In conversation with Seng Kuan, Kazuyo Sejima of SANAA reflects on Shinohara Kazuo’s influence on her and her generation, especially on the formative years of her practice and situated in the Tokyo architecture community in the 1980’s. This is a rare opportunity to hear Sejima speak about this period of her career. A reception to celebrate the opening of the exhibition “Shinohara Kazuo ModernNext” will take place in the Druker Design Gallery immediately following the conversation.
石上純也に「東京」について聞いている、2020年1月に収録されたインタビュー動画「Junya Ishigami On Tokyo」です。制作はルイジアナ美術館。日本語で答えています。
In this short video, the award-winning Japanese architect Junya Ishigami talks warmly of Tokyo – a diverse and intense city, which “continues endlessly.”
Ishigami loves the fact that Tokyo doesn’t have just one centre but is a city created from a lot of different small towns: “Depending on where you go, you will have completely different experiences.” This diversity, he continues, also applies to the people who inhabit the many “different village-like towns, which together creates a big city.” This, combined with the placement of shops at all levels of the city, gives you the feeling of not knowing where the city starts and stops: “Because of this Tokyo can continue to grow bigger. However, it can also stay very local and small and retain this kind of characteristic.” Though most of the old buildings in Tokyo were demolished during World War II and the big earthquake, a lot of the original structure still exists, he says, adding that it is a shame that many of the new big development programmes seem to be changing this trait.