Critical House: Words from 20 Contemporary Japanese Architects

In this book, 20 Japanese architects – including Toyo Ito, Kengo Kuma, Yoshiharu Tsukamoto and Kentaro Yamazaki – reflect the transformation of Japanese architecture since the 1900s.

Highly praised for its aesthetics and daring design, Japanese architecture has been rooted in socio-critical discourse since World War II. Especially in the 1970s, the house served as a means of criticism and strategic positioning on this “intellectual battlefield”. In the 1990s, Toyo Ito questioned this approach. What followed was a comprehensive debate on the changing relationship between housing, contemporary architecture and society, which was detrimental to criticism – and reflects the global shift towards so-called post-critical philosophy. In this book, 20 Japanese architects – including Toyo Ito, Kengo Kuma, Yoshiharu Tsukamoto and Kentaro Yamazaki – reflect on this change in interviews and essays, revealing a lively, albeit more subtle, form of criticism in contemporary practice.