Contributing Editor Naomi Pollock, FAIA, is the author of Japanese Design Since 1945: A Complete Sourcebook and the forthcoming Vanishing Japan: Modern Architecture Gone But Not Forgotten,
Opened on April 4, Coach’s Omotesando Flagship shop is the latest addition to the stunning array of designer boutiques lining one of Tokyo’s most elegant shopping streets. Occupying a prime, corner site at the base of the new commercial complex Oak Omotesando, the shop interior was created by Coach’s in-house design team. But its standout visual features—an elegant, transparent façade and an internal stair tower—were designed by OMA New York. Composed of glass boxes arranged in a bold, herringbone pattern, the entire exterior surface doubles as display, enabling not just the brand, but also individual bags and boots, to have
Toyo Ito has been awarded the 2013 Pritzker Architecture Prize, announced Thomas J. Pritzker, Chairman of the Hyatt Foundation, which sponsors the award.
A Breath of Fresh Air: A Tokyo firm replaces an outdated schoolhouse with a vibrant, flexible facility that satisfies stringent seismic codes and provides a healthy environment.
In Japan, where the birthrate is dropping and the elderly population is rising, more schools are closing than opening. But in Kumamoto prefecture on the nation's southernmost island, Kyushu, the city of Uto was faced with an aging elementary school and nearly 800 youngsters to educate.
The first thing you notice about architect Yuko Nagayama is her youth. She looks far too young to have built a five-story commercial building in Tokyo's upscale Minamiaoyama area, a stunning boutique for Louis Vuitton in the heart of Kyoto, and shops for the handbag brand Anteprima all over Asia.
Soft concrete may be an oxymoron, but Ellipse Sky, a four-story residential building designed for an obstetrician, his family, and several tenants, deftly pokes holes in that notion.
Faced with a dwindling birth rate and a rising elderly population, Japan has been closing schools right and left. But thanks to a group of concerned citizens, architects, and academics, the Hizuchi Elementary School—an exquisite example of Japan’s homegrown brand of Modernism located in a small town on the island of Shikoku—was restored beautifully instead. On November 13, the efforts of the Architectural Consortium that spearheaded the historic building’s salvation will be honored when they are presented with the 2012 World Monuments Fund/Knoll Modernism Prize at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City. Completed in the late 1950s,
Meiji is Japan's largest chocolate manufacturer, and its 100% Chocolate Café, designed by the Tokyo-based firm Wonderwall, is a cocoa connoisseur's dream come true.
Located at the edge of Tokyo, the Futakotamagawa Rise Galleria had the misfortune of being completed just six days after the Great Hanshin Earthquake jolted Japan on March 11, 2011.
Open House: A clear breach of form within a discreet city, this simple glass house raises the bar on transparent living for a working couple—and their neighbors.
There's no running around naked in Sosuke Fujimoto's House NA. The 3-D matrix of tiny rooms and exterior terraces—all located on different floor levels—is encased almost entirely with see-through glass.