Ochoalcubo: Japan + Chile
In Chile, a very special project is being developed.
Eduardo Godoy, a design impresario who started his business in Chile in the 80′s, has always been an advocate for design and architecture in the country. In Chile, more than 40 schools of architecture have flooded the market, but the ever growing number of professionals has had a relatively small impact on Chilean cities. Seeing the almost infinite landscape of cookie cutter housing in the suburbs, Godoy asked himself: why not break this model into smaller pieces, each designed by a particular architect, each an opportunity for a young professional? With this in mind, and to foster the appreciation for architects, Eduardo and his team at Interdesign started a project called “Ochoalcubo” (Eight-Cubed). His original idea was to make 8 projects, with 8 buildings designed each by 8 architects, to create developments where the singularity of each piece was key, in order to demonstrate how the individuality of the architect could result in good architecture.
Video: Thom Mayne Talks With Toyo Ito
At 71, the 2013 Pritzker Prize winner Toyo Ito is not content with settling down just yet, at least not architecturally-speaking. Where many architects have established distinct styles, Ito is known for constantly shifting, experimenting, questioning and developing his approach to architecture. As one member of the Prtizker jury put it “he has been working on one project all along – to push the boundaries of architecture. And to achieve that goal, he is not afraid of letting go what he has accomplished before.”
In this video entitled Learning from Laureates - which comes courtesy of the good folks at ARCHITECT magazine - fellow experimentalist and Pritzker Prize recipient (not to mention 2013 AIA Gold Medalist) Thom Mayne gets to grips with Ito’s motivation. The pair of laureates converse via Skype examining the drive behind Ito’s evolutionary approach, before getting down to discussing how they think architecture is being affected by society’s biggest change yet – the advent of the post-digital age.
See more of Ito’s work along with some of our previous coverage after the break…
Milan Design Week 2013: Akihisa Hirata Designs ‘Amazing Flow’ for Lexus
Under the guidance of Toyo Ito, Japanese architect Akihisa Hirata envisioned an futuristic, experienced-based installation which sought to express “manifestations of flow as they relate to people and nature” to the spectators of the 2013 Milan Design Week. Titled “Amazing Flow”, the installation offered a “vision of the city of tomorrow” with a multi-sensory experience that embodied the “Lexus’ world vision” and a glimpse into how cars flow throughout built environment The display consisted of a continuous, wooden structure that represented a moment in which “roads, humans, wind and water flow as a single entity.”
Compare the installation to the Lexus “Create Amazing” promotional video for the 2014 LF-LC Concept car and watch an interview with Hirata after the break…
AD Classics: Odate Dome / Toyo Ito
The Odate Dome in the Akita Prefecture of Japan was completed by Toyo Ito in June 1997. The project is another example of the architect’s impressive canon, making use of cutting edge technology and bringing architecture closer to people. Seemingly floating a few meters above the ground, the dome leaves space for the people to flow in comfortably, while the use of wood is itself a way of bringing nature into architecture while adopting the latest technological advancements.
AD Classics: Yatsushiro Municipal Museum / Toyo Ito
The city of Yatsushiro is known in Japan as a home for exemplary architecture – the legacy at least in part of Artpolis, a plan by the government of the Kumamoto Prefecture to seek out a range of talented architects to design cultural buildings in the cities of the region. Though the Artpolis scheme has been running for the past 22 years, perhaps its most successful building was completed back in 1991, with the construction of Toyo Ito‘s Yatsushiro Municipal Museum.
AD Classics: White U / Toyo Ito
Toyo Ito was commissioned for this building by his older sister after her husband sadly lost his battle with cancer in the 1970s. Having lived for a number of years in a high-rise apartment, she and her two young daughters wished to move to a site which had more connection to the ground; as luck would have it, the site next to Ito’s own house was being sold at the time.
2013 Pritzker Prize: Toyo Ito
“Although Mr. Ito has built a great number of buildings in his career, in my view, he has been working on one project all along, — to push the boundaries of architecture. And to achieve that goal, he is not afraid of letting go what he has accomplished before.” — Yung Ho Chang, Member of the Pritzker Jury for 2013
Toyo Ito has been announced as the Pritzker laureate for 2013. Ito is the thirty-seventh recipient of the Pritzker Prize and its sixth Japanese recipient.
