{"id":355072,"date":"2025-11-04T13:26:16","date_gmt":"2025-11-04T13:26:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/355072\/"},"modified":"2025-11-04T13:26:16","modified_gmt":"2025-11-04T13:26:16","slug":"tokyo-house-tour-shows-how-cities-and-buildings-grow-together","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/355072\/","title":{"rendered":"Tokyo House Tour shows “how cities and buildings grow together”"},"content":{"rendered":"

Architecture studio SANAA<\/a>‘s co-founder Kazuyo Sejima<\/a> is opening three iconic homes to the public with the Tokyo House Tour, which showcases striking post-war buildings.<\/p>\n

The tour, which will take place during this year’s Art Week Tokyo<\/a> (AWT), aims to help people discover the city’s rich history of houses built in the city after the second world war.<\/p>\n

\"HanakoganeiHanakoganei House has a playful shape. Photo by Ohashi Tomio<\/p>\n

“Tokyo is home to many valuable small houses built after the war for ordinary people,” Sejima, who organised the tour, told Dezeen.<\/p>\n

“In hopes of preserving these houses as part of the city’s cultural heritage, the idea was brought to AWT last year and grew into this project.”<\/p>\n

\"ConcreteThe sculptural Tower House sits on a small plot. Photo (above and main image) by Nac\u00e1sa & Partners<\/p>\n

Tokyo House Tour<\/a> features the six-storey Tower House by architect Takamitsu Azuma, a concrete 1960s building with a striking geometric design built to fit a slim plot.<\/p>\n

The central Tokyo home is concrete both inside and out and features a built-in concrete staircase around which the rooms are arranged, contrasted with warm wooden details.<\/p>\n

\"ConcreteWooden details comtrast the concrete. Photo by Nac\u00e1sa & Partners<\/p>\n

The tour also takes visitors to the more suburban Hanakoganei and Koganei area, where Sejima said “nature still remains”.<\/p>\n

Here, she is focusing on two houses designed by architect Toyo Ito<\/a>, one of which is his playful Hanakoganei House that features one arched and one gabled roof and turquoise details.<\/p>\n

The houses on the tour are still occupied.<\/p>\n

“With the generous cooperation of the owners, a house designed by Takamitsu Azuma in 1966 and two houses designed by Toyo Ito in 1979 and 1983 were made accessible for this tour,” Sejima said.<\/p>\n

“I hope to show how cities and buildings grow together to form culture.”<\/p>\n

\"HouseHouse in Koganei is located in a Tokyo area with verdant nature. Photo by Yurika Kono<\/p>\n

Sejima’s aim is also for the tour, which will take place over two days during Art Week Tokyo, to help preserve the buildings on it.<\/p>\n

While this smaller building typology was once common in the city, where people had to build upwards and often on unusual and oddly-shaped sites, today many of the older ones are at risk of being lost.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\"Reggio<\/p>\n

Ten projects that illustrate Piers Taylor’s call for “deeper and messier” architecture\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/a><\/p>\n

“In Japan, for various reasons including the ageing population, it’s becoming harder for individuals to maintain their own buildings,” Sejima explained.<\/p>\n

“This makes the preservation and passing on of such houses a real challenge,” she continued.<\/p>\n

“By giving these small houses new uses, we hope they can be preserved as part of Tokyo’s and Japan’s heritage, and protected together by everyone.”<\/p>\n

\"InsideAn arched roof decorates a house by Toyo Ito<\/p>\n

She hopes the tour will help people appreciate the way in which the homes blend practical solutions with sculptural, creative designs that make them stand out in the cityscape.<\/p>\n

“I hope architects, including visitors of all kinds, can feel that these houses and the Tokyo streets around them are both practical and artistic in their own way,” Sejima concluded.<\/p>\n

Other intriguing Tokyo houses on Dezeen include a home with a concrete shell that incorporates its furniture<\/a> and a home sheltered from the street by wooden louvres<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Tokyo House Tour is taking place from 7 to 8 November during Art Week Tokyo in Tokyo. See Dezeen Events Guide<\/a> for an up-to-date list of architecture and design events taking place around the world. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Architecture studio SANAA‘s co-founder Kazuyo Sejima is opening three iconic homes to the public with the Tokyo House…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":355073,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[648,1032,1033,171,170,104341,25017,89444,92915,92916,92917,10855,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-355072","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-arts-and-design","8":"tag-arts","9":"tag-arts-and-design","10":"tag-design","11":"tag-entertainment","12":"tag-japan","13":"tag-kazuyo-sejima","14":"tag-residential-architecture-and-interiors","15":"tag-sanaa","16":"tag-sectionall","17":"tag-sectionarchitecture","18":"tag-sectionnews","19":"tag-tokyo","20":"tag-united-states","21":"tag-unitedstates","22":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115491660916142539","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/355072","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=355072"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/355072\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/355073"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=355072"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=355072"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=355072"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}