NEAR EAST UNIVERSITY

FACULTY OF ARCHITECTURE

STUDY SUBJECT:
KENGO KUMA

KENGO KUMA HISTORICAL RESEARCH ESSAY OF

20th CENTURY ARCHITECTURE
HISTORY OF CONTEMPORARY ART AND
ARCHITECTURE
(ARCH 305)

BY: MALIK MELLI

DEPARTMENT OF ARCHITECTURE
STUDENT NUMBER: 20175377

LECTURER: ASSIST.PROF.DR. HAVVA ARSLANGAZİ

UZUNAHMET

Date: 01/06/2020

2020 SPRING SEMESTER

FINAL SUBMISSION
CONTENT

ABSTRACT__________________________________________________(P1)

LIST OF FIGURES___________________________________________(P1)

INTRODUCTION____________________________________________(P2)

INTRODUCTION 20TH CENTURY ARTS AND ARCHITECTURE___(P2-3)

HISTORY OF JAPANESE ARCHITECTURE____________________(P3-5)

INTRODUCTION 20TH CENTURY JAPANESE ARCHITECTURE____(P5)

KENGO KUMA AND 20TH CENTURY ARCHITECTURE__________(P5-6)

WHO IS KUMA____________________________________________(P6-8)

KENGO KUMA HISTORY AND PRINCIPLES OF DESIGN______(P8-13)

KENGO KUMA ACCOMPLISHMENTS_______________________(P13)

KENGO KUMA NOTEWORTHY FEATURED DESIGNS________(P13-17)

KENGO KUMA IDEOLOGY AND MOVEMENT_______________(P18-19)

CONCLUSION____________________________________________(P19)

BIBLIOGRAPHY__________________________________________(P19-20)
Abstract
Historically there have been many remarkable advances in architecture and

architecture (not to mention the advancement of the arts and important artists).
However, a new era of architecture was in the 20th century. The modern movements

of futuristic ideologies became the nature of present-day architecture. There are

numerous noteworthy 20th-century architects and several unique movements in

which some have created, participated, advanced, or learned to sculpt the

magnificent art of the buildings we see in our modern everyday societies.

Nevertheless, this research paper will thoroughly break down, in general, the

revelation of 20 th-century architecture (otherwise known as Modern Architecture)and

in Japan, then concentrate on a simple but yet extravagant architect (Kengo Kuma).

List of Figures

Stone Museum (2000)

Great (Bamboo) Wall House, Beijing (2002)

Food and Agriculture Museum, Tokyo University of Agriculture (2004)

Nagasaki Prefectural Art Museum (2005)

Nezu Museum, Minato, Tokyo (2009)

Yusuhara Wooden Bridge Museum (2011)

Asakusa Tourist Information Centre, Tokyo, Japan, (2012)

Cité des Arts et de la Culture, Besançon (2013)

China Academy of Arts’ Folk Art Museum, Hangzhou, China, (2015)

The Darling Exchange, Sydney, Australia (2018)

OMM, Turkey Anatolia (2019)

Introduction

Kengo Kuma (born 8 August 1956) is one of

Japan's most significant contemporary
architectural figures. His reinterpretation of the
21st century conventional Japanese
architectural elements required significant
creativity in the use of natural materials, new
ways of thinking about light and lightness, and
design that enhances rather than dominates. His structures, as other contemporary Japanese
works do, do not seek to blend into the landscape by simplistic movements, but rather his
architecture aims to turn conventional forms through state-making architecture that still
connects with the environment on which it is constructed. These high-tech remixes of
conventional elements and styles have proven popular in Japan and beyond, and his latest
works have started to spread to China and the West from Japan.

However, before we can understand the inducement of Kengo Kuma's superior style of
contemporary architecture, we have to understand the movements and ideologies of 20th-
century architecture and also the history/traditions of Japanese architecture. Kuma's
perspective on architecture revolves around traditional Japanese architecture and the use of
modern style to incorporate his buildings. As modern architecture is looked on as structure-
based, innovative, and the future of architecture, Kengo Kuma has taken that into an
advantage of not creating the usual closed in space but instead impeding a style that blends
with the environment.