The Pritzker jury applauded Ito for his ability to synthesize many architectural languages and functionalities in the expression of one personal “syntax,” inspired by the organic structures found in nature and the sensual nature of the human user.
Calling him a “creator of timeless buildings,” the Pritzker Jury further praised Ito for “infusing his designs with a spiritual dimension and for the poetics that transcend all his works.” Among those works, the Jury singled out his Sendai Mediatheque, whose innovative use of structural tubes “permitted new interior spatial qualities,” TOD’S Omotesando building in Tokyo, “where the building skin also serves as structure,” and Tokyo’s Tama Art University Library as particularly inspiring.
In response to the accolade, the highest award in the profession of architecture, Ito humbly expressed that, with each project, he only becomes more “painfully aware of [his] inadequacy, and it turns into energy to challenge the next project.” For that reason, Ito professed, “I will never fix my architectural style and never be satisfied with my works.”
Read more of the Jury’s selection of Toyo Ito as the 2013 Pritzker Laureate, after the break…
AD Classics: Silver Hut / Toyo Ito
Known for his conceptual designs, Japanese architect Toyo Ito is arguably one of the world’s most innovative architects. He began his architectural career with a project for his sister in 1976 called “The U House,” located in the center of Tokyo. The U House contained windows on the inside facing a courtyard instead of the typical outward-facing windows. This was Ito’s first experimentation with the ways that light enters buildings, and he expanded this idea to an even greater extent in his next project: the Silver Hut in Nakano, Tokyo.
Read about the Silver Hut after the break.
Video: A documentary on Toyo Ito’s Sendai Mediatheque
One of Toyo Ito’s most iconic building is undoubtedly the Sendai Mediatheque. The latest Pritzker laureate completed the building in 2001, a cultural media center allowing complete visibility and transparency to the surrounding community.
French director Richard Copans made this documentary on the Sendai Mediatheque that you can’t miss. You can watch part II and III after the break. And don’t forget to check our complete coverage on the 2013 Pritzker Prize winner.
Serpentine Gallery Pavilion 2002 / Toyo Ito + Cecil Balmond + Arup
Architects: Toyo Ito, Cecil Balmond, Arup
Location: Kensington Gardens, London, UK
Area: 309.76 sqm
Year: 2002
Photographs: Sylvain Deleu
Toyo Ito, recipient of the Pritzker Prize 2013, along with Cecil Balmond and Arup were in charge of the design of the Serpentine Gallery Pavilion back in 2002. What appeared to be an extremely complex random pattern was in fact derived from an algorithm of a cube that expanded as it rotated. The intersecting lines formed different triangles and trapezoids, whose transparency and translucency gave a sense of infinitely repeated motion.
You can see more images of the Serpentine Gallery Pavilion 2002 after the break. And don’t forget to check ArchDaily’s exclusive coverage of the 2013 Pritzker Prize.
AD Classics: Tower of Winds / Toyo Ito
The Tower of Winds is a project largely indicative of Toyo Ito’s approach to architecture, particularly his belief in the importance of technology and its vital role in the future of architecture. The project not only embraces technology and involves it in a dialogue with the city, but also establishes a direct symbolic relationship between nature and the installation.
Photography: Toyo Ito by Iwan Baan
“Whoever reviews Ito’s works notices not only a variety of functional programs, but also a spectrum of architectural languages.” — From the 2013 Pritzker Jury’s Citation
Toyo Ito has just been announced the winner of the 2013 Pritzker Prize. To commemorate this master architect, we’ve reached out to Iwan Baan, architecture’s premier photographer, and assembled a retrospective of some of Ito’s greatest works (all photographed, of course, by Baan) – including the Za Koenji Public Theatre, Toyo Ito’s Museum of Architecture, Silver Hut – TIMA, Ken Iwata Mother and Child Museum, Yaoko Kawagoe Museum, Suites Avenue Hotel, Huge Wineglass Project, Mikimoto 2, Tama Art University Library & White O. See them all, after the break…
The Life and Work of Toyo Ito, 2013 Pritzker Laureate
Until his third year of high school, Toyo Ito’s passion was not architecture, but baseball.
