"Architectural Ethnography from Tokyo". Japanese Pavilion for the Biennale Architettura di Venezia 2018

11/05/2018. 16th International Architecture Exhibition. La Biennale di Venezia 2018. [VEN] Italy 26.05 > 25.11.2018
metalocus, ANTONIO G DE JUAN
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The Japan Foundation is the organizer and commissioner of the Japan Pavilion at the 16th International Architecture Exhibition of the Venice Biennale, held in Venice, Italy from May 26 till November 25, 2018. We introduce the curator and the outline of the exhibition, as part of our 2018 Venice Architecture Biennale coverage.
A Drawing from A Little Bit of Beijing: 798, image via The Japan Foundation
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With the title "Architectural Ethnography from Tokyo: Guidebooks and Projects on Livelihood" Momoyo Kaijima (Atelier Bow-Wow) explains her ideas:
 
In the 20th century, the industrialization of society raised productivity and brought us convenient life with economic growth. However, the change has made us adapt our lives into an industrial network and created the barrier between people and environmental resources. One of the main roles of the 21st-century architecture is to break the barrier and to realize higher accessibility to resources.

We set a point of view on people, not industry, in order to understand livelihood ecologically and architecturally. This is called the Architectural Ethnography, and guidebooks are the social common tool. In guidebooks, an old but new, unique architecture (not ones dominantly defined by an ‘architect as a creator’) have been reported, from hybrid buildings within high density of city life to the space used for urban-rural exchange, fitted into their local contexts in Tokyo and throughout the world.

Based on these researches some projects to increase accessibility to resources around us are suggested. The purpose of this exhibition is to build platforms for active discussion of ecological issues in architectural and urban theory, and visualization of the 21st-century architecture.

The exhibition has 4 parts: 1. collecting guidebooks and mapping them, 2. analyzing and presenting the expansion of guidebooks (from Tokyo to other cities, from city to country, from survey to action), and interviews with producers of guidebooks, 3. reporting projects derived from guidebooks with miniature models, and videos, 4. creating “Yokocho” (bar and cafe alley), and keeping and posting regular reports on managing the Yokocho as a discussion platform for developing architectural and urban theory.
Momoyo Kaijima
 
A Drawing from Coupe!, image via The Japan Foundation
Exhibition Design Drawing. Image via The Japan Foundation Courtesy of GSA Unit 14, University of Johannesburg. Image via The Japan Foundation
A Drawing from The Building of the Queensland House: A Carpenter’s Handbook and Owner’s Manual. Image via The Japan Foundation
W HouseーEntrance Side. Image via The Japan Foundation
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More information

Curators Comisarios
Momoyo Kaijima (Atelier Bow-Wow, Associate professor, University of Tsukuba ETHZ Professor of Architectural Behaviorology
Curator team Equipo de comisariado
ETHZ Studio Bow-Wow. Laurent Stalder (ETHZ Professor of Theory of Architecture. Director of the Institute for the History and Theo ry of Architecture). Yu Iseki（Curator, Contemporary Art Center at Art Tower Mito).
Organizer/ Commissioner Organizador
The Japan Foundation

Momoyo Kaijima

Momoyo Kaijima (b.1961, Tokyo) graduated from the Faculty of Domestic Science at Japan Women’s University in 1991. She founded Atelier Bow-Wow with Yoshiharu Tsukamoto in 1992. In 1994 she received her post-graduate degree from the Tokyo Institute of Technology. During 1996-1997 she was a guest student with scholarship from Switzerland at Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, Zurich (ETHZ).

In 2000 she completed her post-graduate program at the Tokyo Institute of Technology. She served as an assistant professor at the Art and Design School of the University of Tsukuba during 2000-2009, and continued to teach there as an associate professor. In 2012 she received the RIBA International Fellowship.

From 2017 she has been serving as a Professor of Architectural Behaviorology at ETHZ. Taught as a visiting professor at the Department of Architecture at Harvard GSD (2003, 2016), guest professor at ETHZ (2005-07), as well as at the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts (2011-12), Rice University (2014 -15), Delft University of Technology (2015 -16), and Columbia University (2017). While engaging in design projects for houses, public buildings and station plazas, she has conducted numerous investigations of the city through architecture such as Made in Tokyo and Pet Architecture.

ATELIER BOW-WOW

Atelier Bow-Wow was established in 1992 by Yoshiharu Tsukamoto and Momoyo Kaijima in Tokyo. Best known for its projects in dense urban environments, the firm has developed its practice based on a profound study of existing cultural, economic, and environmental conditions—a study that led it to propose the term “pet architecture” for the multitude of odd, and functional little buildings wedged into tiny sites around Tokyo. Atelier Bow-Wow has also acquired an enthusiastic following through its Micro Public Space projects, as well as innovative projects for exhibitions such as the 2010 Venice Biennale (as an official representative of Japan) and the São Paulo Bienal, and at venues such as the Hayward Gallery in London, the Neue Nationalgalerie in Berlin, The Gallery at REDCAT in Los Angeles, the Japan Society in New York, and the OK Offenes Kulturhaus Oberösterreich in Linz, Austria.

Yoshiharu Tsukamoto
1965         Born in Kanagawa, Japan
1987         Graduate from Tokyo Institute of Technology
1987-88    Guest Student of L'ecole d'architecture, Paris, Bellville (U.P.8)
1994         Graduate from Post-graduate school of Tokyo Institute of Technology, Dr.Eng.
2000-        Associate Professor of Tokyo Institute of Technology
2003, 2007       Visiting Faculty of Harvard GSD
2007, 2008       Visiting Associate Professor of UCLA

Momoyo Kaijima
1969         Born in Tokyo, Japan
1991         Graduate from Japan Women's University
1994         Graduate from Graduate school of Tokyo Institute of Technology, M.Eng.
1996-97    Guest student of E.T.H
1999         Graduate from Post-graduate school of Tokyo Institute of Technology
2000-        Assistant professor of University of Tsukuba
2003         Visiting Faculty of Harvard GSD
2005-07      ETHZ Guest Professor
2009-         Associate professor of University of Tsukuba

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