ARCHITECTURE:Junya Ishigami-Freeing Architecture
Junya Ishigami is aJapanese architect born in kanagawa prefecture in 1974. from 2000 to 2004, Ishigami worked with Kazuyo Sejima at SANAA, before establishing his own firm. An important and singular figure of Japan’s young architecture scene, Ishigami drew the architecture world’s attention with his concept for the 2008 Venice Architecture Biennale Japanese Pavilion; he notably won the 2010 Venice Architecture Biennale’s Golden Lion for best project.
By Dimitris Lempesis
Photo: Fondation Cartier pour l’art contemporain Archive
Junya Ishigami in his solo exhibition “Freeing Architecture” conceived specifically for the Fondation Cartier pour l’art contemporain, presents 20 of his architectural projects in Asia and in Europe. The projects are presented through a series of large-scale models, accompanied by films and drawings, which document their different stages of conception and construction. Ishigami readily finds context for his architectural projects in the natural world: landscapes, clouds and forests, removing the boundary between the external environment and interior space. Trained at Tokyo University of the Arts, he gained experience as an architect at SANAA before founding his own firm junya.ishigami+associates in 2004. Seemingly free of the rules and constraints of architecture, his work was quickly recognized for its singularity and honored with numerous awards. Among his large-scale projects are the construction of the Kanagawa Institute of Technology Workshop in Japan in 2008, the renovation of the Moscow Polytechnic Museum and its transformation into a museum park since 2010 and the design of the House of Peace in Copenhagen in 2014. In “Freeing Architecture”, Ishigami elaborates upon his most recent research into function, form, scale and the environment in architecture, revealing his vision for the future of the field. Through over 40 models, as well as numerous films and drawings, the exhibition presents 20 projects from their genesis to the complex process of their realization. Far from being tools prior to construction, the models assembled in the exhibition were made specifically for the occasion. As viewers contemplate these hand-crafted works, assembled in the architect’s studio over the course of one year, one can see the many steps and the painstaking work that led to the development of their final form. Ishigami considers the surrounding environment as an integral part of each and every architectural project. He incorporates the landscape in his work, always magnifying it, even transforming it, as with a newly constructed lake in Rizhao, China, designed as the site for a one-kilometer long promenade building in Rizhao, China, and a forest project in Tochigi, Japan, with more than three hundred trees moved from their existing site and replanted on a neighboring plot of land. The exhibition demonstrates Ishigami’s capacity to think of his practice outside the limits of know-how and architectural thought. It takes the public on a journey into the artist’s imagination, revealing a multitude of poetic, sensitive worlds. The exhibition creates a new landscape in each room so that the visitor travels along a winding path, discovering new perspectives.
Info: Fondation Cartier pour l’art contemporain, 261 Boulevard Raspail, Paris, Duration: 30/3-10/6/18, Days & Hours: Tue-Wed & Fri-sun 11:00-20:00, Thu 11:00-22:00, www.fondationcartier.com
