Make Do With Now

Estonian Museum of Architecture hosts from January 19 to April 28 an exhibition “Make Do With Now: New Directions in Japanese Architecture”. The exhibition curated by Yuma Shinohara (Swiss Architecture Museum) introduces the ways of thinking and the works of the new generation of architects there. The exhibition is produced by the Swiss Architecture Museum.

Make Do With Now introduces the thinking and projects of a new generation of architects and urban practitioners working in Japan today. Born between the mid-1970s and mid-1990s, the architects featured in the exhibition largely entered professional practice following the 2011 Tohoku Earthquake and Fukushima nuclear disaster. This is a generation that must grapple with a range of urgent problems, including a declining, graying population and an emptying countryside; the proliferation of vacant houses across the nation; profit-driven urban development, mostly without the involvement of architects; a stagnant economy; and, of course, the global climate crisis.

Many architects of this cohort are developing a range of critical, ecological, and social practices that creatively “make do” – with limited resources, with found materials, or with existing spaces. In contrast to the clean lines and minimalist spaces mostly associated with contemporary Japanese architecture, these projects pursue a decidedly different aesthetic politics that is not afraid to leave things rough around the edges. These practitioners are articulating a new architectural agency that radically departs from the traditional image of the architect-author.

Talk:
January 19, 2024, 2:00 p.m
Chie Konno (teco), Wataru Doi (dot), Ulla Alla (Vares.space/GRBGKDS, Estonia) and Yuma Shinohara.

Opening:
January 19, 2023, 5:00 p.m