Kengo Kuma: A Prominent Designer

Since time in memorial “celebrity designers” have strolled the media atmosphere owing to the contribution they bring to the society.  Celebrity designers are the key players in the object design world since they bring into reality cultural and materialistic world. This provides the basis of current architectural designing techniques where the designer uses media to learn various cultures. One such “celebrity designers” is Kengo Kuma who has a long record due to his accomplished works. Kengo Kuma is Japanese architect Americans with a high reputation who maximized the use of media to advance his architectural ideas on traditional and modern design. To this effect, media and globalization have facilitated the flow of information including designs leading rise of celebrity designers. The following paper explores the role of media and globalization in the advancement of design and rise of celebrity designer such as Kengo Kuma.

Kengo Kuma is prominent Japanese designer and designer that have risen to be prominent designer owing to his fascinating abilities to combine both traditional and modern ideas into the world of architecture. Kengo Kuma also appreciates cultural ideas which he expressed in poetic language and subsequently translated to an architect. There are many factors that have contributed to the rise of Kengo Kuma a designer. Some of these factors include social, economic, and cultural factors.

Firstly, cultural factors such as the use of traditional building crafts combined with modern technology or materials have largely contributed to the rise of Kengo Kuma as a designer. Secondly, cultural factors such as Kengo Kuma understand both traditional and modern technologies of designing and this has been the reason behind his success in designing buildings. In addition, careful consideration of materiality has helped him to be designer of all seasons. For instance, one of the prominent structures that Kengo Kuma designed is Chidori which wooden furniture designed without nails inspired by traditional material and Japanese cultural materials (Bognar 104).

Kengo Kuma has risen from simple designer to celebrity designer owing to his social ability such as traveling and meeting other people. The basic foundation of his architecture stated by inspiration he received when he visited Kenzo Tange’s commonly known as Yoyogi National Gymnasium, constructed for the 1964 Summer Olympics in Tokyo. This social event provided the inspiration that saw Kengo Kuma getting interested in architecture.

Kengo Kuma project the future building materials comprising of noncognate materials derived from traditional materials. Many media displays the future economic issues that prompt the need to change the building material to suit the prevailing culture. Being fascinated by various materials Kengo Kuma projects the need to change building materials due to the future economic viability of materials. Moreover, the future economic factors present challenging situation that requires a critical look at the future designing materials. This has played a critical role in most designing works done by Kengo Kuma (Bognar).

Factors that Contributed to the Rise of Kengo Kuma

Kengo Kuma as a designer has been using the philosophy of going beyond concrete when designing structure. He wants to go beyond the current period of concrete since there are other materials that offer the best alternative to concrete. Kengo Kuma has been inspired by the need to overcome the tactility of using concrete as an obvious material. In addition, Kengo Kuma has advance use of timber in the building of structures.  

Designer’s training is another area that provides the basis for designing since training offers the opportunity to learn the basic architecture. As Macmillan (257) states, learning media for instance help understand the current modern culture and ability of the designers to utilize this culture for designing. Kengo Kuma for instance used modern culture and traditional culture to produce better structures.  

Media provides the channel of sharing personal ideas to the world and this has highly help Kengo Kuma to advance design philosophy. Kengo Kuma used many media conversations such as media interviews. Kengo Kuma combined his Japanese culture to designing view and the postmodern designing techniques to influence design world. Moreover, media exposure offered a great opportunity for Kengo Kuma to convey his architectural view stand. Media also allow the introduction of culture from other parts of the world into another country and this help in the incorporation of Japanese culture applied by Kengo Kuma in architecture to another part of the world (Garcia 44).     

