_positions: Kengo Kuma: New Works Kengo Kuma in Conversation with Grace La
Harvard GSD - Gund Hall, Cambridge, MA
Join us for an event celebrating the release ofKengo Kuma: New Works(Thames & Hudson), the second monograph on one of the world’s preeminent architects, showcasing projects completed around the world between 2012 and 2024—a long-awaited follow-up to the acclaimedKengo Kuma: Complete Works. Kengo Kuma is one of Japan’s leading architects and professor emeritus at the University of Tokyo. A prolific writer and philosopher, he proposes architecture that introduces new relationships between nature, technology, and human beings. This book surveys forty projects arranged according to building use, with a timely focus on those that respond to natural disasters and the pandemic, build on the importance of local communities, and address our need to come together with others. The projects range in scale and ambition, from Japan’s Olympic Stadium—where Kuma used timber from every region in the country to build the nation’s largest arena—to a small community center in Yusuhara, and a fairytale museum in Denmark. Each celebrates Kuma’s skill using natural materials, as he pushes them to their limits to create exciting and surprising forms. Take for instance, The Exchange, a community center in…