimilar to that of traditional Scottish architecture’. So, the interior is clad with natural materials, such as warm timber panels at random angles, which ‘soften’ the space, explains Kuma.

Inside, the Scottish Design Galleries feature some 300 exhibits from various collections, including of course the V&A’s own, celebrating the best and brightest of Scottish design. A key highlight is the magnificent Charles Rennie Mackintosh Oak Room (an interior designed by the great Scot in 1907 for Miss Cranston’s Ingram Street Tearooms), which has been meticulously restored, conserved and reconstructed and is now on display. ‘I am most proud of the restoration. [The room] was lost for generations and now its back into public view, it’s very special’, says Long.

‘I hope the museum can change the city and become its centre of gravity. I am delighted and proud that this is my first building in the UK and that people will visit it from around the world’, says Kuma. V&A Dundee is now gearing up for its big opening to the public this Saturday with an array of weekend festivities that will no doubt launch Scotland’s first design museum with a bang.

INFORMATION

For more information visit the website of Kengo Kuma and Associates

The highly sculptural V&A Museum of Design Dundee is Japanese architect Kengo Kuma’s first UK building – as well as Scotland’s very first dedicated design museum. The new structure is now complete and gearing up to throw open its doors to the public on 15 September. 

North Eastern Scotland’s ragged cliffs inspired the complex’s distinct shapes, which feature exterior cladding of layered horizontal cast-stone panels – there are some 2,500 sheets involved. At the same time, the concrete structure appears light, bearing an abstract resemblance to the prow of a ship, moored on the riverbank; it is no wonder the project was awarded Best Facade at the 2018 Wallpaper* Design Awards. 

Kuma wanted the building to welcome visitors with a strong design gesture. Located on the city’s waterfront, overlooking the River Tay, the new, three-storey high structure will also include a café, restaurant and learning facilities. The museum's programme, which will be freely open to all, will include the best of Scottish design from all periods displayed via permanent and temporary shows, and a variety of education programmes. 

V&A Dundee will welcome the public through its doors for the very first time with a two-day long festival – the last month countdown has now began. Legendary Scottish band Primal Scream will appear in a specially commissioned new collaboration with Turner Prize-winning Scottish artist Jim Lambie. Light, sound and architecture will come together to celebrate the launch of Kuma's striking contribution to Dundee.

INFORMATION

For more information visit the website of Kengo Kuma & Associates

The entrance to ONE@Tokyo is as eye-catching as it is contemporary: more precisely, it’s hidden behind an abstract arrangement of angular wooden planks at the base of a concrete ten-storey tower. Inspired by the concept of an immersive art exhibit, the hotel, in the eastern Oshiage district of Tokyo, is just a few steps from the iconic silhouette of Tokyo SkyTree, the world’s tallest broadcast tower.

The timber display at the entrance is a typical touch by its creator Japanese architect Kengo Kuma who, perhaps unusually, was involved in the design of the entire project, both inside and out. Not only did Kuma design the ground-floor lobby café space with its 15m wooden counter, the plant-filled rooftop terrace and the 142 guestrooms, he was involved in pretty much everything else in between, including the signage, stationary, even uniforms which are clean-lined, collarless Japanese-style black cotton outfits.

There is an industrial atmosphere throughout the hotel, thanks to expanses of natural plywood, diaphanous white curtains, exposed ceilings and large windows, which framing SkyTree views. The rooms – which have free smartphones for use around Tokyo – range from compact studios to more spacious lofts all with a similar aesthetic of wooden walls, angular lighting, square metal sinks and showers.

A highlight, however, are the two tenth floor suites: the Library Suite, with its wall of art and design books plus a large iMac, and the next door Atelier Suite, home to angular dark wood panels, a large table and 100cm TV screen. A tip for bath lovers: the two suites are home to the hotel’s only two bathtubs (deep, white enamel coated cast iron affairs) surrounded by metal and glass walls.

