Away From Concrete And Towards Nature: An Architect's Vision of Yusuhara Town

Kuma’s relationship with the town is long-standing, beginning in the 80s when he visited in support of the preservation of Yusuhara-za, a performance theatre slated for deconstruction. Ever since, he’s taken up projects in the town, starting in the 90s and continuing through the millennium, and all of his buildings there have a holistic approach to architecture and a vast appreciation of nature. One can look out the windows of these buildings and see the countryside, and in the case of Kumo-no-Ue Hotel, the cloud-themed hotel, the view the stars at night in the semicircle pond.

The trees themselves aren't just the backdrop to the buildings. Local timber is utilised heavily in their designs, both in the interior and exterior. In the town office, a wooden pavilion stands in the centre of the lobby. In Machi-no-Eki Yusuhara, the community market’s interior space, cedar pillars create the sense of an indoor forest, and in Yusuhara Town library, jutting pillars of cedar cross each other to give the interior’s ceiling an organic, aggressive design.

Interior of Yusuhara Town Library. (Photo from: Kochi Visitors & Convention Association)

In two of the buildings, there are motifs rooted in tradition. The façade of the community market and hotel uses thatch, reminiscent of the roof structure of Minka houses, and Kumo-no-Ue-no-Gallery, the wooden bridge art gallery, which resembles the shape of a tree, made up of a beam supporting the structure’s interlocking pattern of eaves, both in the exterior and interior, feel both traditional and rare- traditional in the defining techniques of construction in temples everywhere in Japan, rare in the sense that the building’s interior represents the ethos of its exterior, where the simple pattern of eaves continue right onto the ceiling of the building.

It is clear that Kengo takes inspirations from everyday objects, both in nature and in construction. The cloud-themed hotel takes inspiration from airships and aeroplanes, with a roof shaped like an aeroplane wing, and large port windows that represent an airship.

Beyond appearances, these buildings ultimately serve the community of Yusuhara. Far from the rapid, dizzying pace of life in a modern city, what Kengo Kuma understands about these buildings is that they should bring people together and that what a building stands for is just as important as how it looks.

This is demonstrated most deeply in the integrated welfare facility, Yururi Yusuhara, a building with a façade of thin strips of cedar, with large square windows that create a warm interior look and which serves the elderly as a nursing home. What Kuma understands is that people are ultimately as much a part of history as the mountains and the trees, and architecture, in its communal aspects, can serve the spirit of bringing people together in a place that they want to be comfortable in.

An architectural model of Wooden Bridge Gallery, Kengo Kuma Museum. (Photo from: Kochi Visitors & Convention Association)

This approach can be seen in the other buildings, like the town library, which would be an obvious draw for those with quiet interests such as reading, but also includes a diorama of the town’s history as well as a bouldering wall for the more active-minded. 

The subject of community brings in question the state of the future of architecture, and its uneasy relation to our current pandemic-oriented world. For Kengo Kuma, this question is a personal one — with the Olympics on hold, the debut of his National Stadium is one that has to wait for better days. But in Yusuhara, where life goes on, as it does, it is certain that a future collaboration is on the horizon.

For more information on Kengo Kuma's projects in Yusuhara, follow the link here.

(Cover photo from: Kochi Visitors & Convention Association)