WINDOW RESEARCH INSTITUTE

Louis Kahn and the Power of Shadow

Does shadow have the power to give form to architecture? The increasing number of transparent buildings and LED installations enforces the i…

Swiss Window Journeys: A Conversation between Andrea Deplazes, Laurent Stalder, and Momoyo Kaijima

On 12 April 2024 to celebrate the publication of Swiss Window Journeys: Architectural Field Notes the Chair of Architectural Behaviorology o…

Issue 14: A Window for Standing Still—Fieldoffice Architects, Paomagudao Park

This issue I’d like to introduce a park that I designed myself. Jiaoxi Yilan’s Paomagudao Park completed in 2021 was formerly th…

Architecture in Motion

Architect YU Momoeda who is a long-time admirer of Shoei Yoh participated in the Find and Tell residency program of the Canadian Centre for …

Shoei Yoh’s “Light Architecture”

Through this series “Shoei Yoh: A Journey of Light” we have compiled analyses of the work of architect Shoei Yoh focused on the theme of lig…

Shoei Yoh: Architecture of Light, the Real, and Monism

Architectural historian Yoshitake Doi who began teaching in Kyushu in the 1990s and witnessed firsthand as Fukuoka-based Shoei Yoh completed…

Issue 13: Democracy Under Canopies (Fieldoffice Architects)

Democracy and freedom have now spread throughout Taiwan a place where …

Terunobu Fujimori│008: The Ribbon Window of the Karuizawa Summer House—The Modernists’ Dream, Realized in Japan

In this series architectural historian Terunobu Fujimori who has traveled extensively to study buildings of various times and places will be…

From Interiors to Non-Architecture

Architect and architectural history researcher Masaaki Iwamoto who has been leading the development of the Shoei Yoh Archive sheds light on …

The Ingot Coffee Shop: Building as a Mass of Glass

Tomo Inoue a building construction expert engaged in efforts to digitally reconstruct Shoei Yoh’s works using 3D scanners explains the novel…

The Diversity of Windows in Kiyonori Kikutake’s Serizawa Literary Center (Serizawa Kojiro Memorial Museum)

Numazu Shizuoka—the birthplace of Kojiro Serizawa the author known for works such as Ningen no Unmei [The Fate of a Human]. Nestled in a pin…

A Culmination of Sutemi Horiguchi’s Aperture Designs: The Tokoname City Municipal Ceramics Research Institute (Tokoname Tounomori Research Institute)

The exhibition Explorations of Horiguchi Sutemi: Modernism Rikyu Garde…

The Windows of Tomoya Masuda’s Naruto Cultural Center: A Faintly Bright Louvered Space

The Naruto Cultural Center is a posthumous work by architect Tomoya Masuda. It is one of several buildings that the former Kyoto University …

The Windows of the Diffendorfer Memorial Hall and University Chapel at the International Christian University (ICU): Preserving, Passing On, And…

The International Christian University’s campus plan was originally designed by W. M. Vories & Co. and later developed by Antonin Raymon…

The Windows of the Cachat Buvette in Evian｜Jean Prouvé’s Windows #4

After resuming his creative activities with his new firm Jean Prouvé Constructions Prouvé presented an alternative version of the béquille i…

Issue 12: A Small Church for the Indigenous (Taitung)

It’s said that Christians now constitute around 7% of Taiwan’s population a rather high proportion compared to Japan’s sta…

“Light is Light and Light”

The Archaeology of the Digital exhibition held at the Canadian Centre for Architecture (CCA) in 2013 served as a catalyst for reevaluating t…

A window with a memory

I’ve enjoyed drawing pictures ever since I was little and used to make paintings using my own hands and brushes to apply oil to canvas and p…

Windows: Overlapping and passing through

Why wasn’t it a window? I organized an exhibition called Medium and Dimension: Liminal and wrote a text for the exhibition catalogue entitle…

Why Norman Foster Scoops Daylight into his Buildings

Norman Foster known for blending art and science in architecture has led the field since the late 20th century. His designs balancing high-t…

Windows of the Villejuif Temporary School｜Jean Prouvé’s Windows #3

After being driven out of the Maxéville Factory in Nancy Prouvé was prepared to go into retirement at his self-built home. Yet he would begi…

Issue 11: Joined Somewhere, Connected Throughout—Chen Chi-Kwan, Tunghai University Methodist Hall

The campus of Taiwan’s first private university Tunghai University stretches across the suburbs of Taichung a city in the center-west …

A Home that Draws in Breezes from All Directions: The Fumiko Hayashi House

Fumiko Hayashi (1903–1951) a prominent Showa era writer established a new residence in Shimoochiai (present-day Nakai) Tokyo in 1941 amid a …

