One of Japan's leading architects examines notions of Japan-ness as exemplified by key events in Japanese architectural history from the seventh to the twentieth century; essays on buildings and their cultural context. Japanese architect Arata Isozaki sees buildings not as dead objects but as events that encompass the social and historical context-not to be defined forever by their "everlasting materiality" but as texts to be interpreted and reread continually. In Japan-ness in Architecture, he identifies what is essentially Japanese in architecture from the seventh to the twentieth century. In the opening essay, Isozaki analyzes the struggles of modern Japanese architects, including himself, to create something uniquely Japanese out of modernity. He then circles back in history to find what he calls Japan-ness in the seventh-century Ise shrine, reconstruction of the twelfth-century Todai-ji Temple, and the seventeenth-century Katsura Imperial Villa. He finds the periodic ritual relocation of Ise's precincts a counter to the West's concept of architectural permanence, and the repetition of the ritual an alternative to modernity's anxious quest for origins. He traces the "constructive power" of the Todai-ji Temple to the vision of the director of its reconstruction, the monk Chogen, whose imaginative power he sees as corresponding to the revolutionary turmoil of the times. The Katsura Imperial Villa, with its chimerical spaces, achieved its own Japan-ness as it reinvented the traditional shoin style. And yet, writes Isozaki, what others consider to be the Japanese aesthetic is often the opposite of that essential Japan-ness born in moments of historic self-definition; the purified stylization-what Isozaki calls "Japanesquization"-lacks the energy of cultural transformation and reflects an island retrenchment in response to the pressure of other cultures. Combining historical survey, critical analysis, theoretical reflection, and autobiographical account, these essays, written over a period of twenty years, demonstrate Isozaki's standing as one of the world's leading architects and preeminent architectural thinkers.

Now that you have begun to master spoken Japanese with the two volumes of 'Japanese with Ease', and you want to learn how to write this fascinating language, 'Writing Japanese with Ease' is the book for you! You will learn the fundamentals of writing the characters of traditional Japan, borrowed from Chinese (Kanji). The book follows the 99 lessons of 'Japanese with Ease', presenting the characters in order of appearance throughout the two volumes. The book lists each Kanji with its radical, its number of strokes, the different pronunciations of the character, and -- of course -- its meaning. For development of your writing skills, the stroke-by-stroke character lay-out will be very useful, teaching you the rules of writing Kanji. Dont miss the useful appendices such as the Table of Radicals, the Index listing Kanji by number of strokes, as well as the dialogue texts of Japanese with Ease, given in standard written Japanese.

Selected research projects and architecture exploring the role of design within complex social, political and environmental conditions Toshiko Mori is a New York-based architect and Professor in the Practice of Architecture at the Harvard University Graduate School of Design for many years. As a long-time member of the World Economic Forum's Global Agenda Council on the Future of Cities, Mori led research and inquiry into sustainable architecture, enhancing cities' livability, and creating efficient urban services. Mori is also on the board of Dassault Systems, a company connecting technology to environment and life science. And she has founded the platform VisionArc, a think tank dedicated to exploring the role of design within complex social and environmental issues. This book will focus on TMA's projects based on research, and the impact of socially valuable projects to society. The book will illustrate how the observation of the architect operates as opposed to how the imagination of the architect manifests itself. Different chapters in the book are describing various ways of approaching the task of observation. Seven chapters are divided into specific projects and provide a look at the hidden thought processes that can take place behind the ideas, solutions, and physical manifestations or architecture. Presented projects include the Portable Concert Hall, called Paracoustica, which is an ongoing nonprofit work to come up with an affordable and sharable concert hall among many constituents in remote and underserved community; the Novartis Institutes for BioMedical Research focusing on socialization among scientists as a new model of work that promotes further discovery and teamwork. And i.e. the research on the role of libraries in the future using the example of the Brooklyn Public Library Central Branch. Another chapter is dedicated to the vernacular typology development in Senegal with the Albers Foundation, and the research on social spaces for collaborative educational environments.

The approach of "Informing Architecture by Materiality" opens the way to an innovative use of materials in the design professions. Taking material qualities and properties such as texture, elasticity, transparency and fluidity as a point of departure, the concept described and employed here transcends the conventional definitions of building materials. Instead, the focus is on a multitude of material operations, like folding and bending, carving and cutting, weaving and knitting, mirroring and screening. The featured design strategies and methods address established and "new" materials alike. They are applied both to the scale of the detail and the entire building. The examples comprise prototype structures as well as large building projects. Eight chapters deal with surfaces and layers, joints and juctions, weaving and texturing, nanoscale transformations, responsiveness, the integration of ephemeral factors like wind and light as well as material collections providing professional resources. Written by renowned experts in this field, the book features many examples from international contemporary architecture. The introductory part provides the conceptual background, while a final chapter describes consequences for pressing issues of today, like sustainability or life cycle assessment.