The latest architecture-related video from the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art's Louisiana Channel profiles Japanese architect Riken Yamamoto, the 2024 Pritzker Architecture Prize laureate. Speaking in his Tokyo studio, Yamamoto speaks about his upbringing, education, influences, travels, and the ideas of community driving his architecture.
The title of Louisana Channel's interview with Riken Yamamoto comes from a statement by the Pritzker Prize-winning architect about halfway through the video, after we have learned about the influence of his parents and Kenzo Tange, but before he explains the work occupying his time now. “There is no house in the world that exists in isolation,” he says. “Housing always exists in a village. Everyone is a member of a family.” Such simple words find expression in residential projects by his studio, Riken Yamamoto + Field Shop, where the space between houses and apartments is as well considered as the units themselves. It is projects like the Pangyo Housing in Korea and Jian Wai SOHO in Beijing that led the Pritkzer Prize jury to describe Yamamoto's architecture as “[both] background and foreground to everyday life, blurring boundaries between its public and private dimensions, and multiplying opportunities for people to meet spontaneously, through precise, rational design strategies.”
Watch the 17-minute video below or on the Louisiana Channel website, and be sure to read our interview with Riken Yamamoto from earlier this year.