The Japanese House. Architecture & life after 1945, on display at the Museo Nazionale delle Arti del XXI secolo (MAXXI) until February 2017, tries to reproduce the spacial feeling of the buildings presented, in which functionality is usually more a pschycollogical rather than practical device. The exhibition, designed by Atelier Bow-Wow shows the work of: Takefumi Aida, Atelier Bow-Wow, Takamitsu Azuma, dot architects, Go Hasegawa, Itsuko Hasegawa, Hiromi Fujii, Terunobu Fujimori, Sou Fujimoto, Ikimono Architects, Kumiko Inui, Osamu Ishiyama, Toyo Ito, Yuusuke Karasawa, Kiyonori Kikutake, Chie Konno, Kisho Kurokawa, Kiko Mozuna, Hideyuki Nakayama, Kazuhiko Namba, Ryue Nishizawa (SANAA), Keisuke Oka, onishimaki + hyakudayuki architects, Antonin Raymond, Junzo Sakakura, Kazunari Sakamoto, Kazuyo Sejima (SANAA), Kazuo Shinohara, Seiichi Shirai, Kenzo Tange, Tezuka Architects, Riken Yamamoto, Junzo Yoshumira and Takamasa Yoshizaka.
The Japanese House documents the work of three generations of designers, covering a period spanning from the post-war years to the modern day. It explores one of the central themes of Japanese architecture: the design of the single-family house. The exhibition, which was born from a collaboration between international institutions and which will travel from MAXXI to the Barbican in London and to MOMAT in Tokyo, includes over eighty house designs. Drawings, models and photographs help visitors to understand not only the natural ease with which Japanese architects mix modernity, tradition and the ability to work in dialogue with their clients, but also the virtuous role that their works assume in society and in the cities of their country.
The staging of the exhibition, designed by Japanese practice Atelier Bow-Wow, organises the work of about sixty artists along a seventy-year genealogical stretch, in a path that is structured into fourteen thematic areas. The exhibition moves from the tension between modernity and japaneseness following the war onto the metabolic utopias of the sixties and the minimalism of the nineties, before introducing us to the current renewed focus on the vernacular and the use of simple materials.
The Japanese House documents the work of three generations of designers, covering a period spanning from the post-war years to the modern day. It explores one of the central themes of Japanese architecture: the design of the single-family house. The exhibition, which was born from a collaboration between international institutions and which will travel from MAXXI to the Barbican in London and to MOMAT in Tokyo, includes over eighty house designs. Drawings, models and photographs help visitors to understand not only the natural ease with which Japanese architects mix modernity, tradition and the ability to work in dialogue with their clients, but also the virtuous role that their works assume in society and in the cities of their country.
The staging of the exhibition, designed by Japanese practice Atelier Bow-Wow, organises the work of about sixty artists along a seventy-year genealogical stretch, in a path that is structured into fourteen thematic areas. The exhibition moves from the tension between modernity and japaneseness following the war onto the metabolic utopias of the sixties and the minimalism of the nineties, before introducing us to the current renewed focus on the vernacular and the use of simple materials.
