Summer Lecture: Kengo Kuma on Architecture and Identity 23 June 2018

V&A Dundee, Scotland’s first design museum opens September 2018. Photo credit: Ross Fraser McLean.

As his first UK building nears completion, acclaimed Japanese architect Kengo Kuma will speak about architecture and identity, exploring the relationship between place, building tradition and landscape. 

Opening in September, V&A Dundee is set to redefine the identity of the city and build upon its status as a UNESCO City of Design. Kuma will discuss his work in cities around the world, including London and Tokyo, where his National Stadium for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics is under construction.

A public lecture hosted by the London School of Architecture and LSE Cities in partnership with The Japan Foundation and Ace Hotel during London Festival of Architecture.

18.00-19.30, Saturday 23 June

Old Theatre, LSE Old Building, Houghton Street, WC2A 2AE

Admission is free. Please book here

Speaker Biographies

Kengo Kuma Kengo was born in 1954. He completed his master’s degree at the University of Tokyo in 1979. After studying at Columbia University as Visiting Scholar, he established Kengo Kuma & Associates 1990. In 2009, he was installed as Professor at the Graduate School of Architecture, University of Tokyo.

Among Kuma’s major works are Kirosan Observatory (1995), Water/Glass (1995, received AIA Benedictus Award), Stage in Forest, Toyoma Center for Performance Arts (received 1997 Architectural Institute of Japan Annual Award), Bato-machi Hiroshige Museum (received The Murano Prize). Recent works include Nezu Museum (2009, Tokyo), Yusuhara Marche and Wooden Bridge Museum (2010), Asakusa Culture and Tourism Center (2012), Nagaoka City Hall Aore. (2012), and Kabukiza (2013). Outside Japan, Besancon Music Center, FRAC Marseilles Aix-en-Provence Conservatoire, and China Academy of Arts’ Folk Art Museum have been completed recently, with lots of major projects being underway, including V&A at Dundee, UK.

Kuma is also a prolific writer and his books have been translated into English, Chinese and Korean, obtaining wide readership from around the world. The latest titles are Natural Architecture and Small Architecture, published from Architectural Association.

Ricky Burdett Ricky is Professor of Urban Studies at LSE and Director of the Urban Age and LSE Cities. He is a member of the Mayor of London’s Cultural Leadership Board and was Director of the Venice International Architecture Biennale and Curator of the Global Cities Exhibition Tate Modern in London. He has previously been a member of the UK Government Airport Commission (2012-2015) and Chief Adviser on Architecture and Urbanism for the 2012 London Olympics. He is co-editor of ‘Shaping Cities in an Urban Age’ (2018), ‘The SAGE Handbook of the 21st Century’ (2017), ‘Living in the Endless City’ (2011) and ‘The Endless City’ (2007).

Will Hunter Will is the Founder of the London School of Architecture, and is currently the school’s Director. He was previously the executive editor of The Architectural Review and editor of the monthly magazines of The Architects’ Journal and Building Design. He has contributed to many titles including Wallpaper*, Blueprint and the Financial Times. Trained as an architect at the Bartlett, UCL, and at the Royal College of Art, he has taught architecture at both London Metropolitan University and the RCA, at the latter as a design unit master and chair of the architecture school’s public lecture programme.