Kengo Kuma

Substance

By (author) Kengo Kuma and Associates

$75.00

Publishing 13th Jan 2026

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Kengo Kuma is a world-renowned architect often ranked alongside other esteemed Japanese architects, such as Shigeru Ban, Tadao Ando, Kazuyo Sejima, or Kenzo Tange
The publication explores Kuma’s work through six materials. Each project is accompanied by an insightful narrative about how it has been designed and constructed in terms of the specific material
Exquisite photography is supplemented with drawings and illustrations
Informative discussions highlight how Kuma’s architecture naturally merges with its cultural and environmental surroundings, with a close examination of the experimentation and use of natural materials and light, and how the buildings meet with their natural surroundings

Full Description

Kengo Kuma is an acclaimed Japanese architect whose work masterfully engages architectural experimentation, traditional Japanese design, and 21st-century technology. This results in highly advanced yet beautifully simple, gentle, human-scaled buildings.

Kengo Kuma: Substance, the follow up to Topography (2021), explores the work of Kengo Kuma and Associates through six materials: wood, fabric, metal, bamboo, stone, and paper. The beautifully illustrated volume presents more than 30 projects, from captivating wood pavilions, ethereal textile installations, and sculptural woven structures to abstract stone fountains, aluminum chain screens, and monumental wood-and-steel bridges.

The featured projects are from around the world and range in typology and scale. Highlights include the Taoist temple in Shinpu; Kusugibashi bridge in Yamaguchi; Ephemeral Tent in Shanghai; Namako pavilion for Design Canberra Festival; a bamboo tea house in China; and the Wakuni Shoten tobacco store in Tokyo; among many others. Each project is illustrated with exquisite imagery that showcases how Kuma’s architectural designs are conceived and crafted to reveal the inherent qualities of the materials.

As Kuma continues to forge a new design language, he offers readers insight into how he has engaged with different materials to further progress his ideas and advance the world of architecture and design.

About the Author

Kengo Kuma was born in 1954. Before establishing Kengo Kuma and Associates in 1990, he received his Master’s Degree in Architecture from the University of Tokyo, where he spent more than a decade as Professor of Architecture and where he is currently a Special / Honorary Professor. Inspired by Kenzo Tange’s Yoyogi National Gymnasium, built for the 1964 Tokyo Olympics, Kuma pursued architecture at a young age, and later entered the architecture program at the University of Tokyo, where he studied under Hiroshi Hara and Yoshichika Uchida. During his graduate studies, he made a research trip across the Sahara, exploring various villages and settlements, observing the unique power and beauty. After his time as a visiting scholar at Columbia University in New York, Kuma established his office in Tokyo. Since then, Kengo Kuma and Associates has designed architectural works in more than twenty countries and received prestigious awards, including the Architectural Institute of Japan Award, the Spirit of Nature Wood Architecture Award (Finland), and the International Stone Architecture Award (Italy), among others. Kengo Kuma and Associates has offices in Tokyo and Paris.

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