How Is Life?

A special exhibition curated by our Planning and Management Committee members Yoshiharu Tsukamoto, Manabu Chiba, Seng Kuan, and Tsuyoshi Tane.

Although we have come to enjoy plentiful lifestyles in the 21st century, we also face a variety of issues such as climate change, social inequality, epidemics, and the shifts in global dynamics brought on by these things. Concerned by this situation, we held a series of discussions with our committee members about the possibilities of what architecture could do for the Earth’s environment. It was during these talks that we recast our eyes over the various facets of our everyday lives while reframing architecture as something that serves to make people’s lives better, leading us to discover many budding model projects that may help us overcome the barriers encircling us today. This exhibition, themed “Designing for our Earth”, was developed out of our discussions and research, and it explores ways in which architecture and design can be employed to achieve prosperity not premised on growth.

The exhibition will showcase diverse precedents from various times and places that respond to the question “How is Life?” posed by the curators. Examples include the Capital Agricole exhibition held in France in 2018, which featured vivid illustrations of a future where Paris and its surrounding cities are interwoven with agricultural sites, and the Toson Memorial Hall (Gifu, Japan; design: Yoshiro Taniguchi), which was built in a postwar resource-deprived mountain village in 1947 by local men, women, and children, whose deep adoration for the late hometown author it commemorates struck a resonance with its architect.

By introducing such projects that offer possibilities that depart from traditional conceptions of architecture and the city—regardless of whether they are of the past, currently being developed, or still foreign to Japan—we hope that the exhibition not only opens up diverse interpretations and further discussions but also sparks a new awareness in each and every visitor, inspiring all to explore new perspectives for living together with our Earth.