| architecture |
| books |
| calligraphy |
| ceramics |
| clothing |
| comics |
| gardens |
| lacquerwork |
| movies |
| music |
| painting |
| poetry |
| sculpture |
| tea ceremony |
| television |
| theatre |
| weaponry |
| thematic routes |
| timeline |
| the site |
context: architecture > modern
Itsuko Hasegawa, 1941-
|
Hasegawa's astonishing cultural centre at Shonandai |
I think Hasegawa is my favourite contemporary Japanese architect. She is still a rarity, a woman at the top of her artform. She is particularly famed for her Museum of Fruit, for her Sumida Culture Factory , with layers of translucent perforated aluminium screens , and for the building shown here, a cultural centre. This was a huge project, with offices, a cinema, a museum, a theatre and some astounding public spaces like nothing else I've ever seen, including an extraordinary artificial postmodernist interior version of traditional Japanese gardens, complete with metal trees.