AT PALAZZO FRANCHETTI AN EXHIBITION DEDICATED TO THE JAPANESE ARCHITECT. “I LIKE SCARPA”
Kengo Kuma is in Venice at Palazzo Franchetti with the exhibition «Onomatopoeia Architecture», curated by Chizuko Kawarada and Roberta Perazzini Calarota. until November 26, in the rooms of the late fifteenth-century building on the Grand Canal, home of ACP, the first Italian retrospective dedicated to the Japanese starchitect exhibits 22 maquettes and two site-specific installations.
Born in Kanagawa in 1954, after graduating from the University of Tokyo, Kuma spent a couple of years at Columbia University as a visiting researcher. In 1987 he founded his atelier Spatial Design Studio (now Kengo Kuma & Associates) in Tokyo, followed by the Paris studio in 2008. The award-winning Kuma has designed architectural works in over 30 countries.
The study of the place for human-scale projects to integrate with the surrounding environment, the research on materials to replace concrete and steel by designing a new approach to architecture in a post-industrial society, the use of light to add a sense of "spatial immateriality".
Recognized as one of the masters of contextual architecture, Kengo Kuma is the protagonist of the «Onomatopoeia Architecture» exhibition at Palazzo Franchetti in Venice, curated by Chizuko Kawarada and Roberta Perazzini Calarota. Almost thirty years after participation in the 46th Art Biennale, the starting point of the international career of the award-winning architect, until 26 November, in the rooms of the late fifteenth-century building on the Grand Canal, home to ACP, the first Italian retrospective dedicated to Japanese starchitect - included by «Time» in the list of the 100 most influential people of 2021 - exhibits 22 maquettes and two site-specific installations inspired by the lagoon city.
Let's start from the title of the exhibition: why did you choose to use the rhetorical figure that reproduces natural sounds and real noises in language through a phonetic game?
«It is the first time that I have created an exhibition with onomatopoeias, let's say it is a new format to propose an anthology of my works and my architectural thought. The onomatopoeias to explain the atmospheres which then lead to creating the shapes of my architecture. It is important to start from the atmospheres because if you start directly from the forms there is the risk of repeating yourself. Certainly the form is the strong message that arrives, but at the origin of my architectural vision there is the relationship between man and space, environmental impressions, atmospheres».
Going up the staircase of the Palace, the visitor is welcomed by the "Boat Tree", a wooden sculpture, like the material that supports Venice, in the garden there is "Lagoon", in aluminum sheet, with a moving shape as if it were a wave. What relationship does it have with the city?
«Venice is very important to me and in 1995 I exhibited at the Japanese Pavilion. It was the first project I presented outside my country. It was an Art Biennial and not an Architecture Biennial, but it was an architectural installation that wrapped the Pavilion. The two works mentioned above created for this exhibition were born from two strong impressions of Venice that I had in 1995: the boats and the relationship with the water».
Would you like to build something in Venice?
«Yes, a bridge. Because the bridges in this city are very iconic, from that of the Accademia to the Rialto one. I would probably make it out of wood or stone. The Calatrava Bridge is very technological, in my opinion it has not entered into a relationship with the city. But Venice is unique and it is not easy to build here now».
From the Yusuhara Wooden Bridge Museum Kochi, Japan (2010), to the installations exhibited at Arte Sella (2018) and the recent Albert Kahn Museum, Boulogne Billancourt in France (2022), wood is your chosen material.
«Wood is different from other materials because it has a strong connection with the memory of humanity, starting from the forests. I often combine it with glass and transparency, thinking of the light that penetrates the branches of the trees».
You were a forerunner of that sustainable architecture which is now almost a trend.
«I go back to what I just said. For me, recycling is closely connected with the memory of the material, it is an opportunity to preserve memories. New materials have no memory and therefore no history».
You designed the new Padua Conference Center (2022) in which you used the Japanese spatial layer technique, that is the superposition of two-dimensional planes.
«I wanted to restore the concept of stratification. The ideal model was the medieval Palazzo della Ragione, the center of the city. The typical porticoes of the Venetian city are recalled in the façade thanks to the sequence of wooden columns».
You made lightness your stylistic signature and tried to abolish concrete. The opposite of another Japanese master of architecture, Tadao Ando.
«We are certainly distant, but not completely. What unites us are our Japanese roots and what they imply. I like Ando's minimalism, I respect his work, because he "respects" the concrete material».
What kind of other people's architecture do you like?
«I like Italian architecture and design because it combines Homo Faber, craftsmanship. I like Gio Ponti and Angelo Mangiarotti. I love the Venetian Carlo Scarpa very much, I feel close to him and the details of the buildings designed by him are incredible experiences: I wish I had made them myself».