People/Products

An elderly congregation housed in an aged building, the Sunpu Church was in need of revitalization. Having been through many incarnations since it was founded in the 1890s, the Presbyterian congregation occupied a rental property in a quiet neighborhood in Shizuoka, a city of 700,000, 112 miles west of Tokyo. Hoping that a centrally placed building on church-owned land would not only save money but also attract new members, the group interviewed several designers and appointed the Tokyo architect Taira Nishizawa to the job.