The centerpiece of Japan’s delayed 2020 Tokyo Summer Olympics, the Japan National Stadium, was intended to reflect a new way of thinking about large scale architecture. The recent decision to ban spectators from the Olympics means that this centerpiece will continue to stand mostly empty even when the games begin later this month.
For its architect, Kengo Kuma, the high profile emptiness may not be much of a bother. His firm, Kengo Kuma and Associates, is now one of the most renowned in Japan, and the new stadium, empty or not, is something of a crowning achievement. But it’s far from a typical project for Kuma, whose entire portfolio of work is explored in a new book from Taschen, Kuma, Complete Works 1988–Today, cowritten by Kuma and Philip Jodidio. From its early years, the firm went far and wide for projects, designing in far-flung reaches of Japan and exploring architecture at nearly every scale.
+INFO: Fast Company