ADDRESS

1 Chome-19-3 Oshiage
Sumida
Tokyo 131-0045

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In the latest video from the Time-Space-Existence series, Kengo Kuma draws us into his world, meditating on the ebb and flow of being an architect, and how a financial crash became an opportunity for learning. Commissioned by the GAA Foundation, and funded by the European Cultural Centre and produced by PLANE–SITE, the film takes us to the Tokyo of offices of Kengo Kuma and Associates to discuss the topics of time, space, and existence as they relate to the Japanese architect’s work.

Here, he discusses the role of humility in architecture, and his desire to bring architecture and nature closer together. ‘To be humble is not so easy for [modern architects]. It is a dilemma of our profession,’ says Kuma in the film. ‘We try to walk slowly – step by step – to achieve that humbleness. Kuma also discusses Japan’s so-called ‘lost decade’ after the 1991  financial crash, which spurred his studio’s move from Tokyo to the Japanese countryside. During these years, he 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.

Born in 1954 in Yokohama, Japan, Kuma studied architecture at the University of Tokyo and, later, Columbia University. In 1987, he founded the Spatial Design Studio before launching Kengo Kuma and Associates in 1990. Projects currently underway for the architect include Scotland’s first design museum and the highly contested 2020 Tokyo Olympic Stadium. The film series will be exhibited in Palazzo Bembo and Palazzo Mora during the Venice Architecture Biennale next year.

See each film in the ‘Time-Space-Existence’ video series first exclusively on Wallpaper.com. ‘Time-Space-Existence’ opens at the Venice Architecture Biennale in May 2018. For more information, visit the Kengo Kuma and Associates website, the GAA Foundation website, the European Cultural Centre website and the PLANE–SITE website

For the third year, Design Miami/ Basel presented the large-scale projects of Design at Large, welcoming visitors to the South Hall of Messe Basel. 

Eschewing a traditional booth, the Design at Large initiative invites gallerists to take part in a curated project that explores different points of view on design. This year, publishing heiress Martina Mondadori took the helm of the project, focusing on the theme of nature and outdoor living, explored via an eclectic mix of structures and installations. 


Mondadori chose the theme of ‘Landscape’, she says, to ‘invite designers and galleries to confront themselves with the outdoors and re-imagine the space within gardens’. Mondadori cites inspirations such as 19th century British follies and Italian garden labyrinths as the starting points for her theme. The reactions from the nine participants were eclectic and diverse, proving that such a remit can excite and inspire creative ideas. 

Installed like a canopy at the very entrance to the fair were Tom Price’s 'PP Trees' (created in collaboration with Victor Hunt gallery), an eerie forest made of polypropylene pile that invites visitors to question attitudes towards plastic and nature. 

Inside the space, Galerie Patrick Seguin participated with the 1956 'School of Villejuif' by Jean Prouvé, a temporary emergency structure for the Parisian suburb which in true Prouvé fashion could be installed and dismantled in a short time. The prefab acted as an anchor in the large venue, with further installations dotted around it in the cavernous hall. These included Kengo Kuma’s 'Owan' pavilion, part of Galerie Philippe Gravier’s 'Small Nomad House Project', an initiative dedicated to the marriage of art and architecture. Nearby, Dimore Studio’s 'Verande' took a completely different approach; presented like an outdoors and indoors space at once, the tent was furnished with Britt Moran and Emiliano Salci’s outdoors collection hidden in a deep forest of palm trees and enlivened by blue curtains and a soft breeze produced by the ceiling fans. 

Nearby, two installations were presented in close conversation with each other: Masatoshi Izumi and Koichi Hara’s 'Stone Tea House Meditative Alcove' and Enea Landscape Architecture’s bamboo composition offered a corner of tranquil serenity. 

On the other side of the show, Dutch designer Kiki van Eijk’s 'Civilised Primitives', developed with Nilufar, was a collection of handcrafted objects in bronze that invited viewers to ponder about survival in the present world. The collection was displayed under a large Bedouin-style tent featuring an abstract watercolor motif by the designer, in collaboration with print specialist Exposize. 