Introduction To 2Oth Century Art and Architecture

Potentially one of the most eventful times of art and architectural
history, the twentieth century saw the emergence and
development of new styles in contemporary art and design
internationally and locally. Throughout the 20th century, art and
architecture simultaneously exuberated the essence of
progressive cultural movements which symbolized dynamism,
optimism, and a new sense of aesthetics introduced by
technological innovation amid modernity. All created by
countless movements going through radical changes around the globe.

İn the rise of this period was the rise of many great architects that either created those
movements and ideologies or were influenced by them to capitalize and learn from it.
Movements and ideologies such as Modern Architecture, Expressionist Architecture, De
Stijl Avant-Grande Architecture, Bauhaus Architecture, Art Deco Architecture, and
International Style Architecture were just several of many movements of contemporary
architecture that lead the architectural world in the 20th century. The unique impact of their
complementary relationship continues to influence contemporary style and design across the
world.

History Of Japanese Architecture

Japanese design has a distinct background

from Western architecture in how it was
organized, the accessible resources, and, of
course, the forces that transformed the way
architecture appeared over the ages. (Japanese
architecture is a natural world understanding
as a source of spiritual insight and an
instructive mirror of human emotion.)

Japanese architecture, like most of the Japanese art and culture, has a long history and is well
known. The architecture in Japan has long been heavily influenced by China, but in certain
respects, it has also gone its ways, such as the availability of materials and the building's
function.

Japanese Architectural Background the distinct 'look' of Japanese architecture started early-
about 57 BC. Before this point, Japanese homes were made of dirt-floored wood and very
little differentiated from similar homes a thousand miles away.

Architects were inspired by the Koreans at this stage and until about 660 AD; houses were
built of stone and timber and while most of these early designs are long gone, they appear to
live on in documents and drawings. Wood is the most important element in Japanese
architecture as the islands' volcanic existence means that nothing is to be found for suitable
stone construction.

Nevertheless, the most important structures were the shrines designed to show the very finest
Japanese architects had to give. While frequently broken down and rebuilt every two decades
or so, the restoration was true to the original design and they did not alter too much over time.
These two were made of wood, and were often accompanied by beautiful gardens.

The style of these shrines also influenced the construction style of both domestic and even
modern architecture with the design of the tower and the building materials. It has also
inspired western architecture, using them as a model for his work by notable architects
including Frank Wright. Japanese architecture has gone through various periods of innovation
over Japan's history. In the early 7th century, early wooden buildings such as shrines and
temples built by the nobles ruled.

This period is known as the architectural periods of Asuka and Nara, which were also periods
of Japanese art and culture that blossomed. The Heian period (9th century) was a
continuation of this and also the period in which the Chinese influence began as one of the
time 's leading architects traveled and learned about design in China, bringing his ideas back
to Japan. Wood temples started to appear in larger numbers, albeit with new designs, but
reminiscent of the old at the same time.

The Kamakura and Muromachi periods followed this period, distinguished by much-
simplified architecture, reflecting the fact that the society had come under the rule of the
warrior class, the samurai. The key advancement in this period was the building and design of
the tea house which in this period and after was a significant aspect of noble life. Castles of
Japanese zen architecture began to emerge during the Azuchi-Momoyama period (17th
century).

These were quite distinct from Europe's medieval castles though-they were constructed with
the wooden forces in the shrines form with cropping roofs down. They were meant to
accommodate feudal lords and their soldiers whilst still keeping their shrines elegant. When
Japan joined the contemporary period, the number of fires in the cities contributed to a rise in
Wood materials.
There will nowhere in the west by the magnificent ancient temples and shrines that inspired
the architecture of the castles and homes. Although the Japanese architects were influenced
by the Korean and Chinese architects, their strong dependence on materials other than stones
and the resound of their religion in military buildings once again took things in a different
direction. This created a unique and beautiful architectural style that is enjoyed everywhere
by tourists and residents.

Introduction To 20th Century Japanese Architecture

After World War II, Japan rapidly modernized its

Western architecture by adopting the Tokyo
Metropolitan Government building and its influence,
which led to many genuinely awe-inspiring buildings
in metal and concrete. The Japanese architecture is
unique in western architecture, partly due to the
materials used primarily and then due to the style in
which buildings are built.

The Japanese-Western Eclectic Architecture and metabolism movement were created in

Japan. These movements have seen Japan leave behind a part of its traditions, such as the use
of wood as the main part of its buildings, but instead take on the new aspect that is
dramatically increasing around the world, such as the use of steel and concrete as the
principal elements of the building. But the incorporation of Japanese practices in new
inventions has been a hit in other philosophies such as metabolism and naturalism since
models work best in harmony with nature and light.

