Architect Kengo Kuma's Plans For The Portland Japanese Garden
By Aaron Scott (OPB), Randy Gragg (OPB) and and Rene Bermudez (OPB)
Feb. 6, 2016 3:30 a.m.
00:00
/
Cultural Crossing, Portland Japanese Garden, Portland, Oregon (2017)
The design for Kengo Kuma's first public building in the U.S. will integrate with the steep, hillside terrain, maximizing views to the city and the garden. The pitched green roofs, Kuma says, are a new concept for Japanese pavilions.
Courtesy of Kengo Kuma and Associates
Cultural Crossing, Portland Japanese Garden, Portland, Oregon (2017)
The Cultural Crossing village will deploy a gunkol plan, which translates into “the flying geese” — the V formations of migrating birds.
Courtesy of Kengo Kuma and Associates
Cultural Crossing, Portland Japanese Garden (2017)
The Cultural Crossing buildings will use Port Orford and other local cedars. The smell is a central part of Japanese garden design, says Kuma.
Courtesy of Kengo Kuma and Associates
Cultural Crossing, Portland Japanese Garden (2017)
"Between the two buildings, the people can feel a kind of intimate village starts from here," says Kuma. "Basically the idea for those new buildings is creating one village, not a big building. We divide the building into small pieces; we try to create the human scale in this village."
Courtesy of Kengo Kuma and Associates
Cultural Crossing, Portland Japanese Garden (2017)
The $33.5 million expansion of the Portland Japanese Garden is being speared by Kengo Kuma.
Courtesy of Kengo Kuma and Associates
Yusuhara Town Hall, Usuhara, Takaoka, Kochi Japan (2006)For a town dependent upon forestry, Kengo Kuma designed what he describes as “an interiorized town square” to house an agricultural cooperative.
Courtesy of Kengo Kuma and Associates
Yusuhara Town Hall, Usuhara, Takaoka, Kochi Japan (2006)The hall features a stage for the local performance tradition of kagura.
Courtesy of Kengo Kuma and Associates.
Nakagawa-Machi Bato Hiroshige Museum, Nasu, Tochigi, Japan (2007)
Using a primary vocabulary of louvers — also known as slats — made of locally grown cedar, Kengo Kuma designed a museum for the great ukihoe artist Ando Hiroshige.
Courtesy of Kengo Kuma and Associates
Nakagawa-Machi Bato Hiroshige Museum, Nasu, Tochigi, Japan (2007)
Nakagawa-Machi Bato Hiroshige Museum, Nasu, Tochigi, Japan (2007)
Hiroshige's portrayal of rain as a layer over the primary subject of his paintings inspired Kuma’s overlapping filters of light.
Courtesy of Kengo Kuma and Associates
Chokkura Plaza, Takanezawa, Shioya, Tochigi, JapanUsing stone from a nearby quarry, Kengo Kuma added a screen to an old stone storehouse to create a community space in front of Takanezawa’s railway station.
Courtesy of Kengo Kuma and Associates
Chokkura Plaza, Takanezawa, Shioya, Tochigi, Japan
The stone, Oya, is porous rock used by Frank Lloyd Wright for the Imperial Hotel.
Courtesy of Kengo Kuma and Associates
Chokkura Plaza, Takanezawa, Shioya, Tochigi, Japan
Wright prized the stone's “softness,” which Kuma wanted to take “a step further” by leaving the gaps one might fine in the type screen made from lighter materials.
Courtesy of Kengo Kuma and Associates
Saint-Denis Paris, France
Dramatically scaling up their work, Kengo Kuma & Associates won the first prize for the competition “Saint-Denis Pleyel Emblematic Train Station” in Saint-Denis, France.
Courtesy of Kengo Kuma and Associates
Saint-Denis Paris, France
The train station will be the first stone of a future global urban project in the site of Saint-Denis Pleyel. It will enable the site and the city to increase its metropolitan scale significantly.
Courtesy of Kengo Kuma and Associates
Olympic Stadium (2019)
After cost overruns drove the Japanese government to ditch a $1.5 billion stadium designed by Zaha Hadid for the 2020 Olympics, Kengo Kuma won a competition with a more modest design partially of wood.
Courtesy of Kengo Kuma and Associates
Olympic Stadium (2019)
Kuma described the stadium as “not an outstanding building but a structure [that] integrates with the nearby forest” and points out that is in keeping with “the concept of Japanese-ness.”
The Center for Architecture, 403 NW 11th Ave, will display "Tsunagu: Connecting to the Architecture of Kengo Kuma," a retrospective of the architect's career, through Feb. 29.
State of Wonder is starting a new series focused on architecture, design and the changing face of the city with columnist-in-residence Randy Gragg.
Gragg is the executive director of the John Yeon Center for Architecture and the Landscape at the University of Oregon. He previously worked as the editor-in-chief at Portland Monthly and as the long-time architecture critic at the Oregonian.
For our first story together, we’re going to look at one of the most significant building projects going on in the city right now: the expansion of the Portland Japanese Garden.
It’s a $33.5 million project that will transform the garden from one of the leading facilities in the country into one of the leaders in the world. And it's being speared by Kengo Kuma, perhaps the leading Japanese architect of his generation. Kuma recently won the right to design the stadium for the 2020 Summer Olympics in Tokyo.
Cultural Crossing, Portland Japanese Garden, Portland, Oregon (2017)
The Cultural Crossing village will deploy a gunkol plan, which translates into “the flying geese” — the V formations of migrating birds.
Courtesy of Kengo Kuma and Associates
“This Japanese garden is as beautiful as Japanese gardens in Japan,” Kuma told Gragg during a tour of the site. "More than that, it's more unique, it's more strong, because of the landscape.”
According to Kuma, Japanese gardens in Japan are usually built on flat land, which makes the undulating crest of the West Hills a striking feature, one he wanted to emphasize in his design for the garden’s expansion.
As Gragg pointed out, what the Japanese Garden has lacked is an entrance. Up until now, visitors have had to climb a winding hill path to a parking lot with an old gate. Kuma's plan will build a gate at the base of the hill and then transform the parking lot at the top into a cultural village with a floating, cantilevered cafe hanging over the hill path.
"The landscaping and the architectures are connected in a unique way," said Kuma. "From here people can see this cafe is floating on the hill. And between the two buildings the people can feel a kind of intimate village starts from here. Basically the idea for those new buildings is creating one village, not a big building. We divide the building into small pieces; we try to create the human scale in this village."
Gragg will speak with Kuma and well-known Japanese architecture scholar Botond Bognar on Saturday, Feb. 6, at 2 p.m. at the Portland Art Museum. The main event is sold out, but there may be overflow seating.
We’ve gone to incredible places together this year. Support OPB’s essential coverage and exploration in 2025 and beyond. Join as a monthly Sustainer or with a special year-end contribution.
![Olympic Stadium (2019)
Kuma described the stadium as “not an outstanding building but a structure [that] integrates with the nearby forest” and points out that is in keeping with “the concept of Japanese-ness.”
The Center for Architecture, 403 NW 11th Ave, will display "Tsunagu: Connecting to the Architecture of Kengo Kuma," a retrospective of the architect's career, through Feb. 29.](https://opb-opb-prod.cdn.arcpublishing.com/resizer/v2/V2XG34I4MBEUVG5O5BAD7GBLSM.png?auth=bcef3f3c4756312190d8cf59c060e85dbea7e9b57a91199ce992f93de391422e&width=150)
