"A kind of effect I want to achieve in my architecture is a rainbow."
Interview between Vladimir Belogolovsky and Kengo Kuma
January 15, 2025
Content:
00:00 Highlight clips
02:25 Saying hello
04:25 On growing up at a traditional 1920s wooden house built by Kuma's grandfather
05:30 On Kuma's father
07:24 On visiting new modernist buildings in the 1960s with his father
08:15 On Kenzo Tange's Yoyogi National Gymnasium
10:05 "I did not like the Metabolism Movement."
11:00 Dreams about Africa
11:45 On Professor Hiroshi Hara, who organized trips to traditional villages
13:05 On lessons from traditional villages in Africa
15:00 On learning from local crafters following the bubble economy burst
17:25 It was the beginning of the relationship with Yusuhara, a 1,100-year-old town.
17:48 The Mayor said, "I don't understand design; my only request is to use local wood."
18:42 "[Yusuhara] became the beginning of my second life."
19:25 "[My] university was very abstract and logical; the countryside was direct and specific."
20:00 "Why do I want to particlize materials and reduce them to tiny pieces?"
20:47 What kind of architecture do you want to achieve?
21:44 "I want to create a nest for us."
22:11 "Materials for building a nest are sort of friends for the inhabitants."
23:47 "A weak environment is necessary for making our body comfortable."
26:15 "I realized that my own house could be the model for the future."
26:48 On breaking architecture into particles.
28:37 Working with crafters, I found the method for creating small gaps between particles
29:10 On starting a project and initial design steps
29:52 "The nest and the place should be one thing."
30:10 "Finding something from the place should be the beginning of design."
30:14 "No shadow means no spirit."
30:38 How do you establish a relationship between buildings and their shadows?
31:08 "The roof is the beginning of every nest."
31:40 "The wall gives protection, while the roof gives freedom."
32:20 "Shadows bring peacefulness."
32:35 On inspirations: a forest, topography, rain, rainbow, and birds' nests.
34:02 "I want to create a condition that is as vague and ambiguous as drifting particles."
35:38 "A sculpture comes from an ego; an effect comes from a relationship between things."
36:08 On selecting and designing particles, their sizes, spaces in between, and relationships.
37:53 "I am never satisfied with a result."
38:13 "I never want to repeat anything. The next step is more important."
38:20 On comparing architecture to literature and its need to create another world.
41:05 On Great (Bamboo) Wall and Nakagawa-machi Bato Hiroshige Museum of Art.
42:30 On Hiroshige's idea of breaking nature into layers in his paintings.
43:07 "I try to apply the layering method to my architectural design."
44:05 On the use of wood.
44:22 "Wood is alive, while concrete is dead. I want to use living material, not dead one."
45:15 On Alison and Peter Smithson and their Economist Building in London.
48:00 On the use of stone.
51:28 On comparing the right size building parts and spaces in between to Japanese food.
52:00 "Material is not a finish but substance."
54:02 On Japan National Stadium in Tokyo
54:40 On abandoning hierarchy and the freedom in the flatness.
55:14 On Satoko Shinohara, Kuma's wife, architect, and educator.
56:02 On teaching by creating pavilions with students.
57:02 On the goal for building pavilions — "The process itself is the goal."
57:25 On collaborating with photographer Erieta Attali.
58:02 "She wants to print the atmosphere itself on paper."
59:01 "I stand at the beginning of a long process of material exploration."
59:17 "In the 20th century, architects ignored natural materials."
1:00:31 On the use of carbon fiber.
1:01:05 End