Terunobu Fujimori, Japanese architecture historian turned architect
Saturday, February 7th, 2009
Terunobu Fujimori has been called the world’s only “surreal architect.” This is obviously not true, but there is a fantastical quality about his work that isn’t typical among architects, even when they’re trying for the new, the strange or the sci-fi. Fujimori is interesting because his is a down-to-earth fantasy, using simple, elemental materials that highlight the relationship of architecture to the ground from which its materials come. He’s not a traditionalist even despite the fact that you feel you can see all of Japanese architectural history in his work, both high and low, from traditional peasant houses to folk tales to the fortresses in Ran or Rashomon. For more about him see also pushpull. Fujimori curated a celebrated exhibition in the Japanese pavilion at the 2006 Venice Biennale of Architecture that’s worth looking at here. Photos are from Flickr and designboom. Immediately above and below, Fujimori’s Coal House, sheathed in satiny black charred wood that is a traditional method of fiinishing and preserving wood but that also somehow suggests the fires that destroyed so many of Japan’s wooden castles and houses.
Above, Nemunoki Art Museum by Terunobu Fujimori and Yoshio Uchika. Below, his Leek House, with a lattice roof with chives growing from it.
The building below with the dead trunks growing through and the look of a medieval Japanese wooden fortress is the Akino Fuku Museum.
More information on Fujimori below.
