Sou Fujimoto Profile
Architect Index / Japan / Works of Sou Fujimoto
www.sou-fujimoto.net
Sou Fujimoto was born in Hokkaido, Japan, in 1971 and studied architecture at Tokyo University. He established Sou Fujimoto Architects in Tokyo in 2000. The firm has designed many private residences in Japan and Europe, including the Primitive Future House in Basel, Switzerland (2008). In 2010, Fujimoto completed in Tokyo the Musashino Art University Museum and Library, based on the concept of a single spiral bookshelf, and the “132 5” store for Issey Miyake. In 2010, he designed the exhibition space for the acclaimed exhibition of Japanese fashion, “Future Beauty,” at the Barbican Gallery in London.
The firm has garnered many awards, including the 2010 Rice Design Alliance Prize; the 2009 Wallpaper* magazine Design Awards for the Best New Private House (for Final Wooden House, Kamakura, Japan); and the winning award in the 2008 World Architectural Festival, Private House Category (also for Final Wooden House). The work of the firm was represented at the Venice Architecture Biennale in 2010.
Fujimoto is currently a Professor at the Illinois Institute of Technology. His 2008 book Primitive Future was the year’s best-selling architecture book.
Sou Fujimoto Bibliography – Selected Books
 |
Sou Fujimoto Architecture Works 1995-2015
|
| Attempting to form an overview of the experimentation that has gone into his efforts over the past two decades, Sou Fujimoto compiles a multifarious and richly illustrated collection of works concepts, new ideas, and unrealized projects that is remarkable both for its sprawling diversity and for its consistency in the pursuit of an ideal. As Fujimoto writes in his introduction, Beneath even the boldest, most daring proposals lie many years of patient trial and error. Each project description contains index numbers of other projects that bear a resemblance to it, enabling readers to trace an interconnected web of interrelated concepts through his entire body of work.
SHOP NOW → |
|
 |
Sou Fujimoto: Musashino Art Museum University & LibraryINAX, Tokyo, 2010, English and Japanese book
Nonfiction, Architecture
ISBN: 9784872751642
|
| The Musashino Art University Library is Fujimoto’s largest building to date and his first major institutional project. The library’s users criticized Fujimoto’s original concept for lacking functionality. This led to an improved redesign that delighted Fujimoto himself. The tranquillity, clarity, and structural force with which Fujimoto completed his “forest of books” is captured by photographers Daici Ano, Naoki Ishikawa, and Keiko Sasaoka, complementing the building’s plans and Fujimoto’s textual analysis.
SHOP NOW → |
|
 |
Sou Fujimoto: Primitive FutureINAX, Tokyo, 2008, English and Japanese book |
| Fujimoto’s manifesto for architecture—based on an approach that returns to a primordial moment—along with the architect’s works and projects to date. With contributions from Toyo Ito, Terunobu Fujimori, and Taro Igarashi.
SHOP NOW → |
|
 |
Sou Fujimoto: SketchbookLars Müller Publishers, Zurich, 2012, English and Japanese book |
| The works of Sou Fujimoto resist any form of conventional categorization. This young Japanese architect stands for unconventional buildings that cannot be described by standard criteria and definitions such as inside/outside or public/private. Clear divisions such as between floor levels and rooms are shattered by his complex ground plans and interlocking structures, which—about the idea of the cave—he describes as “Primitive Future.” With this approach, he creates forms that are committed to a playful interaction between user and space. Alongside private residences, such as the well-known N House, his library for Musashino Art University has achieved particular recognition. Besides, he was represented at the 2010 Venice Biennale with a design for a house.
In his personal sketchbook, Sou Fujimoto offers insights into his design process. Through the sketches, drawings, and notes, readers can trace how his complex concepts manifest and develop on paper. SHOP NOW → |
|
