Architect Kengo Kuma, one of the most influential architects of the 21st century has been included in the list of TIME 100 listing, a much awaited annual showcase of 100 most influential individuals in the world. A report by SURFACES REPORTER
Born in 1954 in Kanagawa, Japan, Kengo Kuma is one of the most significant contemporary Japanese architects and professors at the Graduate School of Architecture at the University of Tokyo. Frequently compared to contemporaries Shigeru Ban and Kazuyo Sejima, Kuma is also noted for his prolific writings and his experimentation with various alternate materials like Bamboo, Timber and Carbon Fiber. Most recently he was in news for the Cedar panels claded the 68,000-seat Japan National Stadium for Tokyo Olympics.
Kengo Kuma was named in the Most Influential Innovators' Category alongside Jensen Huang, President and CEO, Nvidia and Elon Musk. This year’s TIMES 100 also features Prince Harry and Meghan Markle, Billie Eilish, Simon Biles, Kate Winslet, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and US President Joe Biden. A surprise entry to the list is Abdul Gani Baradar, the notorious Talibani leader who is currently taking the world by storm due to seize of Afghanistan last month.
As Kenjiro Hosaka, director of the Shiga Museum of Artwork and curator of Kuma Kengo: 5 Purr-fect Factors for a New Public Area on the Nationwide Museum of Fashionable Artwork, Tokyo, wrote in his official TIME 100 mini-profile of Kuma:
“Kengo Kuma champions a perfect of ‘shedding structure’—intricate buildings that disappear into their environs—though it’s arduous to overlook the brand new Nationwide Stadium in Japan when strolling by means of the center of Tokyo. His stylistic fingerprints will be seen all through the flowery challenge, designed by Kengo Kuma and Associates in collaboration with two different corporations for this 12 months’s Olympic Video games. Greenery dots the facade of the oval-shaped construction, the centerpiece of this 12 months’s Video games, permitting a sequence of wood eaves—a well-liked materials for Kuma, procured from prefectures throughout Japan—to higher mix in with the encircling backyard. The eaves slant upward to softly welcome guests inside, the place tens of 1000’s of forest-toned seats await. Such public tasks—which require architects to settle for sure situations and calls for, and restrict their freedom of expression—can nonetheless acquire pure sympathy and create a welcome new house for communities.”
Earlier architects to make the TIME 100 embrace Wang Shu (2013), Bjarke Ingels (2016), David Adjaye (2017), Elizabeth Diller (2018), and Jeanne Gang (2019).
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