Sou Fujimoto (b. 1971) is one of the most influential architects of our times. He is particularly renowned for nature-inspired designs; amongst the most celebrated projects are the L鈥橝rbre Blanc (2019) housing complex in Montpellier, France, and the Serpentine Pavilion 2013 in London. These buildings are instantly recognisable: bright white structures that form lattices or resemble leaves spreading out from a tree.
Now, Mori Art Museum in Tokyo presents the first major survey of Fujimoto鈥檚 work. It provides a comprehensive overview of his career in eight sections, covering everything from early ideas, including The Aomori Museum of Art Design Competition Proposal in 2000, to recent projects 鈥 like The Grand Ring for Expo 2025 Osaka 鈥撀燼s well as those currently underway. It follows his architectural journey over 30 years, and reveals the philosophies that drive his practice forwards. Fujimoto says: 鈥淩ather than focusing on looking back at the past, this survey is firmly anchored in the present and looking toward the future. As well as representing the culmination of work to date, it explores potential orientations for continuation.鈥
The title of the exhibition is Primordial Future Forest. Fujimoto grew up in Higashikagura, a town lush with nature adjacent to Hokkaido Prefecture鈥檚 arboreal landscape. Forests are a recurring throughline in his practice, whether that be private homes, universities, retail premises, hotels or multi-purpose complexes. Fujimoto is dedicated to bridging the gap between nature and architecture, and he sees commonalities between the 鈥渓oose order鈥 and 鈥渃onfusion鈥 of both cities and woodlands. Conceptually, forests, made up of branches and leaves, and cities, dotted with flowerpots, bicycles and billboards, are not so different.
Right now, sustainability and ecological impact are 鈥 and should be 鈥 at the forefront of architectural discourse. The current Venice Architecture Biennale is dedicated to the subject, with its Curator, Carlo Ratti, saying: 鈥淔or decades, architecture鈥檚 response to the climate crisis has been centred on mitigation 鈥 designing to reduce our impact on the climate. But that approach is no longer enough. The time has come for architecture to embrace adaptation: rethinking how we design for an altered world.鈥
Fujimoto seems to agree. 鈥淥ne of the roles of an architect is to create places that weave together relationships between people and between people and nature,鈥 he explains. 鈥淔or me, such a place is like a 鈥渇uture forest鈥 where natural and human-made blend together.鈥 A stand-out example is the House of Music Hungary (2021), a cultural complex in Budapest that blends in with the greenery of a park. Its roof mimics a canopy of trees, with numerous openings that allow light to filter through. There鈥檚 also Musashino Art University Museum & Library (2010), which features shelves aligned in a spiral pattern: a “forest of books.”
Audiences can expect to see the usual design-exhibition fare: scale models, plans and photos of completed exhibits. But Mori Art Museum is taking curation a step further with Primordial Future Forest. It is presenting large-scale, immersive exhibits 鈥 offering audiences the chance to experience Fujimoto鈥檚 designs in 360 degrees. It鈥檚 also harnessing projections and performance to create an exciting blend of sight and sound. The idea is to engage contemporary art-lovers and architecture enthusiasts alike.
One particularly striking addition is Forest of Future, Forest of Primordial – Resonant City (2025), a proposal for a futuristic city conceived by Fujimoto and Miyata Hiroaki, Professor at Keio University and Signature Project Producer for Expo 2025 Osaka. Like a forest, this metropolis has no absolute centre, creating a new civic paradigm in which people are interlinked in multiple layers. 鈥淚t would be wonderful if the exhibition could encourage people to imagine how the future would look if we lived in buildings and communities like these,鈥 Fujimoto concludes. 鈥淚 hope that it will boost people鈥檚 hopes, inciting them to think positively about the future.鈥 Primordial Future Forest is certainly an unmissable display for 2025 鈥 an innovatively-curated show that charts the course of a seriously exciting architect working today.
The Architecture of Sou Fujimoto: Primordial Future Forest is at Mori Art Museum, Tokyo.
2 July 鈥 9 November |
Words: Eleanor Sutherland
Image Credits:
1. L’Arbre Blanc (The White Tree), 2019. Montpellier, France. Photo: Iwan Baan.
2. House of Music Hungary (exterior), 2021. Budapest. Photo: Iwan Baan.
3. Serpentine Gallery Pavilion, 2013, London. Photo: Iwan Baan.
4. The Grand Ring for Expo 2025 Osaka, Kansai, Japan, 2025. Photo courtesy: Japan Association for the 2025 World Exposition.
5. House of Music Hungary, 2021. Budapest. Photo: Iwan Baan.
6. The Grand Ring for Expo 2025 Osaka, Kansai, Japan, 2025. Photo courtesy: Japan Association for the 2025 World Exposition.
7. Shiroiya Hotel, 2020. Gunma, Japan. Photo: Tanaka Katsumasa.
