WHY Architecture is an architecture studio founded by Kulapat Yantrasast and Yo-Ichiro Hakomori in 2004 with offices in Los Angeles and New York. The team is organised into five separate workshops: buildings, landscape, museums, objects and ideas. This structure allows them to work across multiple sectors and combine different forms of expertise, generating progressive solutions for projects ranging from museums to community arts centres to private residences.
WHY has earned a reputation as a leader in the field of cultural and civic architecture, winning international competitions such as the Ross Pavilion and West Princes Street Gardens in Edinburgh, Scotland, and commissioning major cultural landmark projects such as the Tchaikovsky Academic Opera and Ballet Theatre in Perm, Russia.
Kulapat Yantrasast was born in Bangkok, Thailand, where he graduated with honours from Chulalongkorn University. At the University of Tokyo, he obtained his master's and doctoral degrees on a Japanese government scholarship.
From 1996 to 2003, Yantrasast worked as an associate of Japanese architect Tadao Ando, participating in such renowned projects as the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth in Fort Worth, Texas (2002), Armani, Teatro in Milan, Italy (2001), Fondation Francois Pinault pour l’Art Contemporain in Paris, France (2001–2003), the Calder Museum project in Philadelphia, PA, (1999–2002) and the Clark Art Institute in Williamstown, MA (2001-2014).
Kulapat Yantrasast currently serves on the Board of Trustees of the Pulitzer Foundation for the Arts and the Noguchi Museum, as well as the Artists Council of the Hammer Museum at UCLA. Yantrasast has been a member of the Artists Committee of Americans for the Arts since 2005.
