Customer Reviews

Kengo Kuma: Selected Works

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The book is structured in three parts. It starts with Kengo Kuma's 4 pages of introductory writing, then, Botond Bognar's writing on Kuma, and finally, series of images that captures the essence of each project. Here is an architect whose ultimate goal of design is to erase so that a building would become one with its surroundings.

It sounds almost suicidal and dumb for an architect to say it, but Kuma writes ",,,stone is not my favorite material,,, for the same reason,,,I do not like concrete..." The solidity of the two materials are heavy and suffocating for him. By actively throwing away two of the most favored materials, Kuma has opened a new dimension for glass/wood/paper.

His keyword for the use of these materials is "Particlization." Repetition of slats/ sliding panels/ shoji screens/ bamboos are some of recurring elements of his architecture. Many Japanese architects past and present have used these tradition-referenced elements, yet rarely has one achieved the level of perfection and sophistication that Kuma has achieved. His architecture talks about the mystery of dense filtering.

Wood, is light, yet when repeated by Kuma, it becomes dense and heavy. Wood also decays, yet when used in Kuma's fashion, it expresses duration and sublimity (ex, Museum of Ando Hiroshige). Seeing the plans of Kuma's architecture, one would easily be in a state of deja vu. Katsura Palace's bipolarization of garden and building is strikingly miniaturized in his plans (ex, River/Filter, Water/Glass). Element of garden (sometimes reflecting pool) dissolves his architecture into bigger surroundings.

This book helped me see two things. One, Kengo Kuma's obsession with the idea of "erasing"; and the other, a possible connection to the traditions of Japanese architecture in the contemporary practice. Lastly, Bognar's essay helps us to locate Kuma in the context of other Japanese architects and also help us to analyze material/spatial/tradition-related issues of Kuma architecture.

Kuma always seek to experiment w/ new materails, and the subsequent construction and detailing in his projects are quite unusual and interesting. The formulation of new material and its tectonic, unlike that of Herzog & de Meuron, has systematically addressed the issues of 'Transparency' and 'Dematerialization', in a clearly Japanese fashion, and I can't help but recall Mies's (unfinished) pursuit of same concept, although the latter eventually became reconciled by resolution of structural system, which is almost philosophical, a polar opposite to the 'phenomenal' Barcelona Pavilion project.

Anyway, enough of arch history sentiment . I'm kinda disppointed in the editing of this book. Instead of focusing on the best ones, this book assigns about same numbers of pages to every work, including the mundane, mediocre one. [...].

Yes, he is. I got some major cred with my nerdy architect boyfriend when I brought home this bad boy. Kuma is just starting to get his name mentioned in design mags and books. I hope he becomes more famous than his compatriot and fellow bamboo-builder Shigeru Ban (although his philosophy is a bit different). Good to keep on hand for design or art inspiration.

A great design resource for the price: large high quality photos, nicely keyed plan/section/elevation for every project, great graphic layout. To be honest, I haven't read a word of the text, but the photos and drawings are worth the purchase price. Of course Kuma's work is excellent - if you like 'screens' this is the book for you..

Kengo Kuma can reflected the nature by using architecture spaces and elements. And also combined architecture with context very well. Kengo Kuma's Details came out the idea of nature. In my opinion his selected work most of that tell us how to bring and combine the nature with architecture very well.