Junya Ishigami

Architecture like a cloud, like a horizon, like a wood, like a landscape, like water. To Junya Ishigami these are not metaphors. He draws inspiration from the way nature appears to man and aspires to an architecture that floats, that is infinite, light, that flows, is transparent, dissolves and has hardly any substance. It is not the logic of the design, the spatial theory or the structural principle of a building that should stand out. Ishigami wants his buildings to appeal through their new spatiality and environmental richness. He seeks out the limits of the possible - both human and technical - and calls this 'making a new reality'. It is a quest for the pure and essential in architecture. In the profound and varied world of architecture he operates with an endless sense of wonder. Junya Ishigami (1974) studied architecture at the Tokyo National University of Fine Arts and Music. He has worked for Kazuyo Sejima and Ryue Nishizawa/SANAA. In 2004 he set up his own firm, junya.ishigami+associates. He has made his name in our part of the world with experimental installations that lie somewhere between furniture, art and architecture. They have been shown in Basel, Milan, Venice and Kortrijk. His first major brief was for a place for study and work at the Japanese Kanagawa Institute of Technology. Since then he has completed building projects in Japan, France and the Netherlands.