There is something about Japanese architecture that has been increasingly intriguing in
the past decades, a certain ability to move the lines towards immateriality and spirituality.
From Tadao Ando‘s monochromatic abstraction to Sanaa’s diaphanous glass envelopes, from
Kuma’s crafty exostructures to Fujimoto’s storytelling, there is something magic in the way
Japanese architecture is able to capture our soul, like a child’s tale, like a Miyazaki anime,
like a vision of a spirited world, which you can choose to believe, or not, but remains
fascinating nonetheless.

The Junya Ishigami exhibition “Freeing Architecture” At the Cartier Foundation seems to
crystalize this spirit in a display that brings back Bachelard’s notion and the poetics of
space.

These projects do not talk about materialism, about competition, about globality, they show
us a way to carry a vision based on one’s perception... They don’t talk about being smart,
being sharp and witty about the environment, they propose a low-tech thinking process
embracing the relationship between man and nature...

They don’t boast about performance, style, and modernity; they express principles of lightness, gravity, time that will become its meaning and purpose, and leave the rest to your imagination.

These projects actually don’t talk at all... they make you ask yourself questions about your
own thinking process and your own instincts. The true nature of poetry might be that it is not by design but that it allows poetry to happen once the project is complete...The path becomes a space, the wall becomes architecture...