Kengo Kuma and 20th Century Architecture

In the twentieth century, Europe and America were facing a challenge to abstract
architectural elements from their simplest versions, as the world became international styles
of modernist design. This challenge was not necessarily shared among Japanese architects.
The idea of simplicity, integrity, and purity has driven architecture for much of Japanese
culture. Japan may claim as a tradition what the rest of the world calls modern. The creation
of modernist architecture in Japan, of course, has presented many challenges. Yet these
architects have distinguished themselves by the artful fusion of contemporary styles in terms
of their practices. Japan itself is doing more than almost any other nation to maintain and
reinterpret its traditions. Instead of simply allowing traditions to stagnate again and again.
The sense of contemporary Japanese nationalism is therefore just one aspect of a broader
intellectual revolution in Japan.

Furthermore, this leads to further understanding of who Kengo Kuma is. The famous
contemporary architect (Kengo Kuma) just as his fellow famous Japanese architects such as
his idol Kenzo Tange, did not take on the Japanese-Western Eclectic Architecture style and
movement, they incorporated Japanese traditions into their modernized architecture and since
then Japanese architects styles and ideologies standout due to the unique sense of harmony
that the traditional style mixed with the modern style presents. Kengo Kuma believes the 20 th
century was an era in which steel and concrete were the main elements of architecture,
however, sets he believe to the fact that in the 21 st-century wood will be the leading element
of architecture.

Who Is Kuma

Kengo Kuma (1954) is one of Japan's leading contemporary architects, born in Yokohamas,
in Kanagawa prefecture. He studied at Colombia Unipolar for 2 years as a visiting scientist
(1985-86) after completing his diploma (1979) from the University of Tokyo. In 1987 he
founded the studio for spatial creation (now Kengo Kuma & associates) and in 2008 he
opened his studio in Paris.

His vision for design expresses the emotional content of materials, connected with
constructional characteristics and the teachings of Japanese traditions. For years, Kuma's
desire to find an alternative to this material which "dominates" the world "almost tuning" into
the materials themselves has engaged in serious criticism of what is called the "concrete
construction process" for years. To grasp the philosophy of his design, projects such as the
Stone Museum (2000) and the Ando-Hiroshige Museum (2000), both located in Nasu,
Tochigi, Takanezawa Plaza and Suntory Museum of Art, Tokyo (2007). In recent but highly
significant projects such as the Taoist Temple at Hsinchu (Taiwan, 2018) and Meditation
House at Krun, meditation places made from wood are included (Germany, 2019). Kuma
criticizes the excessive "objectification" of the novel, The Breakdown, and Disintegration of
Architecture (2008), that pervades Western architecture, prevents us "to create a healthy
relationship with the outside world." However, he proposes simultaneously "a desirable and
feasible alternate architectural form (...)."

Kuma uses alternative materials, such as iron, ceramics, bamboo, plastic, and vinyl in
addition to wood. His deeply rooted relationship with the Japanese tradition is the most
obvious and significant design innovation in Kuma 's projects. The use of light is crucial to
his body of work. By using natural materials or glass he attempts to achieve a sense of
"spatial immateriality." The Plateau House (2002) and the Asakusa Culture Tourist
Information Center (2012) are illustrative examples of that perspective, as well as distinctive
facades covered by semi-transparent glass panels, in Tokyo and the Fund Régional d'art
Contemporain (FRAC). His well-known and expressive façades show his distinctive
architectural features. Clear examples include the Vanke Complex (2014) in Wuxi and Soho
in Shanghai (2015). For Kuma, it's crucial to study the website so that it does not disturb the
balance and is natural to integrate a project in its environment.

The practical examples of this include the Great (Bamboo) Wall House, the Cité des Arts et
de la Culture, Besançon (2012), the Yusuhara Wooden Bridge Museum and the Tarougawa
City Museum. The "Water / Glass House," Atami, Japan (1995), which was built facing the
ocean and strongly affected by "Hyuga" Villa, is but one of the buildings most representative
of his architectural vision. This unique project, built during his stay in the eastern country in
the 1930s by the German urban planner Bruno Taut, (1880-1938), who still exists in Japan.

