KISHO KUROKAWA

A JAPANESE ARCHITECT KISHO KUROKAWA

Born 8th april 1934
The son of a respected Japanese architect from the pre-World
War II era
Died 12th october 2007
Bachelor in architecture at kyoto university-
1957 pass out
Masters in university of tokyo under the guidance of
Kenzo tange.

Doctorate in philosophy-drop out in 1964- he had

written many books:
• Philosophy of symbiosis
• Metabolism in architecture
• New wave Japanese architecture etc....
In 2002 he got honorary doctorate in architecture,by
the university putra malaysia
 METABOLIST MOVEMENT

• A radical avant-garde movement.

• Found during 1960s-1970s

• Kisho kurokawa-the Youngest founding members of

Japans' metabolist movement.

• In 1959 after his university, he started up with kenzo

tange,kurokawa helped him in the metabolist
movement(CIAM 1959-59th meeting)
,With a loosely-affiliated group including kiyonori
kikutake and fumihiko maki.
It is a post war japanese movement,that fused the
architectural megastructure with the organic
biological growth.
 METABOLIST MOVEMENT
• The principles of the metabolists revolved around ideas
of impermanence and change.

• Metabolists saw buildings as living cellular organisms

that could evolve and expand over time.

• which advocated an organic, renewable architecture

that could evolve through the addition of clip-on
modular units.

• This school of thought emerged, partly as a response to

concerns about overcrowding.

• A contemporary version of good old holistic thinking,

synthesizing ideas of nature and technology in a
dynamic model fit for an urban life in constant change.
 METABOLIST MOVEMENT
•Inspired by a Japanese conception of building-

Japan frequently hit by natural disasters,

also during world war 2 ,japan has experience
many destructions

He had witnessed the destruction of his city by American

bombers in World War II.

And the japan buildings are made of timber,they

went to ashes.
Japanese are used to rebuilding cities from
scratch, leading to what Kurokawa described as

"an uncertainty about existence, a lack of faith in

the visible, a suspicion of the eternal."
 METABOLIST MOVEMENT
• Believing in a machine-age aesthetic, the Metabolists
favoured prefabrication and mass-produced
architectural elements.

• Through the sixties, Kurokawa proposed a range of

radical models counting the Agricultural City (1960)
and the Floating City (1962)

•culminated in the Osaka World Expo of 1970, where

three buildings by Mr. Kurokawa were showcased.

•he actually managed to transform his futurist dreams

into solid built form:
The Yamagata Hawaii Dreamland (later
demolished) in 1967
the iconic Nakagin Capsule Tower (1972)
 Agricultural city

• This city was designed to replace the agricultural

villages devastated by the typhoon of 1959 in
Aichi
 Agricultural city
• It establishes a mesh of 500 x 500m containing an
extensible infrastructure and elevated 4m of the
ground avoiding the encounter of future floods with
the new constructions in addition to preserving the
soil for agriculture, main source of production of the
city.

• In 500 x 500 m. the upper level responds to the

Japanese rural base unit

• A base network for the management of a

community with capacity for 25 blocks, 200 people
and extensible in the territory, with residences in the
form of mushroom like housing cells.
 Agricultural city

MUSHROOM HOUSE
 Agricultural city
•Base units are located around a holy place, a
school and a temple

•The cell is organized around a dotacional axis

where facilities such as kitchen and bathrooms will
be located besides all the systems of necessary
installations allowing a diaphanous space and of
free circulation for the residence.

•a horizontal growth of the city and not in height.

