A detailed examination of the beautiful and sensitively realized addition to the famed Portland Japanese Garden by contemporary Japanese architect Kengo Kuma.

Kengo Kuma: Portland Japanese Garden introduces the star Japanese architect's first public project in the United States. Kuma won the Portland Japanese Garden invitational competition by proposing a design that, while executed with contemporary materials and the latest construction technology, also builds on the principles of traditional architecture and craftsmanship. The resulting group of small buildings superbly blends with its magnificent natural environment and provides an outstanding example of Kuma's artistry of seamlessly connecting nature and architecture as well as past and present without falling into the trap of mimicry or sentimentality.

The book includes chapters on the reverence of nature and Japanese culture, on architecture and gardens in Japan, on the architecture of Kengo Kuma beyond the garden, and on craftsmanship and design, as well as on the new buildings and the garden itself, which is widely considered the most beautiful such garden outside Japan.

About the Authors:

Botond Bognar is Professor and Edgar A. Tafel Endowed Chair in Architecture at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. Professor Bognar is an internationally renowned scholar of the history and theories of contemporary Japanese architecture and urbanism. He has written some twenty books and monographs, more than thirty chapters to books, and many essays and articles in professional journals. He is the recipient of several distinguished awards and recognitions including an Arnold O. Beckman Fellowship, a Japan Foundation Fellowship, the Architectural Institute of Japan (AIJ) Cultural Appreciation Prize, and many others. Balázs Bognár is an architect and partner at Kengo Kuma & Associates in Tokyo, Japan, and served as project architect for the "cultural crossing" at the Portland Japanese Garden. Kengo Kuma is a celebrated Japanese architect and principal of Kengo Kuma and Associates. He is a professor at the Graduate School of Architecture at the University of Tokyo.

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The Complete Kengo Kuma. Erasing architecture: a definitive survey of the architect’s oeuvre

Famous First Edition: First printing of 5,000 numbered copies

After Tadao Ando, Toyo Ito, and Fumihiko Maki, Kengo Kuma has breathed renewed vigor and lightness into Japanese architecture. Departing from the modernist skyscraper of the 20th century, Kuma travelled through his native Japan to develop a truly sustainable approach, translating local craftsmanship and resources into site-specific, timely buildings. Informed by tradition, and with both feet firmly planted in the present, this “materialist” heralds a new tactile architecture marked by its engaging surfaces, innovative structures, and fluid forms, reconnecting people with the physicality of a house. Kuma’s objective, above all else, is “just to respect the culture and environment of the place where I am working.”

To this end, Kuma shaped the China Academy of Art’s Folk Art Museum partially from discarded roof tiles; created a Chapel out of birch and moss in Nagano; and worked with local craftsmen to sculpt the V&A Dundee into a twisted, layered reflection of the Scottish coastal cliffs. With an extraordinary sensitivity for space, light, and texture, Kuma reveals unexpected qualities in materials, finding the weightlessness of stone in Chokkura Plaza and the softness of aluminium in the thatched roof of the Yangcheng Lake Tourist Transportation Center.

More recently, the architect brought his philosophy to the Japan National Stadium built for the Olympic Games, originally planned for 2020. Kuma has said the stadium could be “the catalyst that will transform Tokyo back from a concrete city. I want it to set an example that will help alter the direction of Japanese architectural design.”

In this XXL-sized monograph with some 500 illustrations spanning photographs, sketches, and plans, Kuma guides us through his entire career to date, detailing milestone projects as well as ongoing works.

The artist:

Kengo Kuma (born in Yokohama in 1954) attended the University of Tokyo and established Spatial Design Studio in 1979 after further studies at Columbia University, New York. In 1987, he founded Kengo Kuma & Associates. He is based in Tokyo and Paris, while he teaches at the Graduate School of Architecture at the University of Tokyo, where he also runs his own Laboratory, Kuma Lab.

The editor:

Philip Jodidio studied art history and economics at Harvard, and edited Connaissance des Arts for over 20 years. His TASCHEN books include the Architecture Now! series and monographs on Tadao Ando, Santiago Calatrava, Renzo Piano, Jean Nouvel, Shigeru Ban, Richard Meier, Zaha Hadid, and soon Norman Foster.

Long regarded in Japan as a master architect, Kengo Kuma first entered the European limelight two years ago when he won the "Spirit of Nature Wood Architecture Award", being the second architect to win this prize after Renzo Piano.

Timber construction, however, is merely one field in which this declared environmentally sensitive architect has specialised.

This monograph presents 14 selected projects from 1992-2003, including the Museum of Hiroshige Ando and Stone Museum (Toshigi Prefecture, Japan), the Water/Glass-Villa (Atami, Japan), the Plastic House in Tokyo and the Bamboo House near the Great Wall of China.

All projects are portrayed in exact technical drawings full of details and material specifications.

Kengo Kuma's Teahouse is a masterly reinterpretation of a classical Japanese building type. Delivered in August 2007 for the Park of the Frankfurt Museum of Applied Arts (a Richard Meier Building), Kuma s innovative structure in flexible, semi-transparent, breathing Tenara-Membrane - inflated by means of a pneumatic system to a blossom-like form - houses in the interior the classical elements for Japanese tea ceremony. Integrated LED technology allows the use of the teahouse at night; the interior can be heated by way of the membrane.

The monograph, including an original text by Kengo Kuma himself, gives in-depth documentation of this lyrical temporary structure – an outstanding example of ephemeral architecture, combining poetry and technology - with many unpublished sketches, technical plans and with splendid colour photographs.

Durch ein Kompressorsystem aktiviert, erwächst das Teehaus wie eine Blüte aus dem semitransparenten High Tech-Material GORE-Tenara, im Inneren finden Tatami-Matten, ein elektrisch beheizbarer Herd für den Wasserkessel, eine Tokonoma Nische und ein Vorbereitungsraum Platz. Die doppelwandige Hülle mit inneren Koppelseilen erzeugt eine golfballähnliche Membrantextur und macht zudem eine Luftschleuse überflüssig. Eine integrierte LED-Technik lässt das Teehaus im Dunklen sanft, fast mythisch, erstrahlen.

Dieses jüngste Projekt Kumas ist ein Symbol für die traditionsbewusste Modernität des heutigen Japans und seiner Architektur, aber auch ein richtungsweisendes Beispiel temporären und mobilen Bauens, das nur Dank einer ungewöhnlich dichten internationalen Kooperation zwischen Architekten, Ingenieuren und Unternehmen realisiert werden konnte. Das vorliegende Buch entfaltet die technologischen, kulturhistorischen und ästhetischen Aspekte dieser Neuinterpration des japanischen Teehauses.

The quintessential Japanese architect of today, Kengo Kuma has forged a modern design language that artfully combines his country’s traditional building crafts with sophisticated technologies and materials.

From his iconic Glass House to Yusuhara Wooden Bridge Museum, this complete record of Kuma’s built work comprises 25 projects to date. Kenneth Frampton frames Kuma’s work in the context of post-war Japan’s flourishing architecture scene and influential figures, and recounts the international acclaim that Kuma has received.

The heart of the book consists of projects presented in detail, accompanied by Kuma’s personal descriptive texts and detailed drawings, and organized by the material themes that have come to define the architect’s output.

Offering a rich insight into contemporary interpretations of Japan’s ancient building traditions, this beautifully produced book will be an inspiration to any designer who aims to create spaces for history and the future.