Taut has admired and studied the imperial villa in Katsura of the extraordinary 17th century,
and this is reflected in his Hyuga villa, "through the European sensitivity" (M. Melis). Kuma
created a structure "floating in a tank of water that falls off the roof," with the Water / Glass
House, and blurted the contours of the building with the ocean, not only framing it but putting
it into the environment.

As Kuma said himself, the structure is therefore a total environment in which all dissolves,
where spaces are not fragmented, where borders are removed. Over the years Kuma has had a
long academic career in addition to his practical and theoretical work. He has also been a
professor at Colombia University, at Illinois University as well as at Keio University. A
professor in Tokyo, he currently teaches.
Numerous award ceremonies include the Architectural Institute of Japan (1997), the Spirit of
Nature Wood Architecture Award, Finland (2002), the International Architectural Award for
the best new global designs (2007).

Kengo Kuma History and Principles Of Design

When he was 10 years old, Kengo Kuma began his fascination with architecture and his
father took him to the famous Yoyogi National Gymnasium in Tokyo, which had been
erected for the 1964 summer Olympics. The Tange Arena, with a high mast and violently
sloping roof, was a masterpiece of engineering and remains Japanese Modernism's most
breathtaking example, like a discus that emerges from earth maliciously. "The panel on the
ceiling reflects the light which bounces off the pool," he said, "Tange treated natural light like
a magician." “From that day, I wanted to be an architect.” At the age of 63, he was admired in
Japan, yet he has built comparatively little abroad and repeatedly said to "remove" his trade
in creating a "defeated architecture." He is now ready to gain international fame.

The interior of Fujiya ryokan. Kuma’s buildings are often deceptively simple and make use of ancient
materials, especially wood.

In the strong forms filling architecture magazines and journals, often the bright and spare
buildings in Kuma, predominantly wood-cut, look out of place. His architecture seems to
exude tradition and Japanese at first glance, but it turns out to be one of the allusions, tricks,
and uncertain thresholds and limits. Surfaces mislead and deceive; materials are repeated, like
an obsession, rejecting and reassuming gestures to the high Modernism. In the context of his
artistic humility, Kuma, a perpetual source of paradoxes and ironies, also makes demagogic
remarks. “I want to change the definition of architecture,” he said; in a way, he already has.
Wood is by its definition not a light. A common material of traditional Japanese architecture
that weather easily, visibly and constantly, requires constant care and replacement until the
firebombing of World War II, which means approximately 10 years before the birth of Kuma.
Kuma constantly advances against it, perfect for anyone who claims that "architects will be
tentative everywhere."

Pleasures of Kuma for shyness stem from a difficult resistance to the profession that he
decided about 50 years ago he wanted to enter. He began his training as a proverbial angry
young man, more inclined to define himself against trends, to say "no." While his exposure to
Tange's gymnasium was formative, by the time he was 16 in 1970 he had tried out Japanese
Modernism. In the same year, Kuma attended Expo '70 in Osaka, where Kisho Kurokawa and
Kiyonori Kikutake had shown some of the outsiders and most visually impressive structures
in architectural history. In the 1960s, Metabolists arose as avant-garde in Japanese
Modernism, with the name of a fluid design with a structural, metabolism connection to the
rising population. They created many stunning designs and futuristic dreams that expanded
the European Modernism projects into the wonderful domain of the population floating on
the seas or houses vaulted into the sky. However, Kuma saw only exhaustion in Osaka; the
architects he admired were interested exclusively in producing fantastic forms that were
separated from their environment or human needs.

During the late 1970s and early 1980s, Kuma found a copacetic model for his development in
the architectural school. In two months through the Sahel, the renowned theorist took Kuma
and his other students to visit and document the structures of the nomadic villages. Kuma was
able to draw on this familiarity of impermanent, humble homes as well as driving through
unknown rural areas to use them later in Japan.

