Kazunari Sakamoto, Tokyo, Japan, 1970
OfHouses guest curated by Graham McKay ( Misfits’ Architecture ): “Kazunari
Sakamoto is a former student of Shinohara’s and was to succeed Shinohara at the
Tokyo Institute of Technology. I used to think Sakamoto’s houses were less
sophisticated than Shinohara’s but I merely couldn’t see past the cheaper
materials. Like any student of Shinohara’s, Sakamoto arranged volumes into
sophisticated compositions but his special ability was to create architectural
features out of ordinary things. I never appreciated this. I remember
thinking how the windows of his 1970 House
in Minase appeared to have been placed as if no one position was inherently
preferable! What Sakamoto was doing was making the position of the
window into ornament, positioning these necessary but ordinary things in
unordinary ways to draw our attention to them in the same way that poetry
twists language to make it seem new again. Sakamoto used the position of
windows to articulate architectural pretensions at zero extra cost. Property
developers were quick to notice and, fifty years on, offset windows are
ubiquitous as the sole architectural distraction on inexpensive developments. Whereas
Sakamoto’s windows kept costs down, the architectural function of the modern
derivatives is to increase return on investment.” (Photos: © wakiiii, Shinkenchiku-sha. Source: The Kentiku 136 (Jan 1972), 112-13.)
