Kengo Kuma
| Kengo Kuma | |
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Kengo Kuma in 2014
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| Native name | 隈 研吾 |
| Born | 1954 Yokohama, Japan |
| Alma mater | |
| Occupation | Architect |
Kengo Kuma (隈 研吾 Kuma Kengo?, born 1954) is a Japanese architect and professor at the Graduate School of Architecture at the University of Tokyo. Frequently compared to contemporaries Shigeru Ban and Kazuyo Sejima, Kuma is also noted for his prolific writings.
Kuma was born in Yokohama, and attended Eiko Gakuen junior and senior high schools. After graduating in Architecture from the University of Tokyo in 1979, he worked for a time at Nihon Sekkei and Toda Corporation. He then moved to New York City in the USA for further studies at Columbia University as a visiting researcher from 1985 to 1986.
In 1987, he founded the "Spatial Design Studio", and in 1990, he established his own office "Kengo Kuma & Associates". He has taught at Columbia University, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and Keio University, where in 2008, Kuma was awarded his Ph.D. in Architecture. As a professor at the Graduate School of Architecture at the University of Tokyo, he runs diverse research projects concerning architecture, urbanity and design within his own Laboratory, Kuma Lab. His office Kengo Kuma & Associates employs over 150 architects in Tokyo and Paris, designing projects of diverse type and scale throughout the world.
Kuma's stated goal is to recover the tradition of Japanese buildings and to reinterpret these traditions for the 21st century. In 1997, he won the Architectural Institute of Japan Award and in 2009 was made an Officier de L'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres in France. Kuma lectures extensively and is the author of numerous books and articles discussing and criticizing approaches in contemporary architecture. His seminal text Anti-Object: The Dissolution and Disintegration of Architecture written in 2008, calls for an architecture of relations, respecting its surroundings instead of dominating them. Kuma's projects maintain a keen interest in the manipulation of light with nature through materiality.
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