The character arc of Kengo Kuma
A life drawn by Character Arc from the public record
Born on 8 August 1954 in Kanagawa. Between then and now sit Eiko Gakuen, a degree in architecture from the University of Tokyo in 1979, time at two large Japanese firms, the Spatial Design Studio founded in 1987, his own practice in 1990, a book published in Japan in 2000 arguing that architecture should not dominate what is around it, a museum award in 2001, a doctorate at Keio in 2008, a foreword to Tanizaki in 2017, a practice of over three hundred architects across four cities, and the Japan National Stadium. The line below draws the story so far, in order.
Drag along the line to move, pinch or use the buttons to look closer. Tap the line to pluck it, or any mark for its card. Drawn from the public record of his life; the sources are at the foot of the page.
Who is Kengo Kuma?
He wrote a book against the object. Then they gave him the stadium.
He was born in Kanagawa, went to Eiko Gakuen, and graduated in architecture from the University of Tokyo in 1979. He then did what most graduates do and worked for large firms, Nihon Sekkei and Toda Corporation, before starting the Spatial Design Studio in 1987 and his own practice, Kengo Kuma and Associates, in 1990.
His stated goal is to recover the tradition of Japanese buildings and reinterpret it for this century. He puts it more plainly than that when asked: his aim is to recover the place, because the place is the result of nature and time, and he thinks of his architecture as a kind of frame of nature, through which we can experience nature more deeply.
In 2000 he published a book in Japan called Anti-Object, which came out in English in 2008. It calls for an architecture of relations, respecting its surroundings instead of dominating them. That is a strange argument for an architect to make in public, because dominating the surroundings is more or less what the profession has been paid for since it existed.
The material thinking follows from it. He stays in continuity with Japanese tradition, with clear structure, implied tectonics and a great deal of attention to light and transparency, but he does not restrict himself to obviously light materials. He uses technique to push unexpected materials, stone among them, into giving the same lightness and softness as glass or wood, and he is after a sense of spatial immateriality that comes from the particulate nature of light. He wrote the foreword to the 2017 English translation of In Praise of Shadows, Tanizaki essay on Japanese aesthetics, which he says shaped his own practice.
He won the Togo Murano Award in 2001 for the Nakagawa-machi Bato Hiroshige Museum, took a doctorate in architecture at Keio in 2008, and has taught at Columbia, Illinois and Keio. He is emeritus professor at the University of Tokyo, where he runs Kuma Lab. His firm employs over three hundred architects in Tokyo, Beijing, Shanghai and Paris. And he designed the Japan National Stadium in Tokyo, built for the 2020 Olympics, which is the largest object anybody in his country has been asked to make in a generation.
The moments
Kengo Kuma's timeline.
The 1950s
Born in Kanagawa
Everyday. Kanagawa, 1954.
The 1970s
The University of Tokyo
Milestone, and it changed everything. The best architecture degree in the country.
The 1980s
Two large firms
Everyday, and it changed his direction. He did the ordinary thing first.
The Spatial Design Studio
Milestone, and it changed his direction. Thirty three, and out on his own.
The 1990s
Kengo Kuma and Associates
Milestone, and it changed everything. His name over the door at thirty six.
To recover the place
Milestone, and it changed everything. His own sentence for what a building is for.
Publish the argument, or just build
Crossroads, decided.
The paths laid out: write it down, taken, or let the buildings say it. The book came out in English eight years later, the practice grew past three hundred people, and he was given the national stadium.
The 2000s
Anti-Object
Milestone, and it changed everything. An architect, arguing in public against the architectural object.
The Togo Murano Award
Milestone, and it changed his direction. A small museum, and the profession noticed.
A doctorate at fifty four
Milestone, and it changed his direction. He went back and took the doctorate at fifty four.
The 2010s
Kuma Lab
Milestone, and it changed his direction. He teaches at the school that taught him.
In Praise of Shadows
Milestone, and it changed his direction. He named the book that shaped him.
The Japan National Stadium
Milestone, and it changed everything. The man who argued against the object, given the biggest one.
The 2020s
Three hundred architects
Milestone, and it changed everything. Four cities, three hundred people, one argument.
Three hundred architects now work to the idea he set out in a book almost nobody read at the time. What he set moving is a serious attempt to answer the question of what a building is for if it is not there to be looked at, and the stadium is the hardest test that argument could have been given.
Your turn
Every line draws a unique story.
His turned on publishing an argument against the whole habit of his own profession, and then being handed the biggest commission in it. Yours is already further along than you think, and drawing it takes about five minutes.
Kengo Kuma: frequently asked questions
What people ask about his line.
What is Kengo Kuma's character arc?
What is Anti-Object by Kengo Kuma?
Did Kengo Kuma design the Olympic stadium?
What does Kengo Kuma say his aim is?
What materials does Kengo Kuma use?
How big is the Kengo Kuma practice?
Where does this timeline of Kengo Kuma's life come from?
More character arcs
Lives that rhyme with his.
Sources
- Kengo Kuma, English Wikipedia biography, filed under living people.
- Anti-Object: The Dissolution and Disintegration of Architecture, 2000 and 2008.
- His own description of his practice, as quoted there.
- His built work and academic posts, as that biography lists them.