Recovering postmodernist Kengo Kuma railed against mass production, industrialization and Frank Gehry while speaking at the Royal Academy of Arts this July, stating that contemporary architecture would do well to take a cue from Japanese cuisine: "Sushi is a good metaphor for my architecture. The importance in sushi is to choose the best material from the place, in season. If the journey of the ingredients is too long, the taste of the sushi is compromised. That is a problem that can't be solved by modern technology, and that programme of using local material in season is the secret of good taste, and the secret of my style."
This praise of the natural and inhabitable structure is pretty rich talk coming from the man who once designed this (one can't get much more divorced from day-to-day life than a building shaped like a massive Doric column, can one?), though Kuma's newfound devotion to organic inspiration is clearly apparent in the similarities between his inflatable teahouse (pictured above) and an ika roll.
Full article from The Architects' Journal here.
