LANDSCAPE GOES DOMESTIC

October 9 (Sat) - 23 (Sat), 2021

Artists

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ULTRA STUDIO

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Being active in a time and region in which it that was difficult to engage architecturally in the city, Radical Architects of Italy in the 1960s intervened in the enormous landscapes through minuscule interior elements and produced a critical body of images with this inverting strategy.

The cartesian grids that covered the landscapes were depicted through a sequence of furniture-scale objects, but were simultaneously scaleless entities that could be expanded and contracted into interior objects. Them together created an unmediated connection between domestic and science fiction like visions.

Today, half a century later, cities are not covered with the homogeneous spaces as the radicals envisioned. In the first place, large-scale urban interventions in the city themselves seem to have been abandoned, and the architects' visions seem to be constrained to singular architectural projects and its surroundings. We decided to focus on this clash between "interior" and "landscape", and furthermore, to explore design methods through urban intervention by inverting their strategies: tiny interiors are found in extensive landscapes.

The modernist thesis "form follows function” and the concept of “universal space”, a space that responds to varieties of functions, the fusion of the two has produced a generic group of buildings. However, once we exit the buildings and take a glance at the city, we will find that the rational correspondence between form and function is nothing but a myth.

On a map of a city, we superimposed a grid. At each intersection, we dropped a star column, and observed the collision with various elements of the city. From this, we unearthed mundane forms scattered throughout the city as architectural "symbols".

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By inhabiting within (=domesticating) them, we have given "functions" to the "symbols" a posteriori, and have drawn a new image of the city created by the "cluster of symbols”.

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Artists

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ULTRA STUDIO

The architectural office consists of Yuji Mukaiyama, Alyssa Ueno, and Yushi Sasada. Formed in 2013, they have gained experience in Japan and Europe, and started their practice in 2018 based in Tokyo. The office is working to create architectural interventions while critically rethinking the urban culture. 

Yuji Mukaiyama

1985      Born in Hiroshima, Japan

2008      Graduated from Department of Architecture, Faculty of Engineering, The University of Tokyo

2008      Junior architect at kwas / kensuke watanabe architecture studio

2011      Exchange Program in Department of Architecture, ETH Zürich

2012      Internship at Christian Kerez

2013      Graduated from Department of Architecture, Graduate School of Engineering, The University of Tokyo

2013      Architect at kwas / kensuke watanabe architecture studio

2015      Architect at DORELL.GHOTMEH.TANE / ARCHITECTS

2021      Part time lecturer at Department of Architecture, Graduate School of Engineering, The University of Tokyo 

Alyssa Ueno

1986      Born in Tokyo, Japan

2010      Graduated from Department of Visual Cultures, Goldsmiths, University of London

2013      Completed Part 1 studies at Architectural Association School of Architecture (RIBA Part 1)

2013      Architectural assistant at Foster and Partners

2018      Graduated from School of Architecture, Royal College of Art (RIBA Part 2)

Yushi Sasada

1987      Born in Fukuoka, Japan

2011      Graduated from Department of environmental design, School of design, Kyushu University

2012      Exchange Program in Department of Architecture, ETH Zürich

2013      Internship at Pascal Flammer Architect

2014      Graduated from Socio-Cultural Environmental Studies, Graduate School of Frontier sciences, The University of Tokyo

2014      Architect at Jun Aoki & Associates

2021      Research associate at Tokyo University of the Arts Jun Aoki Lab

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