Ron Arad’s 'Armadillo Tea Canopy', presented by Robbie Antonio’s Revolution Pre-Crafted Properties, is an independent shell structure for indoor or outdoor use, a multifunctional piece which can offer shelter as well as serve as a meditation space. The modular canopy is composed of five individual shells fixed together with exposed brackets and fixings, with the possibility of extending it by adding further elements. 

Visitors to the fair took full advantage of Alexandra Kehayoglou’s 'No Longer Creek' installation, created in collaboration with Artsy. The Argentine rug maker reimagined the now transfigured Raggio creek, north of Buenos Aires, and through her work brought back to life its vegetation. People could walk and rest on the large tapestry, immerse themselves in its landscape and interact with the piece – it is in fact a Design at Large tradition that visitors often have the chance to get up close and personal with the structures and installations on show, offering a more intimate experience with design and expanding its boundaries beyond the gallery walls. 

INFORMATION

For more information, visit the Design Miami/Basel website

The Macdonald Warehouse, Paris's extraordinary logistics facility, was designed by Marcel Forest and opened in 1970. The large footprint of this 617-meter-long structure, which equals in size the Island of Saint-Louis, formed for several decades one of the urban 'barriers' that almost cut off an entire sector in North-Eastern Paris. However, today, this warehouse – A.K.A. Entrepôt Macdonald – has evolved into a catalyst for change, as part of the ongoingGrand Urban Renewal Project (GPRU) that aims to improve life quality in Paris's neglected areas. 

Forest saw his design as type of architectural 'aircraft carrier', upon which further buildings could be constructed, yet it's only now that his vision is being fully realised. Rem Koolhaas and Floris Alkemade won an international competition in 2007, proposing a master plan for repurposing the warehouse into a micro-urban complex with private and public housing, offices, schools and retail stores - all this together would account for 15 per cent of the entire development potential of Paris' North-Eastern sector. 

The scheme became crucial for the area's revival. A large development across the road might have never been possible without the redesign of this landmark building. Moreover, the project has helped to put an end to the area's isolation from the rest of the city as it sped up the construction of a new rapid transit station and facilitated the extension of Paris's circular tram line, which now cuts directly through the complex.

The structure's extraordinary length was maintained and topped with a diverse range of buildings designed by fifteen French and international teams including Kengo Kuma, Odile Decq, Christian de Portzamparc, Julien de Smedt and Gigon/Guyer. Floris Alkemade (recently named the Netherlands' Chief Government Architect) explained how the master plan treated the existing design – once considered 'ugly and difficult' – as heritage that should be both respected and enhanced by contemporary elements.

The coordination team, led by Alkemade and Belgian architect Xaveer de Geyter, established a set of design guidelines that helped to balance a sense of coherence with creative freedom. The orderly, boulevard-facing North facade incorporates the concrete latticework of Marcel Forest's design, while the South facade, overlooking the new train station and the future public garden, was meant to be more spontaneous. 

A true city within a city, the Macdonald Warehouse is being completed in phases. People have already moved into many of the residential parts. Kengo Kuma's school and gym, as well as the airy office block designed by François Leclerc and Marc Mimram, and the student residence in the ultra-narrow building by l'AUC – Djamel Klouche are in full operation, while ground-floor stores and restaurants should follow suite in April. The apartment blocks alone will offer a home to 3000 residents, with up to 10,000 users and visitors planned to keep the 'Macdo' alive during working hours.

INFORMATION
For more information on OMA visit the studio’s website

Where Denmark has Lego, Japan has 'tsumiki'. Meaning 'wooden blocks' in Japanese, Tsumiki is also the name of the new project that has just been launched by internationally acclaimed, Tokyo based architect Kengo Kuma, who is behind this new set of playful wooden blocks for children of all ages. 

'I have loved tsumiki my whole life, ever since I was a young boy,' says Kuma. 'And my dream came true, I designed tsumiki myself, the sort which hadn't existed before.' The set is 'not a heavy, masonry kind of wood block, but a light, transparent system just like what you see in traditional Japanese architecture', continues the architect. 

