Toyoo Itō

Sou Fujimoto

Julian Worrall

Sou Fujimoto belongs to a new generation of young Japanese architects whose work has aroused enormous interest at the international level. After winning numerous prizes in both Japan and the rest of the world, Fujimoto has become a major presence on the Japanese architectural scene. Unlike his contemporaries, Sou Fujimoto has not been trained through working in the office of any of the architects of wide experience and international renown-instead, after graduating from Tokyo University in 1994 he preferred to think about and test his personal ideas on architecture in small projects that have enabled him to develop a tremendously personal and distinctive architectural approach. His projects are the result of a sophisticated conceptual elaboration that subverts established models, one mainly based on two major concerns: what it means to dwell in a space in the 21st century and how that space is materialised without following any formal a priori. Accordingly, innovation in Fujimoto's work does not proceed from a wish to generate disruptive forms, but from understanding the relationships between people and spaces in a different way, from taking complexity on board as an essential ingredient in his thinking and in his work, or from valuing intermediary space and nature. Fujimoto manipulates these ideas, which reveal his preoccupation with the essence of dwelling, and transforms them into a new architecture of great spatial richness. This number of 2G brings together the most emblematic buildings and projects by Sou Fujimoto, outstanding among which are the Children's Centre for Psychiatric Rehabilitation (Hokkaido), the Final Wooden House (Kumamoto), the Primitive Future House 2008 (Basel), the Apartment building (Tokyo), House Before House (Tochigi), House H (Tokyo), and the Library for Musashino Art University, (Tokyo). The two introductions to the monograph, written by Toyo Ito and Julian Worrall, provide us with the basic keys for understanding the richness of the Japanese architect's projects.

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