toyo ito: The new "real" in architecture

Saturday, November 4, 2006

Shapes and forms that seem to spring to life. Spaces that seamlessly integrate interior and exterior. Revolutionary architectural concepts and evolving technologies have in recent years helped realize buildings that once would have been impossible. Toyo Ito, a leading light of this new architecture, is currently advancing projects all over the world.
This exhibition examines Ito's new ideas in architecture by focusing on nine works, from the Sendai Mediatheque that opened at the turn of the millenium to his latest Project for Taichung Metropolitan Opera House


What's Ito's New "Emerging Grid" Concept All About?
Ito's latest Project for Taichung Metropolitan Opera House embodies this "emerging grid" via undulating three-dimensional wall-floor continuums that form wave-cave spaces, body cavities suffused with living energy that invite an ever more complex range of human activities. In this space, a nearly 4m large-scale model and computer graphics display this new principle to full effect.



Material Strength and the New "Real"
During the construction of the Sendai Mediatheque, Ito admits to being "overwhelmed" by the power of concrete and steel. Such material strength has proven an important theme in all his recent work. Looking at Ito's eight projects since Sendai, this 6m-high 35m x 12m-walled gallery provides a powerful experience of Ito's New "Real" in the form of "emerging grid"-design curvilinear structures from the rooflines of the Island City Central Park "Grin Grin" Building and Crematorium in Kakamigahara completed in rapid succession these last two years.



Toyo Ito in Overview: 35 Years of Toyo Ito & Associates, Architects
A 30m panel display tracing the Ito's works and thinking from the time he established his architectural office in 1971. Never before seen texts, photos, plans, sketches, model studies and snapshots encapsulate a year-by-year retrospective. Paired with interview videos of former staff members including Kazuyo Sejima, Astrid Klein, Mark Dytham and Makoto Yokomizo, this time frieze illuminates Ito's activities from many angles

http://www.operacity.jp/ag/exh77/index_e.html