•The horizontal growth allows to guarantee the

natural ventilation of all its spaces. However, being
an unrealized project, its validity, scale and
functionality can not be verified, since it would only
be possible in cities with a low population index.
 In 1962

• Founder and president of Kisho Kurokawa

Architect & Associates, established 8 April
1962.
•The enterprise's head office is in Tokyo with
branch offices
in Osaka, Nagoya, Astana, Kuala
Lumpur, Beijing and Los Angeles.
•The company is registered with the
Japanese government as a "First Class
Architects Office."
 OSAKA EXPO ‘70
TAKARA BEAUTILION-An investigation of structure,
whether a structure can expand, shrink, or reduce
depending on necessity, in other words, a search
for architecture of Metabolism is suggested.
 OSAKA EXPO ‘70
CAPSULE HOUSE
To express the futuristic architecture theme
The Theme Pavilion .
Suspended from the space frame in the pavilion,
built with a window in the living room floor to view
the ground below
 OSAKA EXPO ‘70
TOSHIBA IHI PAVILION
4 parts , independent of each other.
Tetra-frame
dome theater, hanged from the Tetra-frame.
Beneath the dome, there is a revolving floor
measuring 26m in diameter which goes up and
down.
tower of 50m in height which is assembled from the
same tetra-pieces
 Nakagin Capsule Tower
•Located in the Ginza area of
Tokyo

•1970-72

•Example of Metabolist movement.

•Concept: to make the most

efficient use of living space to
accommodate the everyday
essentials of a person.

•Realizes the ideas of metabolism,

exchangeability, recycleablity as
the prototype of sustainable
architecture.
 Nakagin Capsule Tower

Originally designed as a Capsule Hotel to provide economical

housing for businessmen working late in central Tokyo during the
week.

His design was inspired by a traditional Japanese puzzle game

that plays off of interwoven blocks of wood.

first capsule architecture design, the capsule as a room inserted

into a mega-structure
 Nakagin Capsule Tower
• The 14-story high Tower has 140 capsules stacked at angles around
a central core

• Developed the technology to install the capsule units into the

concrete core with only 4 high-tension bolts, as well as making the
units detachable and replaceable.

• A modified (4 x 2.5 meter) shipping container, has a circular

window, a built-in bed and bathroom unit, and is complete with TV,
radio and alarm clock

• The capsule interior was

pre-assembled in a factory
then hoisted by crane and
fastened to the concrete core shaft.
Nakagin Capsule Tower
Nakagin Capsule Tower
Nakagin Capsule Tower
 Nakagin Capsule Tower

•The Nakagin Capsule Tower is a “mixed-system” structure,

utilizing both traditional architecture with modern
technology within one entity.

•Two reinforced concrete and steel frame pillars of

asymmetric heights, both housing public utilities such as
stairs, elevators, plumbing, and electrical systems
 symbiosis
• 1980

•Later,Kurokawa expanded upon Metabolism with

another architectural movement called Symbiosis.

• comparing buildings to living organisms, this

aesthetic also attempted to integrate construction
within its surrounding habitat.

• For example, the airport in Kuala Lumpur achieved

this by blending its terminals in with the surrounding
rain forest.
 symbiosis
symbiosis
The airport in Kuala Lumpur
Built in 1998
The symbiosis of opposing pair- like tradition and technology delicasy
and boldness ,order and disorder ,architecture and nature

The guidelines set out three objectives:

• A mutually beneficial co-existence with the tropical forest and
ecosystem
• Compact development and efficient land use
• Harmony of form and imagery in all KLIA and surrounding buildings

Symbiosis and forest buffer zone

• Forest and landscape rings
• Forest as landmark
• Distinctive airport architecture
• View corridors
• Zoning and phasing strategies for megastructures

underlying goal of creating ‘A FOREST IN AN AIRPORT AND AN AIRPORT

IN A FOREST’, with trees being strategically located inside and around
the buildings.
 symbiosis

Hiroshima City Museum of Contemporary Art

(1988–89)

It was the first art museum built there since World War
II.

To represent the dropping of the atomic bomb on the

city, Kurokawa designed an empty circular space at
the core of the steel-and-concrete museum
 The philosophy of symbiosis
Not just an architect,also a great philosopher,educator.

The philosophy of symbiosis-from the age of machine to the age of

life.

