In my 2008 interview with Kengo Kuma in Manhattan—the Tokyo-based architect was in town for a lecture at Cooper Union and to oversee the construction of a house renovation in nearby Connecticut— he summarized the intention of his work for me, "The closest image to the kind of architecture I try to achieve is a rainbow." The architect designs his buildings as a chef would prepare a salad or a florist arrange a bouquet of flowers—by carefully selecting ingredients according to their size, shape, and texture. He then tests whether they should touch, overlap, or keep a distance to let the airflow pass through. The process is closer to a trial-and-error scientific experiment rather than an artistic exercise in projecting visionary forms and images. Although his buildings surely look strikingly artistic and utterly breathtaking. They are both precise and loose, primitive and refined, material and transient. The architect's fascination with materiality is startling, and despite having completed many dozens of buildings all over the world over the course of his distinctive career, in our conversation last month over Zoom, Kuma told me, "I stand at the beginning of a long process of material exploration."
The architect spoke to me about growing up in a traditional wooden house his grandfather built on the outskirts of Yokohama in the 1920s, and his father, a businessman and design and architecture lover, altered continuously. Kuma did not like the house as a child; it contrasted greatly with the brand-new concrete towers where many of his friends resided. He envied them, and it took him a while to learn to appreciate his "old-fashioned" home. In the mid-1960s, when he was about 10, many Japanese admired everything new and shiny, detached from history. A new optimistic future was being constructed: concrete and steel dominated in building that vision. In 1964, Kuma's father introduced him to Kenzo Tange's Yoyogi National Gymnasium. Built in time for the Tokyo Summer Olympics, the exuberantly sculptural building captured young Kuma's imagination. He told me that it was that experience and, in general, his father's love for modern architecture and design, as well as their frequent weekend visits together to see buildings that were under construction in Tokyo at that time, that solidified his interest in architecture early on.
While a student at Tokyo University, Kuma joined his professor Hiroshi Hara (1936 – 2025) and his fellow students on a study expedition to Africa. Two months of exploring traditional houses and ways of life of villagers in the Sahara Desert was the most powerful experience in the architect's education both in Japan and in America. He told me that his education at Columbia University was quite abstract and theory-based. After returning to Tokyo and opening his practice in 1987, for the next few years, he was busy realizing commercial Post-Modernist buildings with little connection to culture and climate.
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21 Projects Where Kengo Kuma (Re)Uses Materials in Unusual WaysIt was the bubble economy burst in 1991 that Kuma credits as the reason for entirely rethinking his architecture. Scaling down his practice, retreating to the countryside, and focusing on teaching set him on a completely new trajectory that led to working on smaller commissions and focusing on employing such traditional materials as wood while learning directly from carpenters and crafters. He discovered Yusuhara, a 1,100-year-old town northwest of Kochl in the Shikoku Mountains, where the architect eventually built half a dozen of some of his best buildings. They include the Town Office, Community Market and Hotel, Town Library, and wooden bridge-shaped Art Gallery. In fact, thanks to Kuma, Yusuhara now attracts a steady architectural pilgrimage.
"What kind of architecture do you want to achieve?" I asked Kuma. "I want to create a nest for us." He responded. He compared his intentions of putting together his buildings similarly to how birds build their nests. In other words, it is all about choosing the right scale and relying on materials we can find within reach. Another lesson he learned from his own house is realizing that our architecture must be compatible with a human body—weak, permeable, and not categorically definitive. It is all about give and take. He said, "I realized that my own house could be the model for the future." The architect then offered insights on how he breaks architecture into particles and why. We also talked about the importance of shadows. Kuma is convinced, "No shadow means no spirit." Therefore, designing a beautiful roof is essential. "The roof is the beginning of every nest" he asserted.
I never want to repeat anything. The next step is more important. - Kengo Kuma
Nevertheless, if you look carefully at his buildings, you will start noticing patterns. Certain ideas are explored again and again. That's what makes his work so special, so endlessly fascinating. There is a clear strategy despite numerous variations. It is all about selecting and designing particles, their sizes, spaces in between, and relationships among them. It all goes back to this magical desire the architect once envisioned and refuses to define in concrete terms, "The kind of architecture I try to achieve is a rainbow."
Kengo Kuma (b.1954, Yokohama, Japan) received his education at the University of Tokyo in 1979 and graduated from Columbia University in New York in 1986. He established his practice in Tokyo the next year and began working on large commercial projects. The work suddenly dried up when the Japanese overheated economic bubble burst in 1991. The recession led to the closing of the architect's office and retreating to the suburbs, focusing on teaching, learning from local crafters, and working on smaller projects built out of wood. Today, Kengo Kuma & Associates employs more than 300 architects in Tokyo, Beijing, Shanghai, and Paris. Among his most iconic buildings are Nakagawa-machi Bato Hiroshige Museum of Art (Tochigi, Japan, 2000), Great (Bamboo) Wall near Beijing (2002), Yusuhara Wooden Bridge Museum (Kochi, Japan, 2010), and Japan National Stadium built for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics. Kuma is a professor at the University of Tokyo. Publications devoted to his oeuvre include Kuma: Complete Works by Philip Jodidio (Taschen, 2021) and Kengo Kuma: Complete Works: Expanded Edition by Kenneth Frampton (Thames & Hudson, 2018). The architect's installations were featured at the Royal Academy of Arts and V&A Museum in London, and a large monographic exhibition was presented at Palazzo Farchetti in Venice in 2023. Another exhibition is currently traveling across China.
Curator and critic Vladimir Belogolovsky (b. 1970, Odesa, Ukraine) has been running his Curatorial Project in New York since 2008. He interviewed more than 500 architects and authored 20 books, including Imagine Buildings Floating Like Clouds, China Dialogues, Conversations with Architects, Harry Seidler: LIFEWORK, Soviet Modernism: 1955-1985, and Architectural Guides Chicago and New York. He curated exhibitions in more than 30 countries, including at the Venice Architecture Biennale (2008, 2014, 2025) and Buenos Aires Architecture Biennial (2017, 2019, 2024).