Known for his tireless explorations of timber construction, which have resulted in striking wood crafted works such as the Asakusa Culture and Tourism Center and the Daiwa Computing Research Building, Kuma is passionate about the age-old building material. This new foray into scaled wood construction is sure to bring out the child – and the architect – in everyone. Made of Japanese cedar wood, the elements can be combined and stacked to create small buildings and sculptures.

Created in collaboration with musician Ryuichi Sakamoto and his forest conservation organisation More Trees, this architectural game can be used to create structures of all shapes and sizes - as well as raise awareness about the environmental problems caused by the dangerous deforestation on our planet. 

INFORMATION

For more information on Kengo Kuma visit the website

Photography: Ikunori Yamamoto

Located in the outskirts of Hangzhou, China's alluring green landscape of rolling hills and peaceful lakes, the dark, subtle, angular shapes of the striking new Folk Art Museum building are the latest addition to the China Academy of Arts grounds, courtesy of Japanese architect Kengo Kuma. 

Situated within the renowned school's campus, the project is set to carve meaningful relationships between visitors, displays and their environment. Its low, distinct outline is nestled into the sloped site - formerly a tea field - and resembles a group of gently angled pitched roofs. The arrangement cascades downwards, referencing through its geometry and composition local vernacular and construction techniques. 

Indeed, a sense of place and the site were important to this project; the architect was keen to 'design a museum from which the ground below can be felt', keeping the buildings low - they don't exceed two storeys in height. The cascading roof system allows the building to cleverly mitigate the site's irregularities, at the same time creating the appearance of a 'village', explain the architects. 

Kuma also worked with rich, local materials, such as cedar and reclaimed roof tiles used to cover old homes in the region, drawing even more parallels between his work and the area's traditional architecture. A stainless wire mesh on the facade, both holds the tiles - which vary in size - together and creates a pleasant screen for the building, which filters light and shadow, and controls views. 

The complex's generous museum display areas are complemented by state-of-the-art conference facilities, making the project's total surface reaching almost 5,000 sq m. 

INFORMATION

Photography: Eiichi Kano

Staged in the Tuileries Gardens during FIAC, Kengo Kuma's latest architecture folly 'moves with the wind'; just like its Japanese name, Yure, suggests. Made of hundreds of pieces of wood, all different, the 12-meter tall pavilion rises high, gently responding to the flux of air. 

'The wooden elements symbolically represent a forest: Kengo Kuma drew on the idea of the 'inhabited tree' to compose this structure,' Philippe Gravier, the man who commissioned the piece, explains. A pioneer, Gravier long had in mind to invite architects into the art world. 'I feel some architects have more talent than conceptual artists today: a cross over between art and architecture seemed like the right move,' he adds.

Faced with his gallery's series of small houses - entitled Small Nomad Houses - one can draw parallels with the works of Donald Judd or Sol Lewitt; last year's FIAC pavilion by Fou Sugimoto for Gravier felt, indeed, like a spatial representation of a Sol Lewitt drawing. 

Having in mind to create an exclusive collection of Small Nomad Houses, Gravier sends long hand written letters to some of the world's brightest minds, offering them a carte blanche to design a durable, nomad living structure that can be easily dismantled and doesn't exceed 35 m2 in surface. A structure that is intimate yet remains highly sculptural. As a result, Gravier is working on four different ground-breaking projects with Kengo Kuma this year. No screws, no glue and no bolts were used to create Yure. 

'Architects see the Small Nomad Houses as an opportunity to escape their daily practice, as a project, where they can experiment freely. For collectors, on the other hand, the Small Nomad Houses stand out as unique pieces. They are the very essence of architecture today,' Gravier concludes.

