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Original articles on art, artists, architecture, exhibitions, galleries, museums and cultural institutions around Tokyo, Japan.

GA Houses Project 2002

by John McGee

Installation view of GA Houses Project 2002 (Courtesy GA Gallery)

Pudding is an unlikely building material. Even in Japan, it probably isn't up to code. But for the creative process, it suits architect Norisada Maeda. The volumes he carved from molded flan are part of the inspiration for "The Rose," a house he designed in Minato-ku. 

Not every building in Global Architecture Gallery's GA Houses Project 2002 exhibition is so oishii-so (delicious looking), but most of them are interesting either conceptually or visually.

Houses, a favorite challenge for designers, often reveal a special quality of the architect's vision—think Frank Lloyd Wright's Falling Water or Philip Johnson's Glass House. Since 1990, GA's annual exhibition has introduced the most recent domiciles by some of the most cutting-edge architects in the world. More than 50 architects, mostly from the US and Japan, are included this year, from well-known, mid-career designers like Antoine Predock to young conceptualists like Kazuyo Sejima. Color drawings, computer-rendered fly-throughs, and models help visualize these still unbuilt projects, most of which are slated for completion in the next year or so.

Few general trends emerge from this diverse show, but there are some patterns. A number of architects treat contemporary materials in expressive ways. Red, oxidized steel cladding—a "coarse outer hide"—protects Sean Godsell's "Peninsula House" in Victoria, Australia from the elements. Floors made of alternating strips of maple, blackboards, carpet, steel and tennis court surfacing line the "Allington Residence" by Doug Jackson/Large in Phillips, Wisconsin. Translucent fiberglass panels cover the exterior of "The Plastic House" by Kengo Kuma and Kajima Design in Meguro-ku. 

Other designers refer to or incorporate nature in novel ways. Long rectangular boxes jam against each other like tree trunks deposited during a flood in Messana O'Rourke's "Savage House," sited along a tributary of New York's Hudson River. Antoine Predock's "Horn-Sabel Residence" in southern Colorado is a beaver dam of logs set at angles around a low-lying structure. A roof of enormous overlapping pointed metal leaves covers Wallace E. Cunningham's "Brandys Residence" in California. Eric Owen Moss and Koichiro Ichiguro both designed houses with glass stairways that climb through the entire house, ending as clear balconies jutting into thin air. 

Most of the houses in this show are being built in the US or Japan, countries with almost opposite spatial considerations. In America, architects seem to be working with inexhaustible funds and limitless land, creating unusual, extroverted exteriors like Steven Holl's truncated metal doorstop "Tuttle Guest House" in New Mexico and 10,000-square-foot interiors like Bohlin Cywinski Jackson's "Diamond Head Residence" in Hawaii. The density of Japan forces most architects here to think inside the box, reworking interiors. Tadao Ando's "4x4 House" in Chiyoda-ku, about as wide as a soba shop, maximizes efficiencies. And though the exterior of Ryue Nishizawa's "Ichikawa Apartment" is straight and flat, the walls inside curve and bulge. 

The GA building itself is a 1983 Sendagaya landmark of hard-edged raw concrete and flat glass. GA is one of the most respected architectural publishers in the world and, in addition to the gallery, the building has arguably the best architecture bookstore in the city. They stock a range of their own bilingual (Japanese-English) magazines and books—World Architecture, GA monographs on individual architects, etc.—and also maintain a tight stock from other companies. They don't, however, sell pudding. Try a hardware store.

GA Houses Project 2002 was held May-June 2002 at GA Gallery in Sendagaya, Tokyo, Japan.

©2007 John McGee

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