Kazuo Shinohara

“A house is a work of art.” So declared Shinohara Kazuo (1925-2006), one of the most influential figures in post-war international modernism. And in Shinohara’s hands, it was. Projects such as «Umbrella House» (1959-61) and «House in White» (1964-66) combined rigorous geometry with traditional Japanese forms to create purist, poetic structures of modest scale but vast ambition. Yet Shinohara remains something of a cult figure. Though his works have inspired generations of architects, particularly those of current claim internationally, those who came of age in Japan’s post-Bubble period. Now this mathematician-turned-architect is finally receiving his first european institutional survey exhibition since his passing exactly ten year ago. Organized by gta exhibitions, ETH Zurich and the Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum at Washington University in St. Louis, «On the Thresholds of Space-Making: Shinohara Kazuo and His Legacy» features original drawings, sketches, period photographs and other archival material—much of which has never been publicly displayed before.

Drawn largely from documentation held at the Tokyo Institute of Technology, «On the Thresholds of Space-Making» is curated by Seng Kuan, assistant professor of architectural history in Washington University in St. Louis.