ABSTRACT

There is a third cluster of Japanese architects who were born in the mid-1950s, that are also part of this postwar firmament. Kengo Kuma, for example, is one of the few architects in each of the three groups reviewed here to study extensively outside Japan. Kuma's main concern was survival, and he then unexpectedly received two projects far away from the city that helped him do so. The Kirosan Observatory, and Yusuhara Visitor's Center forced him to "erase architecture and to confront materials". His attempt to break down building mass continued in 2012 with his design the Asakusa Culture Tourist Information Center, located on a 326-square-meter corner site directly across from the outer Kaminari-mon Gate of the Senso-ji Temple. Another of Le Corbusier's principles, of creating a processional, is in evidence at the Ogasawara Museum, or O-Museum, Nagano, which Sejima and Nishizawa completed in 1999.