Fortunately for us all (and almost assuredly for the Pritzker laureate himself), he soon switched career paths.
Born in Seoul in 1941, Ito moved to Japan at the tender age of two. From the age of 12 (when his father died) to the time he went to University, Ito was part of the family business: making miso (bean paste). However, upon attending The University of Tokyo from 1965-1969, architecture became his life work.
Read more on the life and work of Toyo Ito, the 2013 Pritzker Laureate, after the break…
White O / Toyo Ito
Architect: Toyo Ito & Associates, Architects
Location: Marbella, Chile
Local Architect: Christian de Groote
Project Area: 370 sqm
Project year: 2009
Photographs: Nicolas Saieh
Flashback: Sendai Mediatheque / Toyo Ito
With the intentions of designing a transparent cultural media center that is supported by a unique system to allow complete visibility and transparency to the surrounding community, the Sendai Mediatheque by Toyo Ito is revolutionary in it’s engineering and aesthetic.
Six steel-ribbed slabs slabs, each 15-3/4″ thick, appear to float from the street, supported by only thirteen vertical steel lattice columns that stretch from ground plane to the roof. This striking visual quality that is one of the most identifiable characteristics of the project is comprable to large trees in a forest, and function as light shafts as well as storage for all of the utilities, networks and systems.
More on the Sendai Mediatheque by Toyo Ito after the break.
Za Koenji Public Theatre / Toyo Ito by Iwan Baan
Once more, Iwan Baan shared with the Za Koenji Public Theatre by Toyo Ito in Tokyo, Japan. An impressive black volume in the middle of the city of Suginami in Tokyo and managed by Creative Theatre Network (CTN), a non-profit organization led by president Ren Saito.
You can see the complete photoset on Iwan’s website.
Porta Fira Towers / Toyo Ito AA + Fermín Vázquez (b720 Arquitectos)
Architects: Toyo Ito (ITO AA) + Fermín Vázquez (b720 Arquitectos)
Location: Plaza Europa 45-47 (Hotel) 41-43 (Oficinas), 08902 L’Hospitalet de Llobregat, Barcelona, Spain
Total Area: 80.108 sqm (56.014sqm s/r + 24.093sqm b/r)
Hotel: 34.688sqm (23.395sqm s/r + 11.293sqm b/r)
Offices: 45.420sqm (32.619sqm s/r + 12.800sqm b/r)
Proyect date: 2004-2006
Hotel: April 2006 – Jan 2010
Offices: April 2006 – May 2009
Photos: Nils Becker, Toyo Ito AA
Taiwan Solar Powered Stadium / Toyo Ito
Construction is finished for Japanese architect Toyo Ito’s Solar Powered Stadium in Taiwan. The stadium’s roof is covered by 8,844 solar panels. The stadium is located in Kaohsiung, Taiwan and it was built to coincide with the opening of the World Games, to be held this July.
The “World Games Stadium” holds 55,000 spectators and it cost $150 million to build. The stadium will hold the record for largest solar-powered stadium in the world with it’s 14,155m2 roof. It could potentially generate 1.14 gigawatt hours of electricity every year, enough to power up to 80% of the sorrounding neighbourhood.
Seen at deputydog. More images, after the break.
House Vision 2013 Exhibition Hits Tokyo
Graphic designer and curator Kenya Hara has put together a three week-long exhibition in Tokyo focusing on the future of the Japanese house. Hara argues that the housing industry can no longer be isolated but must be combined with other industries, technologies and ideas, including energy, transportation, communication, household appliances, the “vision of happiness” pursued by adults, the representation of Japanese traditions and aesthetics as well as a future vision of health. All of these elements he hopes to present and discuss at the House Vision Exhibition where more than ten types of futuristic houses are on display and daily seminars with expert urban planners, developers, contractors, architects, telecom and even gas organizations have been taking place.
Read more about the exhibition after the break.