INFORMATION

On view from Oct 15th till Nov 5th inside the Tuileries Gardens, Paris

courtesy Galerie Philippe Gravier 

A big fan of Kengo Kuma, the owner of this pocket-sized yakitori bar in Tokyo’s hip neighbourhood Kichijoji, managed to inspire even the master architect, when he took him to visit Nakadai- a company that specialises in reusing industrial waste. Kuma immediately fell in love with the bundles of bright LAN cables and irregular blobs of melted acrylic that defines the two floors of the bar; on the first floor, cables have been randomly stapled to the walls, used as shades for the light bulbs and even ironed to readymade tables and chairs, while the ground floor is almost pristine in contrast, with a custom-made acrylic counter, tables and chairs and a mural by graphic designer Teruhiko Yumura.

INFORMATION 

Jimmy Cohrssen

ADDRESS

1-1-2 Kichijojihoncho
Musashino-shi
Tokyo
Japan

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The ’smallness’ defining many a contemporary Japanese building might overseas be a much-loved characteristic of the country’s architecture; it is often however the result of necessity and circumstances, rather than choice, for many Japanese architects.

Because of their scale, resources and years of experience, it is perhaps inevitable that large construction firms are often the ones benefiting from the bigger national projects in the country, making larger commissions less common for the small boutique studios. And with few open competitions in the country, the bread-and-butter of the independent architect depends very much on slightly smaller private commissions such as regional municipality work, retail, hospitality, interiors and of course single-family houses (which more often than not, have to be, because of the major cities’ density, small-scale).

See the architecture projects reshaping Japan

At the same time, the aftermath of the Tohoku earthquake and tsunami in 2011 incited a wealth of new proposals from architects eager to contribute to society on a larger scale. Not all efforts have resulted in a large-scale public commission, and many of those who felt obliged to help in the country’s reconstruction have put their efforts back into private commissions.

From the country’s strengthened architectural enthusiasm, a number of new projects have been emerging across Japan, managing to not merely fulfil their brief, but brighten up their immediate environment. A new generation of smaller and medium scale high profile buildings (take for example, Kengo Kuma’s research building for the University of Tokyo) and public spaces (such as the Roof and Mushrooms pavilion in Kyoto by Ryue Nishizawa and Nendo) are being born all around the country.

Here, we present a few examples of the most recent contemporary Japanese architecture.

Absurdity - that's how world-renowned Japanese architect Kengo Kuma describes the determination of Tokyo families to own a patch of land, no matter how small, in the world's most populated city. But it's an absurdity that results in architectural outliers: tiny yet unique family homes.

Kuma's musings appear in French photographer Jérémie Souteyrat's 144-page study of Tokyo's urban landscape, titled Tokyo no Ie (Tokyo Houses). The Japanese master's houses are presented alongside those by Pritzker Prize winners Shigeru Ban and Kazuyo Sejima; small-home champions Atelier Bow-Bow; Sou Fujimoto (Serpentine Gallery Pavilion, London) and many more.

Souteyrat, 35, spent four years in search of these urban treasures 'sown like jewels in the immensity of Tokyo'. Says the photographer: 'I like the diversity of this city. If one has the chance to discover a jewel while walking on the street it's a pretty good surprise, isn't it?'

For cultural reasons few Japanese want to live in an old house, so even the gems in this book will likely be demolished within 40 years. 'As the houses are rebuilt every 25 years on average, there are a lot of opportunities for innovative design.'

For the same reason, Tokyo no Ie might become an ongoing project. 'I'd like to take the same pictures at the same locations in 25 years,' says Souteyrat. One of the Kengo Kuma houses in the book has already been refurbished and repainted. In Tokyo, the jewels sparkle for all too brief a moment - making Tokyo no Ie an important document of a city in constant flux.

David Collins' interiors might have photographed well - extremely well, in fact - but they were always more impressive when you were in them. Of course they had glamour and drama but they also worked beautifully; there was a 360-degree balance and a rhythm no picture can really capture. Still, the new 232-page monograph ABCDCS is a very welcome tribute to the designer's 28-years of creating remarkable spaces.

