Symposium: Japanese Avant-garde 'red school' and UK contemporary crafts

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Time: 6.00pm
Venue: Dorich House Museum, Kingston Vale, London SW15 3RN
Price: free

Speakers

• Professor Terunobu Fujimori (Architectural historian, Architect)
• Dr Tanya Harrod (Art historian, Critic)
• Professor Adam Caruso (Director of Caruso St John Architects, Professor of Architecture and Construction at the ETH Zurich)
• Takeshi Hayatsu (Architect, Director of 6a architects)
• Simon Jones (Maker, Architect, Director of Simon Jones Studio)

Moderator

• David Falkner (Director of Dorich House Museum)

The UK and Japan both have unique and rich craft traditions in which old craft skills and knowledge exist alongside mass production within contemporary society. From the design and production field's point of view, the prolific advancement of digital fabrications and 3D modelling technology necessitates redefining the role and meaning of handmade objects andtheir physical/ material presence. What does it mean to make things by hand today, and how can it avoid becoming nostalgic and pastiche?

'Red school' is the title coined by Terunobu Fujimori for a particular group of Japanese architects whose works are characterised with the aspects of handmade and deep sensual and tactile qualities of their buildings. The family tree of the ‘red school' can be traced back to the Takamasa Yoshizaka's Inter University Seminar House project in 1965, which the Unit 5 is interpreting into a new pavilion for proposed installation in the garden of Kingston University's Dorich House Museum in summer 2016. The symposium is the forum to discuss the history of the 'red school' in Japan and the relevance to the contemporary practice of making in the UK.

For further information about this event:

Contact: Takeshi Hayatsu
Email: T.Hayatsu@kingston.ac.uk