Kengo Kuma: Nature and Architecture

Until 12 August 2008

In the Architecture Space

Kengo Kuma, Chokkura Plaza Photo: Daici Ano

Kengo Kuma, the celebrated Japanese architect who is the Royal Academy’s Annual Architecture Lecturer for 2008, has selected seven buildings for his display ‘Nature and Architecture’.

In recent years he has designed a number of projects in Europe, including the Sake No Hana restaurant in London. Most of his work however remains in Asia and this is reflected in the selected projects: six from Japan and one from China. Covering the period from 1995, when the Water/Glass House first won him international acclaim, to the Suntory Museum of Art of 2007, they introduce several recurring themes that hinge around the creative reinterpretation of traditional materials and crafts to forge a new connection between nature and artifice.

With their exquisite control of surface, which can be transparent, opaque, reflective, sliced or solid, his buildings offer different ways of appreciating their site and through that appreciation to engage in contemplation of ideas or objects within them.

Listen to a recording of Kengo Kuma's Annual Architecture Lecture

Click here to read an interview with Kengo Kuma

• Royal Academy of Arts