When Kuma reached Columbia University in 1985 for a long year, he was in the middle of a
period of transition, with the high tide of postmodernity in architecture crumbling. In the
then-dominating kingdom of architectural postmodernism, Kuma spent his year in Columbia.
He encountered and consulted the day's leading personalities, inspected and watched them at
their workplaces, Philip Johnson, Peter Eisenman, Michael Graves, Frank Gehry. But in a
book that was a kiss-off to styles, he finally collected his interviews. It was released in Japan
in 1989 and named "Good-Bye Postmodernism" in a relatively violent way. Kuma thought
that American postmodernism is associated with a bubble economy and that the trend is
mostly Western. Nevertheless, in 1990 he began his identity firm in Tokyo and produced an
almost canonical example of postmodernism in a typical Kuma gesture for his very first
major building. It was called M2, but its scale and imagery much more than what it had been
called as a showroom in Mazda. A defiantly mad, apparently pessimistic structure, its
outstanding feature is a central, monstrously superior column with an ionic capital and a
stereotype composed of concrete panels that look like solid blocks on both sides. Postmodern
architecture has often been guided to ancient days, typically with an acidic or measured
defiant irony, yet Kuma 's crazy M2 movements were gruesome and intimidating. Knowledge
of his work later makes it hard to understand how such a spectacular folly would be used to
begin an architect, who is so fixated on humility.

The following year, when the Japanese economic bubble burst, another paradoxical liberation
occurred. The commissions in Tokyo have been destroyed over a decade, which was
proverbially recognized as Japan's lost decade because of its sluggish, persistent growth and
intermittent recession. Kuma had to focus on the time required and he built the philosophy
and thinking that would characterize his career.

The exterior of the GC Prostho Museum and Research Center.

Kuma theorized his work frequently during his years in Yusuhara, and his substantial body of
writing reveals that the same ideas and experiences have repeatedly changed as he is
constantly returning to wood to see what else it can achieve. Kuma's key goal is an
architectural dream, which he named in different forms 'defeated architecture,' 'poor
architecture' or 'anti-object architecture.' It's a story of returning, through modern
architectural works and the rather simplistic notion — although at times tortuously expressed
by Kuma through a detour into western philosophy and critical theory — that architecture
must cease to force itself onto a landscape and instead, through knowledge of the local
materials.
The intricate, eye-catching exterior of SunnyHills The lattice is made from pieces of untreated cypress.
And:
A detail of the Yusuhara Wooden Bridge Museum.

It is also a claim Kuma has created with his supporters and colleagues regarding the position
of design, part of an ongoing discussion on what is "Japanese" in art. It is viewed as a
disagreement with the practices of Modernisme and Postmodernism. In Japan, the only Asian
country which has adopted the Le Corbusier and the Bauhaus movement so thoroughly and
ardently, some of the most permanent monuments of the International Modernisme,
particularly in their use of concrete. This is partly because of war: American firebombing
devastated Japan 's timber cities and the government later limited timber in cities like Tokyo
as a building material. Since then Japan has been turned into the second-largest economy in
the world by Breakneck in the 1970s, and its exuberance for modernist architecture reflects
this increasing national trust like nothing else. But there has always been dissonance, as with
many modernizing movements in Japan. Have those huge concrete structures not been such
magnificent metropolises, foreign to Japan 's modest wood architecture? The complicating
fact was that the pre-war Japanese architecture had great influences on the modernist artists
— Bruno Taut, Richard Neutra, Frank Lloyd Wright. The most distinctive approach for
Kuma — to rely obsessively on local resources and to build with such resources at the
detriment of the overall type. He may not reflect on the structured aspect of his buildings but
on the actual interactions they offer — on textures, consequences, and moods — both of
which are in danger of creating delicate or modest structures. Apart from remembering
Japanese shapes and fabrics, it is precisely all of the modern obsessions he disregards —
smart designs, style rather than purpose — which represent what's "Japanese" in traditional
architecture. Not only is Small Architecture a fashion but it is the natural manifestation of his
approach and the proof of how much he struggles with other architects.

Kuma’s Asakusa Culture Tourist Information Center in Tokyo, which is 128 feet tall and was built in
2012.

The Modernism of Le Corbusier and Mies van der Rohe influenced cities and even little
cities across the world during the decades following the post-war period. Yet the 1970's
recessions eroded the faith of the period, and eventually, a informed, nuanced postmodernism
was introduced, albeit at least at its initial level. By the 2000s slippery deference had been
lost, and neo-modernism in glass and metal, as demonstrated in particular by Gehry, Hadid,
Rem Koolhaas, and Sir Norman Foster, sets the tone for a great deal of architecture up before
the 2008 financial crisis. Despite the ethereal condominium towers sprouting up over the
global capitals of the world, there is no question that the Great Recession once again dimmed
the profession’s intellectual hubris, and the last eight or so years have been a kind of
interregnum. Call her "after architecture": the period during which her most thoughtful
practitioners have still not finished looking for a new, ethical, and stylistic way. The special
style of Kuma appears to have preceded that of most of his foreign fellows and, contrary to
them, he appears to have found the solution. "Architecture should be made, real products
used, the hands used," Kuma said, “Before industrialization, most of the world had that
system.”

