< Previous350 A samurai in Star Wars In 1979, the New York Museum of Modern Art organized an exhibition titled Transformations in Modern Architecture* which included over 400 buildings from the two previous decades (1958-1978). Arthur Drexler, the director of the museum’s department of Architecture at the time, laid out the works in three sections: architecture as invention of the sculpture form, architecture as a structural form and vernacular architecture, within a shared posture questioning Modernist principles. The Kyoto Congress Centre was included in the section for vernacular architecture and more specifically among those projects characterized for subordinating the facade to the roof. In other publications, this work by Sachio Otani has been classified as brutalist. The architect himself, a former collaborator of Kenzo Tange, considers his work to be the legacy of both the Modern Movement and Japanese tradition. For me it resembles a samurai transported to Star Wars. Moving beyond classification, the building is a succession of pavilions which, rather than subordinating the facade to the roof, adopt the inclined facade as the roof and prolong into several parapets which obscure the vision of the actual flat roof. The building is truly imposing both in terms of its relationship with the landscape of Lake Takaraga, into which it submerges itself through the walkways, and of its relationship with the users who are welcomed in a kind of luminous concrete uterus. WEDNESDAY, JULY 25TH, 2018 Kyoto International Congress Center351 MANGA 18 Sachio Otani. Interior design: Isamu Kenmochi. Kyoto International Congress Center. Kyoto Prefecture, 1966-1973. *Arthur Drexler. Transformations in Modern Architecture. The Museum of Modern Art. New York, 1979.352353400 Under the wave, us too Typhoon Jongdari had started to hit Tokyo. As we left the Metro station, a curtain of water assailed us. Letting ourselves be carried away by our optimism, we had left the boots and the umbrella in the hotel. Given that we were going to see paintings by Hokusai, the author of the Great Wave of Kanagawa*, it seemed a trick of fate, as if the wave had targeted us. In the circumstances, the tour around the exterior of the museum was rather quick. With the grey sky, the aluminum of the oblique facades was vanishing at times. It resembled an origami figure folding or closing, according to the viewpoint. The space of the square penetrates the ground floor through rips that reminded me of the curtains that hang in ramen bars. The penumbra of these openings contrasts so greatly with the aluminum that it transforms them into intriguing fissures. This whole exterior game of volumes and shadows in the interior becomes a functional exercise for the museum content. *Forms part of the work 36 views of Mount Fuji by Katsushika Hokusai, 1830-1832. FRIDAY JULY 27TH, 2018, TOKYO Sumida Hokusai Museum401 MANGA 24 Kazuyo Sejima and Associates. Sumida Hokusai Museum. Sumida, Tokyo. Tokyo Prefecture, 2016.MANGA 04 MANGA 27 MANGA 02 MANGA 15 MANGA 07 MANGA 28MANGA 09 MANGA 16 MANGA 06 MANGA 29 MANGA 22 MANGA 11architecture publishers. www.aplust.net Two voices, those of Aurora Fernández Per and Javier Mozas, tell the story of three trips around Japan: Spring 1995, Autumn 2004 and Summer 2018. One common thread, architecture, drives them to travel around the most influential country in terms of international design. Using texts, photos and drawings they interpret buildings, landscapes and everyday scenes. The publishers of a+t magazine and founders of the a+t research group provide us with the traveller’s version, that of the person arriving at a new place and narrating what they have seen. J AP AN diaries ISBN 978-84-09-09879-8 Next >