ARCHITECTURE: Terunobu Fujimori

Terunobu Fujimori (21/11/1946- ) is a Japanese architect and leading historian of modern Japanese architecture acknowledged for his shift from traditional techniques. the Japanese architect that appropriated the process of carbonization of wood, recognized previously in vernacular projects, is also known for his reading of the traditional Japanese teahouse, where he suspended the house on stilts.

By Efi Michalarou

Terunobu Fujimori was born in in Nagano Prefecture, Japan. He studied at Tōhoku University before entering graduate school at the University of Tokyo. He is currently a professor at the University of Tokyo’s Institute of Industrial Science. Whilst writing his thesis in the 1970s Fujimori formed the Architecture Detectives. In this group he and his colleagues searched the city to find and photograph early Western-style buildings. Twelve years of work on this subject resulted in the publication of the book “Adventures of an Architectural Detective: Tokyo” (1986). In 1986 Fujimori formed the Roadway Observation Society with Genpei Akasegawa, Shinbo Minami, Joji Hayashi, Tetsuo Matsuda. The group records unusual but naturally occurring patterns in the city, for example the pattern left by a tree on a concrete wall or a rubbish bin that has been bent over to form a seat. Their studies have been compared to Venturi and Scott-Brown’s Learning from Las Vegas. In 1991, Fujimori began to practice architecture with his first work, the Jinchōkan Moriya Historical Museum in Chino, Nagano. As he pondered what form the building should take, he felt the weight of all of architectural history bearing down on him. “Since I was a famous architectural historian” he says, “I thought my architecture should be totally unique, dissimilar to any architecture that came before. I figured that if I did something traditionally European or Japanese, everyone would say ‘Oh, it’s because he’s a historian.’ I didn’t want that criticism”. But at the same time, he wanted to stay away from anything too contemporary. “Some of my closest friends, like Tadao Ando and Toyo Ito, were architects who were starting to get famous, and I didn’t want them to laugh at me and say, ‘Oh, you mimic my work”. Architectural influences for his work include Le Corbusier, Claude Nicolas Ledoux, Takamasa Yoshizaka, the Ise Shrine and Callanish Standing Stones. His architecture is characterised by eccentricity and humour, experimental use of natural materials and the subversion of traditional techniques. Although the Jinchōkan Moriya Historical Museum has been criticised for merely wrapping a concrete structure in natural materials, it was praised by architect Kengo Kuma as “generating fond feelings of familiarity in people who had never seen it before”. Well known in Japan as an author, cultural commentator and TV host he was relatively unknown in the West until he represented Japan in the 2006 Venice Biennale. His display in the Japanese pavilion showed houses sprouting leeks and dandelions. As the theme of the Biennale was the “city” Fujimori included a woven rice twine hut housing a slide presentation of the work of ROJO. In 2010 he contributed the Beetle’s House to one of seven designs for the V&A’s “1:1 Architects Build Small Spaces” exhibition. His work with ROJO has left an impression on younger architects like Yoshiharu Tsukamoto and Momoyo Kajima of Atelier Bow-Wow. Like Fujimori they surveyed the city for “no-good” architecture and published their findings in the book “Made in Tokyo”.