Kengo Kuma Accomplishments

Kengo Kuma was founded in 1990 and has been a significant contributor to the debate on
architecture. His office was formed by Kengo Kuma and Associates. In 2008, his office in
France was opened by a European subsidiary. Kengo Kuma & Associates have built a wide
array of buildings that reinterpret the traditional Japanese architecture for the twenty-first
century, such as the Suntory Museum of Art and Même Experimental House.

Kengo Kuma has been awarded a number for his work in Japan, with several international
awards, such as a Spirit of Nature Wood Architecture Prize 2002, the Architecture Institute of
Japan Award 1997, the Mainichi Art Award 2010.

Kengo Kuma Noteworthy Featured Design

Kengo Kuma & Associates, Asakusa Tourist Information Centre, Tokyo, Japan, 2012.

Kengo Kuma & Associates, The Darling Exchange, Sydney, Australia 2018
Kengo Kuma, The Bamboo Wall House, Commune by the Great Wall, Beijing, China,
2002
Kengo Kuma & Associates, China Academy of Arts’ Folk Art Museum, Hangzhou, China,
2015.
Kengo Kuma, OMM, Turkey Anatolia 2019.
Kengo Kuma Ideology and Movement
His early work was directed to a post-modern approach, but the breaking of the Japanese
bubble and "Last Decade" in the 1990s gave him a place where such extravagant architecture
was not hospitable. Another opportunity for Kuma to find and engage, rather than travel
abroad as many of his time, was to reenergize the style, moving from the main photograph to
repeated use of small components, as were the artist's small craftsmen, who gained
prominence during the economic trouble.
This has prompted him to work on reinventing natural products. The traditional Japanese
architecture is focused largely on rhythm and light, but the conventional use of natural
materials limits your range. Rather, Kuma started to take items such as stone and use them as
light woods or glass, to take small parts of them, and to use them as pellets. An excellent
example of this is his stone museum in Nasu (2000) that uses local stone to build soft and
porous walls that shift in the sun.

In the wake of his stated aim to 'slip from the fittings of concreted materials,' he strives to
create a human fit architecture with smaller dimensions, tactile and 'honest' material and light.
The Kengo Kuma and Associates' architecture is closely connected with the theoretical work
done by Kuma as a professor at Tokyo University where he operates the Kuma Lab Study
Centre, which is oriented to many areas of architecture, urbanity, and design.

Kengo Kuma publishes a variety of books and papers on and criticizes strategies of
contemporary design, including the 2008 Anti-Object Short Manifesto, which argues for a
design of connections, accepting rather than exploiting their surroundings. “My buildings are
always part of the place, part of the location. I want to merge buildings into the environment
as best I can. Harmony is always the goal of my practice,” says Kuma.
“I think my architecture is some kind of frame of nature. With it (architecture) we can
experience nature more deeply and more intimately. Transparency is a characteristic of
Japanese architecture, I try to use light and natural materials to get a new kind of
transparency.”
Kuma designs structures that emphasize natural light and natural materials in particular. He
strongly insists that they provide their tenants with physical and non-physical ease. His
signature unquestionably blends nature with architecture to harmonize them.

Conclusion

Kuma did not specifically follow a movement or ideology, as he was against the
contemporary design of concrete and steel that he felt stole the harmony of humans and
nature. To him, he always evicted the ideas and relations of post-modernism and modernize
designs, to the fact that even the metabolism design that was created in Japan, he was against
it. Kuma was rather a nature-friend, and Kuma promotes a project to draw inspiration from its
environment and context to eliminate the chances of building alienation on its premises. His
efforts revealed many innovative uses of Japanese conventional materials in the 21st-century
throbbing market. Instead of something affecting our everyday lives, it has introduced
innovative methods of combining the urban world and natural resources such as natural light
and design. Kuma is famous for producing architectural statements with traditional elements
and attracts global attention. He has rapidly gained international admiration and movement to
both China and the west by combining high-tech fashion with established construction
methods.

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