1987 book was published

1993 awarded-japan grand prix for literature.-

later it was translated to english.

In it he explained his concepts of architecture- the metabolism and

symbiosis.

He says the architecture will move from the universal international

style to inter cultural style that aims for symbiosis of the universal and
the regional.
 During 2007
In 2007 he ran for governor of Tokyo and then for a
seat in the House of Councillors in the Japanese
House of Councillors election, 2007.

Although not elected, Kisho Kurokawa successfully

established the Green Party to help provide
environmental protection.

Also in 2007, Kurokawa created the structure of the

Anaheim University Kisho Kurokawa Green Institute,
which helps to develop environmentally-conscious
business practices.
 philosophy
Tradition may not appear to be present, but,
underneath the hard skin of the surface, his work is
indeed Japanese.

However, it is difficult to claim that the modern

technologies and material he called on was inherited
from the Japanese tradition and that the traditional
forms of Japanese architecture can be recognized in
his contemporary concrete or steel towers

His architecture focused on keeping traditional

Japanese concepts invisible, especially materiality,
impermanence, receptivity and detail. Kurokawa
specifically referred to these four factors in his
discussions of new wave Japanese Architecture.
 impermenance
•Meaning-Not permanent

•Most Japanese cities were destroyed during World War II

•Japan’s cities have almost yearly been hit with natural disasters such
as earthquakes, typhoons, floods and volcanic eruptions.

•This continuous destruction of buildings and cities has given the

Japanese population, in Kurokawa's words, “an uncertainty about
existence, a lack of faith in the visible, a suspicion of the eternal.”

•buildings and cities should seem as natural as possible and that they
should be in harmony with the rest of nature, since it is only temporarily
there, helped create the tradition of making buildings and cities of
“temporary” structure.

•This idea of impermanence was reflected in Kurokawa’s work during

the Metabolism Movement.
•Buildings were built to be removable, interchangeable and
adaptable. The concept of impermanence influence his work toward
being in open systems, both in time and space.
 materiality
HONESTY IN MATERIALS stemmed from the idea that nature is
already beautiful in itself

Japanese feel that food tastes better, wood looks better,

materials are better when natural.

There is a belief that maximum enjoyment comes from the

natural state.

Kurokawa’s work which treated iron as iron, aluminum as

aluminum, and made the most of the inherent finish of concrete.

Kurokawa’s capsule building, In it, he showed technology with

“no artificial colors.“

elevator unit and pipe and ductwork were all exterior and
exposed. Kurokawa opened structures and made no attempt to
hide the connective elements, believing that beauty was
inherent in each of the individual parts.
 receptivity
Willing to accept new ideas

receptivity is a crucial Japanese idea—possibly a “tradition."

while establishing friendly relations with the larger nations,
preserve its own identity
grow from a farming island into an imperial nation
receptivity but, at one point, tries to diverge and find its own
identity.
Metabolist movement
Kurokawa’s work became receptive “to his own philosophy, the
Principle of Life.“
He saw architecture and cities as a dynamic process where
parts needed to be ready for change. He mostly used steel in
open frames and units that were prefabricated and
interchangeable.
 detail
Attempt to express individuality and expertise
In Japan the execution of details was a process of working not from the
whole to the parts but from the parts to the whole
Japan is a country that moved from a non-industrial country to a fully
industrial nation in less than 50 years
This sharp jump from producing goods by craftsmen to industrially realized
production was so rapid that the deep-rooted tradition of
fine craftsmanship as a statement of the creator did not disappear.
As a result, the Japanese maker continues to be instilled with a fastidious
preoccupation for fine details, which can be seen in contemporary
architecture, art and industry.
The attention to detail, an integral part of Japan's tradition, forms a
uniquely indigenous aesthetic.
Kurokawa’s architecture features carefully detailed connections and
finishes.
 In 2007

He died of heart failure on October 12,

2007
And he was 73.