Episode #9

Dean Amale Andraos speaks with Momoyo Kaijima who co-founded Atelier Bow-Wow with Yoshiharu Tsukamoto in 1992. The Tokyo-based firm is well known for it’s light, multifunctional design aesthetic combining a focus on urban conditions with the relationship between space and its inhabitants. Kaijima and Tsukamoto are teaching an Advanced Studio at Columbia GSAPP during the Spring 2017 semester, and Kaijima delivered a public lecture at the School in April 2017.

In this 9th episode of GSAPP Conversations, Kaijima talks about the relationship between research and practice as it is made visible in the books they’ve published (including Made in Tokyo), the difficulty and rewards of working in the Fukushima area following the 2011 tsunami and nuclear accident, and her interest in working across generations to develop a deeper understanding of the relationship between buildings and their inhabitants.

“Architecture itself is very static and hard, but it is changed and transformed to be more active by the surroundings. … How buildings are animated for the people and by the people – this kind of research is really, really important to making a kind of critique for today’s method of architectural design.”
–Momoyo Kaijima

Listen on iTunes.