when architecture was born

A "Future Forest"-like Residence
A new architectural philosophy transcending modernity

“What was once complex will become simple, and what was simple will become complex; in architecture where everything was once perfectly controlled, others who cannot be absolutely controlled will enter. And it is within this context that new architecture will emerge.” —Sou Fujimoto

Transcending the grand order of modernism from the outside in, Sou Fujimoto’s architecture starts from the relationship between “parts” and seeks ambiguous spaces between buildings. He uses the imagery of a “future forest” to gradually outline his ideal architectural form: “an existence like a forest, where diversity and simplicity coexist, filled with both constraints and opportunities. There is light there, and space.”

Starting from the hospital wards and occupational therapy workshop buildings of a psychiatric hospital, Sou Fujimoto, in his early works, developed the idea of “both home and city” from these projects that were simultaneously residential spaces yet possessed urban diversity, thereby redefining residential space. For him, a dwelling is no longer merely defined by walls separating the outside and delineating the inside; rather, he views architecture as a relational structure, constructing the overall architecture through the connections between internal spaces, creating a miniature new order built from parts.

Such architecture is like a forest, where individual trees connect to form a whole; it possesses the overall simplicity of a forest, yet at the same time, it has the diverse complexity formed by different trees within the forest. This duality of both simplicity and diversity forms the core of Fujimoto’s architectural philosophy – what he attempts is not to impose definitions from an external framework, but to meticulously construct spatial topography from miniature relationships, extending the possibilities of residence and space.

In this book, Sou Fujimoto raises five questions: “architecture as place,” “constrained architecture,” “formless architecture,” “partial architecture,” and “between architecture.” He also uses the famous metaphor of a “staff without lines” to develop a new coordinate system for “modern architecture.”

Whether it’s the “network-like domains” formed by residents walking through the city, the “both home and city” spaces in a psychiatric hospital, or the triple parent-child structure of “House N,” which is full of holes and dissolves the boundaries between home and city, Sou Fujimoto’s gaze is always focused on the gray, ambiguous “between.” This loosens the structural relationships between city/home and people, as well as the framework of modern architecture, giving rise to a unique aesthetic of “weak architecture.”

In Sou Fujimoto’s intangible, dynamically relational, and constrained architecture, we see the original source of new architecture.