Published by Assouline, the book is very much a David Collins Studio project and is something, as the studio's communications director David Kendall says, Collins was 'obsessed with'. 'It really developed out of a 56-page book we prepared for a project we were working on in Bangkok in 2009,' explains Kendall. 'We had a letter from the alphabet for each single image. David was really keen that we expand it and self-publish it as a book.'

Kendall gathered Collins' thoughts on an A to Z of design key words, and images of projects were gathered to illustrate them. 'It was great because he was such a good writer. And we worked on it for a couple of years with the designer [and Acne Paper editor] Duncan Campbell and by last summer it was pretty much ready.'

Last summer of course Collins passed away unexpectedly, but his team decided they had to complete the project. 'The thing is, it's not just a portfolio,' says Kendall. 'It's a real insight into his thinking.'

A year after Collins' death, the studio that still carries his name is as busy as ever with Simon Rawlings taking the lead as creative director. 'David always emphasized continuity,' Rawlings says, 'and I have been here for 17 years so I've seen it all.' He continues: 'The studio has the confidence of our current clients and we are bringing in new clients. The house style is not a design style, it's a feeling. It's about details and materials and the use of artisans and making a space work properly. And that's what we continue to deliver.'

See the quartet at the helm of David Collins Studio today, and their forthcoming and recently completed projects

A new Alexander McQueen flagship store in Tokyo has just opened, the first of a wave of summer openings for the studio. A new three-storey Jimmy Choo store opens on London's Bond Street in August, following the opening of a DCS-designed store in Beverly Hills in April. The Continental, the first Rowley Leigh restaurant to open outside of the UK, also debuts in August at the Thomas Heatherwick-designed Pacific Place building in Hong Kong, as does Harrods Shoe Heaven, part of a £200m revamp of the Knightsbridge store. A new bar within the men's department at Bergdorf Goodman is set to open in September.

Longer term projects include The Charles, a new 32-storey residential building on Manhattan's Upper East Side with apartments and public spaces by DCS and set to open in November 2014. The studio is also working on a revamp of the Windsor Hotel in Melbourne; a Kengo Kuma-designed country club and villa complex in Thailand; and Ole Scheeren's mixed-used MahaNakhon building in Bangkok, all scheduled to open or re-open in 2016.

London's Royal Academy of Arts welcomes the New Year with a brand new architectural blockbuster. Sensing Spaces: Architecture Reimagined opens to the public this weekend and promises a feast for the senses, with installations offering not only dramatic visuals by well-known contemporary architects, but also offerings that engage your sense of smell and touch. 

It's an immersive experience. 'The exhibition is about experiencing, and the power and poetics of architecture,' explains the RA Drue Heinz curator of architecture, Kate Goodwin. 'People will respond to each of these installations in different ways and discover different things.'

Seven younger and established international practices coming from different parts of the world were invited to create full-scale installations that take up at least one full room (in some occasions two) of the RA's generous first floor temporary exhibition galleries. Aiming to draw upon the group's varied background, experiences and work, the show does not disappoint. 

Pritzker Award-winning architect Eduardo Souto de Moura's two beautiful door cases are concrete replicas from the RA's own doors, making a comment on the relation between original and copy. Berlin-based African architect Diébédo Francis Kéré created a room within a room made of plastic honeycomb panels, which the visitors are invited to tweak by weaving in little plastic straws. Shelley McNamara and Yvonne Farrell of Irish practice Grafton Architects turn the visitor's gaze upward, by suspending a sculptural ceiling installation into two of the rooms, playing with light and lightness. 

Meanwhile, Japanese architect Kengo Kuma opted for a delicate, aromatic installation out of bamboo sticks that gently glimmers within two darkened halls. And Chinese architect Li Xiaodong designed a fascinating walk over an LED floor and through a timber framed maze of spaces. Álvaro Siza and Pezo von Ellrichshausen also offered beautiful installations.

In contrast to traditional displays, where the visitor is kept at arm's length from the exhibits, touching is a must in this show. The visitors will be encouraged to engage with, walk through and sit in the installations. In fact, not doing it would leave you missing the point. 'This exhibition is about architecture and you should engage with it as you would [in everyday life]', explains Goodwin. 'It is very hard to convey scale without experiencing it.'