Terunobu Fujimori│007: The Shōji of the Rinshunkaku

In this series architectural historian Terunobu Fujimori who has traveled extensively to study buildings of various times and places will be…

Naruto Cultural Center

Virtual Tour

Completed after the architect’s passing this building is one of a cluster of works by Tomoya Masuda in the city of Naruto. Outwardly it exhi…

Chochikukyo

Virtual Tour

Located in the foothills of Mount Tennozan overlooking the headwaters of the Yodogawa River in Yamazaki Kyoto this residence is characterize…

Tokoname City Municipal Ceramics Research Institute (Tokoname Tounomori Research Institute)

Virtual Tour

The gradated purple mosaic exterior tiles are a surprising sight as one approaches this building which is tucked away on a small hill remove…

Summer House in Karuizawa

Virtual Tour

Relocated to Karuizawa Taliesin in 1986 this distinctive butterfly-roofed building was originally designed as a summer house and studio base…

The Windows of the Komai House by W. M. Vories & Co.

The soon-to-be 100-year-old Komai House now called the Taku & Shizue Komai Museum stands along a canal path in Kitashirakawa a suburban …

Windows of the Aichi University of the Artsby Junzo Yoshimura and Akio Okumura:The Concrete Science of Living with Nature

The Aichi University of the Arts was built to the designs of Junzo Yoshimura and Akio Okumura in 1966. Situated in the forested hills of Nag…

Issue 10: The Billowing School—Chen Ren-He, Wave Building, San Sin High School of Commerce and Home Economics (Kaohsiung)

When talking about the first generation of post-war Taiwanese architects there are famous individuals such as Wang Da-Hong who studied under…

Terunobu Fujimori│006: The Shitomi of the Kondo Hall at Ninnaji Temple

In this series architectural historian Terunobu Fujimori who has trave…

The Prince Karuizawa: The Materiality of Kiyoshi Seike’s Windows

The New Karuizawa Prince Hotel (now The Prince Karuizawa) built in 198…

Issue 9: The Windy County Office—Yilan County Hall (Atelier Zo)

While this column has primarily introduced the windows of unnamed buildings in Taiwan there are a number of works of modern and contemporary…

A Conversation with Johansen Skovsted Arkitekter

On the occasion of the “Windowology: New Architectural Views from Japan” currently being held in Copenhagen we conducted a serie…

Alvar AaltoRoom in TKY 2

This is a room in a student dormitory at Aalto University (formerly the Helsinki University of Technology) which is located in a suburb of H…

Alvar Aalto Living room of Mäntylä

This is the living room of a house designed for a senior engineer at the Tampella factory in Inkeroinen an area that thrived on the wood ind…

Gesellius, Lindgren, Saarinen’s Showcase windows of the Pohjola Insurance Building

This insurance company building located on a corner lot along Aleksanterinkatu in central Helsinki was designed by the national romanticist …

Issue 8: The Town of Floating Pigeon Lofts

Houses stand there dotting the farmland. Small huts sit above them in the sky. It’s a bit of a strange sight but one that you’ll…

Does light stop within window panes? – Yuriko Kurimoto’s Window

Since Kunié Sugiura wrote about windows in New York last time let’s start this article on the topic of the American windows that were …

Terunobu Fujimori│005: The Katōmado of the Shizutani School Auditorium: An Un-Japanese Japanese Window

In this series architectural historian Terunobu Fujimori who has trave…

Kunié Sugiura – My Window

A window is a structure that lets light into a room and provides a view of the outside world but when windows appear in photographs they are…

Terunobu Fujimori | 004: The French Windows of the Glover House: Arrivals from India

In this series architectural historian Terunobu Fujimori who has traveled extensively to study buildings of various times and places will be…

Between Hatakeyama and Sugiura

Kokei and Jokei: Sights we see scenes we feel Whenever transparent glass is installed into buildings or trains or cars a boundary is establi…

Issue 7: The Slate Village Down the Mountains: Pingtung

There are now around 580000 native Taiwanese (the term used in Chinese. In Japan it seems the term “indigenous” is often used) r…

Screen Time

Screens are everywhere: stadiums stations billboards buildings refrigerators thermostats on our wrists and in our hands. As a physical inter…

Conversation with EMI Architekten

Ron Edelaar Elli Mosayebi and Christian Inderbitzin founded EMI Architekten in Zurich in 2005. The office has developed a particular focus o…

Issue 6: Beckoning Qilous

Just about everyone in Taiwan eats similar food from the countless semi-outdoor dining halls there. The students all line up for newly opene…