When it comes to materials, Japanese maverick of modernism Sou Fujimoto is probably best known for his use of snow-white steel members — impossibly slender beams and columns that lock together to form architecture that barely exists at all. His firm frequently veers into hyper-minimalism, framing space with skeletal structures that suggest a possibility of inhabitation in the most ethereal manner possible.
House NA, Tokyo
This style has been applied to great, provocative effect in both private commissions — as in the outlandish House NA in Tokyo — and public works, illustrated by the veritable explosion of structural elements forming 2013’s Serpentine Gallery Pavilion. However, this firm is by no means a one-trick pony: Fujimoto has a penchant for a hugely varied palette of materials and façade treatments, and three new projects provide compelling examples of his firm’s willingness to experiment.
From Asia to Europe and back again, take a virtual tour through some of the most diverse projects emerging from Fujimoto’s studio, as we look at how the Japanese firm is harnessing the properties of a plethora of different materials to produce some truly striking contemporary architecture.
Naoshima Pavilion (Kagawa, Japan): Stainless Steel Mesh
Recently completed on a harbor front in the Kagawa prefecture of Shikoku, Japan, Fujimoto’s temporary pavilion has been designed as part of the Setouchi International Art Festival, held every three years on 12 islands of the Seto Inland Sea. The pavilion is named after the nearby Naoshima Island, a mecca of contemporary art and architecture that is home to numerous minimalist masterpieces by Fujimoto’s prestigious countryman, Tadao Ando.
The inhabitable 23-foot-tall sculpture sits on the concrete promenade like a crystalized cloud, its triangulated panels forming a semi-transparent globule of low-poly art. Its permeability contrasts with the solidity of the surrounding hills and offers people two visual experiences: One from the outside, viewing the iceberg-like structure within its context, and secondly, from within, presenting the surrounding environment through a veil of bright white mesh.
In case you were in any doubt about this project’s ambient qualities, French architect and filmmaker Vincent Hecht produced this supremely serene short movie of the folly, capturing the air of understated sophistication that runs through the heart of this region’s mesmerizing array of modern architecture.
Ecole Polytechnic (Paris, France): Glass and Steel
Designed in collaboration with Manal Rachdi OXO Architects and Nicolas Laisné Associates, this huge new learning center in the French capital amalgamates six different educational and research institutions within a single crystalline structure. The layout of the complex reflects the recent changes in approach to the design of contemporary institutions for higher education, with a focus on providing communal space to encourage informal gatherings and the subsequent sharing of knowledge across academic disciplines.
The atrium-led plan attempts to do away with the corridors that often break up large educational institutions, incorporating interconnected spaces akin to the Cooper Union campus by Morphosis. Fujimoto proposes broad stairs that double as incidental seating — similar to those in his multifunctional Dalarna Media Library in Seden — and multiple bridges are designed to connect open-plan spaces for studying, meeting, and relaxing.
While the project marks a departure from Fujimoto’s portfolio in many respects, the visualizations contain certain familiar characteristics: The light and airy atmosphere is reminiscent of much of the Japanese architect’s work, as is the proliferation of greenery, with numerous trees dotted throughout the atrium and spilling out into a linear park. Once built, the 108,000-square-foot complex will be utilized by 150 staff and 2,000 students — the building is set for completion at the end of 2018.
Mirrored Gardens (Guangzhou, China): Brick, Stone, and Render
Situated in the village of Panyu, on the rural outskirts of China’s third-largest city, Mirrored Gardens combines two programmatic typologies that are rarely associated with one another: art and agriculture.
The brief called for an experimental space for contemporary gallery Vitamin Creative Space, stemming from questions posed by the co-founder of the complex, art critic and writer Hu Fang: “Can art hold the possibility of becoming a kind of collaborated labor with our other essential aspects of life? Can it become a system that can always regenerate values, something similar to sustainable agriculture?”
In attempting to answer these questions, Fujimoto created a “micro-village,” situating a number of small exhibition buildings around a central garden that acts as an incubator for farming and germination. The gallery spaces are housed within simple structures constructed using beautifully textured local materials, each of which is distinguished by different external finishes and a subtle variation in height and form.
Timber boardwalks act as a link between the artistic and agricultural zones, creating numerous links between the two contrasting programs. The project seeks to juxtapose the conceptual and philosophical strengths of modern art and architecture with the practical, natural connotations of agriculture, with the possibility of each discipline overlapping and being influenced positively by the other.
Top image: Serpentine Gallery Pavilion, London 2013.