Media plays an important role in designing world since it is the platform that has facilitated the flow of information between designers and market for designed objects. Firstly, media has promoted modernization of designing techniques and introduction of different cultures into the designing world. Furthermore, media has helped in designing through use of graphical applications to help designers conceptualize designs. Secondly, media affects the taste of masses through a continuous flow of information from one culture to another. Currently, media help in leaning of various cultures that also play role in designing according to customer’s desire. For instance, phenomenon refers to bandwagon effect where many people psychologically do what others do and in the process spread the culture. Media such as social media provides updates on present prevailing cultures that also is the basis of designing (Agamanolis 309). As a designer, media also played a vital role in the rise of Kengo Kuma.

Media has also facilitated the globalization that help spread the culture and designing culture to other parts of the world. Media is the conduit that has promoted globalization through social networks. Media such as printed media and electronic media provides clear pictures of various designs and this assists people from other culture to acquire this design. Media is currently connected to the internet that facilitates information flow. In addition, media help designers to share their design leading to rising of celebrity designers. For instance, building mega projects such as Iconicity that gets the attention of various tourists through media magnification. According to Brignull and Rogers (17) media, therefore, turn the architectural project into public interest fascinating icons and this help create a global destination.

The Role of Media in Advancing Design and Promoting Celebrity Designers

Media has played a critical role in raising Starchitect due to the uniqueness that some iconic designs have shown. The introduction of spectacular architecture for the sake of revitalization, the media has contributed to the celebrity status of most through impacting cultural cachet and thus increase tourism. The overall goal of this architecture is to gratify public goals and visual seductiveness also gain media attention changing tourist perception on the country. This is also couple with effect of attracting more tourists who turn these cities into global destination (Spens 66). One example of such starchitect is GBTB located in n central Singapore which has become national icon.  

Despite various designing techniques that Kengo Kuma has advanced in the designing world, the challenging factor remains the ability of many people to embrace this culturally derived architect. Though the media has played an important role in spreading the philosophy of non-concrete building structures, few designers have considered this idea. Kengo Kuma rejects the idea of concrete designing as obvious yet currently, most building recommended by different cultures point to concrete materials as oppose to wooded materials. The role of media in designing world also contains negative influence and this has highly affected the designing world (Rubegni et al 195).

Conclusion

In conclusion, media play an important role in architecture and object design world. Many celebrity designers have risen to prominence owing to social, cultural and economic factors. Kengo Kuma is a famous architect who rides on the philosophy of combining both traditional culture and modern culture to design structure and objects. Media has also played a vital role in magnifying some of the architectural projects making cultural flow from one part of the world to another. Media also facilitate the flow of culture and learning new designing techniques among various designers throughout the world. Therefore, globalization comes into play to promote information flow between one individual designer to another throughout the world

Bognar, B. Kengo Kuma: Selected Works. New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 2005. p.104 & 154.

Bognar, B. Material Immaterial: The New Work of Kengo Kuma. New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 2009.

Agamanolis, S. Designing Displays for Human Connectedness. Public and Situated Displays – Social and Interactional Aspects of Shared Display Technologies. K. O’Hara, M. Perry, E. Churchill, and D. Russell, eds. Kluwer, 2003. Pp 309-334.

Brignull, H. & Rogers, Y. Enticing People to Interact with Large Public Displays in Public Spaces. Proc. Interact’03(Zurich, Switzerland, 2003. Pp.17-24.

Garcia, M. Otherwise Engaged: New Projects in Interactive Design. Architectural Design, 77, 4, 2007. pp 44-53.

Macmillan, S.  Added Value of Good Design. Building Research & Information, 34, 3 (2006), 2006. pp 257-271

Rubegni, E., Memarovic, N. and Langheinrich, M. Talking to Strangers: Using Large Public Displays to Facilitate Social Interaction. Design, User Experience, and Usability. Theory, Methods, Tools and Practice. A. Marcus, ed. Springer Berlin / Heidelberg, 2011. Pp 195-204.

Spens, Michael. Deep Explorations into Site/Non-Site: The Work of Gustafson Porter. Architectural Design, 77 (2), 2007. Pp 66–75.