Tuesday 8 March 2011

Sou Fujimoto


sou fujimoto
http://www.designboom.com/eng/interview/sou_fujimoto.html

was born in hokkaido, japan, on august 4th, 1971.
in 1994 he graduated from the department of architecture
in the faculty of engineering at the university of tokyo.
he established his own architectural practice in tokyo in 2000.
sou fujimoto is a lecturer at kyoto university since 2007.


what books do you have on your bedside table?
one of my favorite books is written by toro takemitsu.
he is a great japanese contemporary music composer and
at the same time he's a very good writer. his words about
music, about the japanese culture, about the world inspire
me.



I assume you notice how women dress.
do you have any preferences?

I like clothes by issey miyake.
that's not limited to women, I like his thinking of how to
create clothing.a while ago there was a magazine I looked
at that had images of women in africa wearing issey
miyake's dresses. it was an amazing photo report.
I was very surprised about how the dresses, colors and
their living style blend so well together.


when you were a child, did you want to become a
architect?

I grew up in hokkaido, in the northern part of japan,
surrounded by nature and I enjoyed just playing in the
forest. I didn't think about any future of mine.
my hero was albert einstein, so originally I wanted to be a
physicist like him, I was interested in the physical aspects of
our world. now I find many similarities in the research and
practice in both fields, architecture and physics. my first
experience with architecture was with antonio gaudi
(through reading a book about him).

describe your style, like a good friend of yours would
describe it.

I call it 'primitive future'.
a sort of primitive situation that relates to the human 'cave'
habitation but at the same time I like to create something
new for the future.
I recently gave a lecture 'cave or nest', the two embryonic
states of architecture.
a 'nest' is a place for people that is very well prepared,
everything is assembled and very functional, meanwhile
the 'cave' is just a raw space, which people need to explore
and find their own comfort within. this is a situation where
people can use space creatively.
I prefer something like the cave-like-unintentional space.
something that is in between nature and artifact - formless
form.

what project has given you the most satisfaction?
there are two low-budget projects that I have just recently
finished.one is named house N which is a very simple box
house. an outdoor space that feels like the indoors and an
indoor space that feels like the outdoors.
I think we were
successful in creating a space between the house and
city. my ideal is architecture too be roofless and garden-like.
the other project is called 'final wooden house'.
we stacked wooden blocks together to create a very small
house, in which there are no categorization of floors, walls,
and ceilings.because floor levels are relative people
reinterpret the spatiality according to where they are. it was
a big challenge for us, as we needed to consider if there
was enough space for people (laughs).

is there any architect from the past, you appreciate a lot?
louis kahn, le corbusier, mies van der rohe...
and of course michelangelo.
I also like the architecture designed by nobody, for example
gothic cathedrals.

I think I we have to be very serious about the change
in climate and the situation of nature. I think that it is a
great opportunity for us to rethink about
the modern age culture of controlling everything.
we have to change that kind of whole super controlling
situation.for example air conditioning - when we use it we
close and shut out nature and we are limited in the space
we have. the artificial machine of the air conditioning is
controlling our space and separating each other.
instead we might be able to live together and use a kind of
natural power to create a more comfortable space.humans
should adapt a bit more, rather than control.

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