October 17, 2013 | 0 Comments

Small Architecture After 3/11 (Kengo Kuma lecture)

Kengo Kuma, Architect and principal, Kengo Kuma & Associates. “We have to start from scratch,” contends Kengo Kuma. The unprecedented damage wrought by the earthquake, tsunami, and nuclear meltdown on March 11, 2011 collapsed structures and shook faith in large-scale architecture and power systems—most devastatingly, the rational concrete and steel of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant. Kuma advocates for minimizing by designing modest, self-powered interventions that are made with local materials. “The whole world is shifting toward small things. We are no longer passive creatures who are spoon-fed from a giant yet unreliable system,” he argues. “A new relationship is being formed between people and the world.”