France has a long-held fascination with Japanese aesthetics, so it's no surprise Kengo Kuma has become the country's architect du moment. So much so that he opened an office in Paris in 2008 after winning competitions to design two regional centres for contemporary art. Located in Marseille and Besançon, the two FRACs are being inaugurated this spring, only a couple of weeks apart.

In Marseille, Kuma's design revolves around the Mediterranean light and the urban setting of La Joliette, one of the city's poorest, though rapidly developing, neighbourhoods. The structure's footprint is a triangular shape wedged between existing buildings, the neighbours so close you can practically touch their drying laundry. To create the antithesis of museum-as-box, Kuma envisioned the visitors' path like an extension of the sidewalk, wending its way up and around high-ceilinged exhibition halls and assorted other spaces. In the middle of the building, he's gouged out a terrace eight metres in height.

But the most striking feature is the pixellated façade. Crafted from 1,600 panels of rectangular glass hung at different angles and in varying degrees of opacity, it fractures the light and gives the building a sense of weightlessness. As Kuma explains, 'By starting the structure from small particles, it naturally and seamlessly merges into its surroundings, unlike some massive piece coming down suddenly from nowhere.'

If the Marseille FRAC is a response to urbanity, Besançon's new Cité des Arts (including the FRAC and a music and dance conservatory) takes the natural environment as inspiration. The site faces the Doubs river and was formerly a port; Kuma has incorporated one of the original 1930s brick buildings into his design. 

His contribution consists of two long, low structures whose checkerboard façades of wood, aluminium and glass recall a traditional Japanese textile motif. This hilly city offers several bird's-eye views (including from 17th-century fortifications), so the architect treated the 5,600 sq m roof as a fifth façade. In places where the sunlight comes through, the roof is made of glass and aluminium, filtering the light like a forest canopy. Elsewhere, its pattern comes from aluminium panels, solar panels and vegetation, so that it scintillates and takes on the colours of the nearby river.  

Although these projects are finished, Kuma has others underway in what has become his second biggest market after Japan. 'I am always charmed by the variety of cultures and natural environments in France,' he says. Evidently, the French have fallen under his charm, too.

The Royal Academy annual architecture lecture is an event the whole architectural community awaits with much anticipation. With previous names like Rem Koolhaas (1997), Peter Zumthor (2006) and Elizabeth Diller (2007) the lecture has, since its creation in 1991, become one of the capital’s biggest architectural events of the year. The chosen man for this year’s sold-out lecture was the Japanese architect Kengo Kuma, flown in from Tokyo especially.

Click here to see examples of Kuma's architecture.

Taking the audience through a number of his landmark works, from the Lotus House, to the Bamboo Wall, and from the Louis Vuitton Tokyo HQ, to his ongoing work in France, the Tokyo-based architect talked about his favourite projects and materials, underlining his preference for local materials. He also shared some of his secrets – for example, how he manages to create transparency while using stone. And without giving too much away, he spoke about his current ‘top secret’ projects, among them, a new use for bamboo he is working on.

Speaking of his own philosophy Kuma described his love for ‘weak buildings’, his admiration for Bruno Taut’s work and his agreement with Taut’s description of Japanese architecture as ‘architecture of relationships.’ He revealed his belief that the fine details of architecture are not only to be discovered through big, landmark civic buildings. ‘For me small projects are very important,’ he explained, while showing his smaller works, like the Frankfurt inflatable Tea Room: ‘they allow me more time to study everything in much more detail’.

However, most of all, the architect stressed his love for nature, and the physical aspects of building and construction, and also his admiration towards landscape design. ‘I would like to use nature as much as I can,’ concluded Kuma, ‘and I would like to have the chance to keep studying nature too, as much as possible’.

An exhibition of Kengo Kuma’s work, Nature and Architecture, will be on at the Architecture Space at the Royal Academy until 12th August 2008.