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How to Make a Japanese House
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From the Publisher. Nowhere in the world have architects built so many small and exceptional homes as in Japan, and nowhere with such ingenuity and success. How to Make a Japanese House presents 21 contemporary houses and situates them in the evolution of Japanese housing. Simultaneously, the book provides insight into the unique design approach of three different generations of Japanese architects. The interviews with architects such as Jun Aoki, Ryue Nishizawa and Sou Fujimoto clarify in a personal way the backgrounds of the designs. With her fascination for Japanese culture,
Cathelijne Nuijsink takes the reader on a journey into the contemporary Japanese house. Using a rich array of research, drawings, and photographs, How to Make a Japanese House demonstrates that Japanese homes offer a radically different way of thinking about architecture. The extremely small Japanese dwelling, by Western standards, can barely be considered a comfortable place. This requires knowledge of the traditional Japanese home, the family culture and the limitations of building in densely populated areas. The strength of the Japanese dwelling turns out not to lie in a rational quantity of square metres, but to be of a spiritual nature.
Japanese houses are some of the most popular pieces of architecture today, witnessed by a nearly endless stream of inventive designs found on blogs and in magazines. This book highlights more than 20 unmistakably Japanese houses designed by three generations of the country’s architects. Loads of insight into the issues behind the innovative designs—regarding the clients, cultural aspects, urban planning, etc.—comes through in interviews with the architects, carried out by Nuijsink after she moved from the Netherlands to Japan.
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