NAITO: HIROSHI NAITO: INNERSCAPE

Hiroshi Naito, one of the major exponents of contemporary Japanese architecture, has attracted attention in Europe and North America both through his technically advanced yet culturally and environmentally sensitive buildings, and through his inspiring critique of dominant trends in Western and Western-style Japanese architecture. In this book Naito explains and illustrates a design philosophy that conceives of architecture as a mediating form between the materials used and the landscape into which a construction is inserted. He seeks to design buildings that "breathe with" their natural as well as cultural surroundings. As such, Naito's approach is to be understood as a provocative alternative to an oftentimes rather technocratic ecological architecture of European and North American origin. This volume presents major projects from 1993 to 2005, among them the Chihiro Art Museum Azumino (Nagano Prefecture), the Makino Museum of Plants and People (Kochi Prefecture) and the Shimane Arts Center (Shimane Prefecture). All works are presented with highly detailed construction drawings, comprehensive technical data and numerous photographs. Hiroshi Naito is currently one of Japan's most active and innovative architects. His special passion is complex wooden structures and the use of ornate and artistic roofing tiles. Although he has not thus far designed outside Japan, his magnificent museums and cultural event buildings - but also his private homes in the Tokyo area - have created an international sensation. This publication documents selected projects from the years 1985-2005, including the new Shimane Arts Center, an extensive museum and theater complex in Masuda (Shimane Prefecture), which is scheduled to open in 2005; the municipal library in Tokamachi; the botanical museum in Makino; and the fishing museum in Toba. All of these projects are presented with authoritative technical drawings, which convey their details and material characteristics.