Kuma. Complete Works 1988–Today

Famous First Edition: Numbered first edition of 5,000 copies.

Following Tadao Ando, Toyo Ito, and Fumihiko Maki, Kengo Kuma has infused Japanese architecture with new strength and lightness. Departing from the modernist skyscrapers of the 20th century, Kuma traveled across his native Japan to develop a truly sustainable approach, translating local craftsmanship and resources into site-specific and contemporary buildings. Grounded in both an awareness of tradition and a firm footing in the present, the "Materialist" announces a new tactile architecture characterized by engaging surfaces, innovative structures, and fluid forms that reconnect people with the physicality of a home. His primary claim, as Kuma emphasizes, is "the respect for the culture and the environment of the place where I work."

In this spirit, Kuma designed the Folk Art Museum of the China Academy of Arts with light- and air-permeable walls made from discarded roof tiles, created a chapel from birch trunks and moss in the Japanese province of Nagano, and collaborated with local craftsmen to shape the V&A Dundee as a winding, layered reminiscence of the rugged Scottish cliffs. With his extraordinary sensitivity to space, light, and texture, Kuma extracts unexpected qualities from materials—the weightlessness of stone in Chokkura Plaza or the softness of aluminum in the thatched roof of the Yangcheng Lake Tourist Transportation Center.

His vision of sustainable architecture was recently brought to an unprecedented project of significance: Japan's National Stadium for the Olympic Summer Games, originally planned for 2020. According to Kuma, the stadium could "be the catalyst that transforms the current concrete city of Tokyo back again. With this example, I hope to help change the direction of Japanese architecture.".