With the title of A Japanese Constellation: Toyo Ito, SANAA, and Beyond, the MoMa exhibition will focus on the network of architects and designers developed around Pritzker Prize winner Toyo Ito.
MoMA Exhibition Information
- Gallery: MoMA, New York
- Dates: March 13th – June 4th, 2016
- Architect works: Toyo Ito, Kazuyo Sejima, Ryue Nishizawa, Sou Fujimoto, Akihisa Hirata, and Junya Ishigami
- Location: Floor 3, Architecture and Design Galleries
- Curators: Pedro Gadanho and Phoebe Springstubb
- Support: E. Rhodes and Leona B. Carpenter Foundation, The Japan Foundation, and Chris A. Wachenheim
- Sponsors: Obayashi Corporation, Kajima Corporation, Shimizu Corporation, Takenaka Corporation, the Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts, Kumagai Gumi, The Obayashi Foundation, and Toda Corporation.
The show presents a survey of architectural production since 2000, and reveals a network of influence and cross-pollination.
MoMa’s Exhibition Introduction
A Japanese Constellation focuses on the network of architects and designers developed around Pritzker Prize winners Toyo Ito and SANAA. Providing an overview of Ito’s career and his influence as a mentor to a new generation of Japanese architects, the exhibition presents recent works by internationally acclaimed designers, including Kazuyo Sejima, Ryue Nishizawa, Sou Fujimoto, Akihisa Hirata, and Junya Ishigami. Departing from one of Ito’s pivotal works, the Sendai Mediatheque, completed in 2001, and SANAA’s 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa (2004), the 44 featured designs range in scale from small houses to museums.
Organized through intersecting spaces separated by translucent curtains, drawings, models, and images reveal the structural invention, non-hierarchical thinking, and novel uses of transparency and lightness that link these practices. Exploring a lineage of influence and cross-pollination that has become particularly relevant at the start of the 21st century, the exhibition highlights the global impact and innovation of contemporary architecture from Japan since the 1990s. With its idea of a network of luminaries at work, A Japanese Constellation is intended to reflect the transmission of an architectural sensibility. It suggests an alternative model to what has been commonly described as an individuality-based “star system” in contemporary architecture.
