October 29, 2024/ 7:00 PM - 8:30 PM

To discuss Japanese architecture, this talk series is organized around five concepts unique to Japan: MA, KANE, HAI/KYO, IN/EI, and SUKI. Renowned Japanese architects and scholars will speak at each symposium about their ideas on architecture and the works they have produced. This series offers a unique opportunity to deepen your understanding of Japanese architecture and its cultural concepts by featuring their insights, enriching your perspective on this distinctive architectural heritage through the lens of contemporary practice.

The first session,「間」MA: Time and Space in Japanese Architecture, addresses the concept of MA, a Japanese concept that defines the interval or space between two entities, encompassing both temporal and spatial dimensions, and serves as a foundational principle in various aspects of art, architecture, and life.

Hitoshi Abe, Professor and former Chair in the Department of Architecture and Urban Design at the School of Arts and Architecture and Chair in the Study of Contemporary Japan and the Director of the UCLA Paul I. and Hisako Terasaki Center for Japanese Studies. Since 1992, when Dr. Hitoshi Abe won first prize in the Miyagi Stadium Competition and established Atelier Hitoshi Abe, he has maintained an active international design practice based in Sendai, Japan, as well as a schedule of lecturing and publishing, which place him among the leaders in his field.

Tezzo Nishizawa. Born in Kyoto, 1974. Since 2023 he has been a specially appointed professor of design and architecture at Kyoto Institute of Technology. His many projects include art museums and cultural facilities: The National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo (Tokyo, 2012, in collaboration with Noriko Nagayama), the Kyoto City KYOCERA Museum of Art renewal project (2019, in collaboration with Jun Aoki and Associates)
and the Hachinohe Art Museum (2021, in collaboration with Yoshihide Asaco and Junpei Mori). He has received numerous awards, among them 2021 Architectural Institute of Japan Prize, 2020 JIA Japan Architecture Grand Prix, and 62nd Mainichi Arts Award.

Michael Osman’s research in architectural history focuses on the 19th and 20th centuries, with a particular emphasis on buildings and cities in the United States. He seeks connections between the infrastructure that undergirds the processes of modernization and the historiography of modernist architecture. The topics of his writing include: the influence of ecological science on theories of city growth, early instruments for remote sensing, and the architectural profession’s relation to modern construction processes.

Free, Registration Required

Sponsor(s): Terasaki Center for Japanese Studies, Architecture and Urban Design, UCLA xLAB, Japan Foundation Los Angeles