青幻舎 SEIGENSHA Art Publishing

Running through Akihisa Hirata’s oeuvre is the concept of architecture as the creation of karamarishiro. This term coined by Hirata, loosely translatable as “margin for entanglement,” denotes spaces that are not clearly delineated, but shot through by “fuzzy interstices”—spaces that are layered one upon the other and that may be considered to adjoin all things.

This richly illustrated book examines architectural embodiments of Hirata’s worldview through conceptual drawings, photographs, and text as well as views of the 2024 exhibition of the same name. Covered are twenty-one projects, including the Masuya building (2006), from his early phase; the prizewinning Art Museum & Library, Ota (2017); the much-acclaimed Center of Yatsushiro Folk Performing Arts (2021); his latest work, Harakado (2024); and the Nerima Art Museum and Nukui Library, scheduled to be completed in 2028.

Architect Akihisa Hirata was born in 1971 in Osaka Prefecture and earned an MA in architecture from the Kyoto University Graduate School of Engineering in 1997 before joining Toyo Ito & Associates. He established the Akihisa Hirata Architectural Office in 2005 and in 2015 began teaching at Kyoto University, where he has been full professor since 2018. His major works include Masuya (2006), Bloomberg Pavilion (2011), the Art Museum & Library, Ota (2017), Tree-ness House (2017), Overlap House (2018), Center of Yatsushiro Folk Performing Arts (2021), Harakado (2024), and the Nerima Art Museum and Nukui Library, scheduled to be completed in 2028; his honors, the SD Review Asakura Award, the JIA (Japan Institute of Architects) Young Architect Award, the 2012 Venice Biennale International Architecture Exhibition Golden Lion for Best National Participation (co-winner), and three prizes—the Murano Togo Prize, the BCS (Building Contractors Society) Prize, and the AIJ (Architectural Institute of Japan) Prize—for the Art Museum & Library, Ota.