“No House Exists in Isolation”: Riken Yamamoto on the Failures of Contemporary Housing in Louisiana Channel Interview

Riken Yamamoto, born in Beijing in 1945 and raised in Yokohama shortly after World Battle II, is a Japanese architect celebrated for fostering group by means of structure. After founding his observe, Riken Yamamoto & Area Store, in 1973, he grew to become famend for works starting from social housing, resembling Hotakubo Housing and Pangyo Housing, to civic initiatives just like the Hiroshima Nishi Fire Station and Saitama Prefectural University, all unified by modular simplicity. Honored in March 2024 as the Pritzker Architecture Prize Laureate, he was praised by jury chair Alejandro Aravena for “blurring boundaries between private and non-private,” fostering spontaneous social interplay, and “bringing dignity to on a regular basis life” by enabling group to flourish by means of considerate design. On this interview with Louisiana Channel, the architect displays on the social position of structure, emphasizing the inseparable bond between housing and context, and the necessity to create areas that foster seen, significant relationships.

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On this interview, Riken Yamamoto delves into his private historical past and his enduring curiosity within the origins and evolution of housing. Influenced by early experiences and research of historic housing fashions throughout cultures and centuries, he emphasizes {that a} home by no means exists in isolation, it’s all the time a part of a village or a broader group. His investigations into communal life, notably in pre-modern societies, led him to problem the alienation seen in Twentieth-century city housing, the place proximity doesn’t equate to connection. He states that structure ought to encourage relationships amongst neighbors and combine features that make a constructing visibly energetic and socially engaged, resembling ateliers or public terraces.

Housing all the time exists inside a village. Whether or not the village is massive or small, housing all the time belongs to a village. Everyone seems to be a member of a household, however each household can also be a part of a group. A household exists underneath the safety of a group. Nevertheless, within the submit Twentieth century world, communities have change into much less seen. In modernized cities of the Twentieth century, not simply in Europe and America, but additionally in main Asian cities, most individuals dwell in condominiums and condominium buildings. However regardless of dwelling so shut to one another, they haven’t any connection. This has change into the prevalent way of life. 

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Yamamoto illustrates this philosophy by means of sensible examples, with designs which are open to the general public or properties that embrace seen workspaces, aiming to dissolve the boundary between personal and public life. He argues that structure should start by contemplating the kind of group it serves, reasonably than merely the construction itself. Though he acknowledges previous missteps, notably Japan’s postwar adoption of European, car-centered city fashions, he insists on the pressing want for brand new architectural programs that restore group ties. For Yamamoto, the way forward for structure lies in designing shared environments the place day by day life and mutual visibility reinforce social cohesion.

[During World War II] Many conventional streets have been destroyed. Wanting again now, the injury was immense. With these streets, conventional life have been additionally misplaced. After 1945 folks adopted new life, however they have been closely influenced by European concepts. Many European-style streets have been constructed. […] We thought the world would revolve round vehicles. We believed this for a very long time. However we have just lately come to understand it was a mistake. It took us so lengthy to understand this, that now we’re not sure how one can go about designing a city with out vehicles. It is not so simple as simply switching from gasoline to electrical energy or changing driving with strolling. So, we have to begin rethinking how one can develop cities. 

Louisiana Channel is a collection of video interviews on artwork, literature, structure, design, and music produced by the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art. Among the many interviews with figures in structure are: American architect Jenny E. Sabin, who shares her private journey from artist to scientist, explains how organic and materials programs could be utilized at an architectural scale, and discusses her instructing and analysis roles at Cornell College; Mexican architect Gabriela Carrillo, who explores the design of public areas and the position of preexisting parts in spatial transformation; and ecoLogic Studio, which presents a new approach to architecture that examines the connection between nature and concrete design. Famend architects resembling Shigeru Ban, David Chipperfield, and Rafael Moneo have additionally shared their views on the interaction between structure, society, and the bodily atmosphere.