Winner of this year’s Golden Lion award for best national pavilion, Toyo Ito’s proposal for the Japanese Pavilion proposes a “Home-for-All” to people who lost their homes in Japan’s tsunami of March 2011. ‘Architecture. Possible here? Home-for-All’ presents the process by which three Japanese architects- Kumiko Inui, Sou Fujimoto (who I’ve already dedicated a fair few posts on this blog to already) and Akihisa Hirata- collaborated with Ito on a support centre for those affected in the city of Rikuzentakata. The exhibition curls chronologically around timber columns and wooden plinths, showing the project from conception to construction. Alongside models of the project, there are also photographs by Rikuzentakata native Naoya Hatakeyama, including a floor-to-ceiling print of the town post-tsunami around the perimeter of the exhibition. This is a great project, unlike some pavilions purely documenting the problems, Ito has come up with viable solutions, and indicated the steps toward recovery for East Japan.
