WINDOW RESEARCH INSTITUTE

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…

01│Antoni Gaudí: A “Sensible Architect”

Introduction The window is an extremely popular motif among architects. It would be natural to think that the possibilities for window desig…

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 …

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…

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 …

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

…ch was not invented until the Middle Ages both in Europe and in Asia. …

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…

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…

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…

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…

Issue 5: The Matsu Islands: Small Windows on the Frontier (Part 2)

The first morning of the new year arrived as I stayed in my room on th…

Issue 4: The Matsu Islands: Small Windows on the Frontier (Part 1)

The Matsu islands are located in northwest Taiwan about as close to mainland China as you can get. It’s one of the farthest locations …

Architecture with “Madosoto” at all times and in all places

…he Gothic architecture of the Middle Ages so the premise is that one does not look out of windows because they are made of stained glass. Bu…

No.0: Six Topics for Makoto Ueda’s Interpretation of the Window Space

To kick off the series “Vague Focal Space at the Window” I interviewed Makoto Ueda the former Editor in Chief of Toshi Jutaku (Urban Housing…

Issue 3: Where the Pavilions Went : Orchid Island (Part 2)

I left the village of Yeyin and took a trip around the island. Going o…

Issue 2: The Buried Black Roofs : Orchid Island (Part 1)

While we may often speak of “Taiwanese people” people belonging to a variety of ethnicities and religions live in Taiwan. While …

Issue 1: Windows Visited by Spirits: Pingdong

After his experience on a journey through villages and folk houses in …

Final Issue: Asia, Traveled through a Window

This will be the final installment of my four-year-long serialization documenting my eight-month-long trip. While I had decided where to go …

Life in the Holy Land: Jerusalem, Israel

I could see land the color of milk out of the airplane window. My journey had started in China moving ever westward from there and I was now…

Rushing Along the Nile: Egypt and the Nile

After walking around Cairo for a few days I took a flight to Aswan Egypt’s southernmost city. From there I followed the Nile River nor…

Rei Naito: Mirror Creation

Rei Naito is an artist who creates works that converse with the environments that surround them posing the question “Isn’t simply existing o…

Facing the Arches: Cairo, Egypt (part 2)

Before Al-Qahirah the city that would become Cairo was created in the 10th century the city of Fustat stood slightly to the south. In this r…

Movie “A City of Columns”

…meters) per side. Then in the Middle Ages the symmetrical grid pattern for aristocratic mansions was replaced by planning in which the neigh…

A Combining City: Cairo

I got on a plane in Jordan and flew to Cairo Egypt. It was my first time on the African continent. Though most capitals are busy Cairo seeme…

Windows in Photography: Conversations with Iwan Baan, Takashi Homma and Yoshiharu Tsukamoto

Three panelists discuss how photography architecture and windows are interrelated. They are Iwan Baan who has been photographing prominent a…

Sensing Mother Earth: Petra, Jordan

During my trip I saw many ruins in many countries. While these sites stood distant from our modern lives the people who created them must no…

Religion and Cities: Isfahan, Iran

I experienced no small amount of culture shock in Iran as it was the first Islamic country I visited. Many of the people I passed on the str…

Windowology: New Architectural Views from Japan Exhibition at Japan House London

Japan House London is temporarily closed to hinder the spread of coronavirus (COVID-19). Any changes to the above status will be communicate…

Memories of a Skylight: Tashqurqan Part 3

The following morning when I arrived at Classy’s house at the scheduled time we met with another man who seemed to be about the same age as …

“Traditional” Balsamic Vinegar in Modena, Northern Italy

…bility and emperors since the Middle Ages. The reason why Modena is said to be the birthplace of balsamic vinegar is because the region’s so…

Shifted Windows: Masuleh, Iran

There is a small village in the valleys of Iran known as Masuleh that has stood there for over a thousand years. Its tiered homes are built …

Memories of a Skylight: Tashqurqan Part 2

After driving for about 7 minutes in Classy’s car the windshield of which had a crack in it we arrived at a wetland area that was completely…

Memories of a Skylight: Tashqurqan, Part 1

I headed further west from Turpan by train to arrive at a city in the western reaches of China called Kashgar. From there I climbed a mounta…

Breathing in the Desert: Yazd, Iran

The bus that headed from northern to southern Iran passed once more through alien landscapes created by the desert. It’s as if one mus…

A Desert below Sea Level — Turpan, Part 3

What I learned from these grape-drying huts was that the key to a dwelling in a desert below sea level was creating shadows by bricks poplar…

Starting by Surrounding: Takht-e Soleymān, Iran

I took a cheap shared taxi from Zanjan in northwest Iran headed next to the ancient ruins of Takht-e Soleymān. An archeological site centere…

A Desert Below Sea Level — Turpan, Part 1

What kind of place is a desert below sea level? Turpan is located in the west of the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region an autonomous region …

The City Is a Bazaar: Tabriz, Iran

Outside my bus window a new sight to me stretched as far as the eye could see. Smooth mountains that seemed to be striped red and white shar…

Zhangcun: The Needs of the Underground Part 3

I realized something was strange here in the centenarian’s Yaodong. The entrances to Yaodongs are generally shaped into a pointed arc but up…

“Placing” a Home: East Gilan, Iran, part 2

In Kachalam a village in East Gilan a man agreed to show me around in his car despite it only being our first meeting. As he did I discovere…

Zhangcun: The Needs of the Underground Part 2

I’ve come to realize that meeting with elders is the best way to learn about their village. Walking through a loess land of beautiful green …

Houses beyond the Places of Scenic Beauty (2)

Repeating myself the phrase “your house” in Chinese the old man and I walked for about 40 minutes through a town located outside of the scen…

Zhangcun, “needs of underground” Part 1

A square hole on dry ocherous land. People live inside that hole. I stopped in on the village of Zhangcun in Sanmenxia City Henan. It is loc…

“Placing” a Home: East Gilan, Iran (Part 1)

Iran was an unknown land to me before I visited it myself. My vague image of it had been of a desolate desert dotted with ancient remains. A…