The Critical House: Words from 20 Contemporary Japanese Architects

Highly praised for its aesthetics and daring design, Japanese architecture has been rooted in socio-critical discourse since World War II.Especially in the 1970s, the house served as a means of criticism and strategic positioning on this “intellectual battlefield”.In the 1990s, Toyo Ito questioned this approach. What followed was a comprehensive debate on the changing relationship between housing, contemporary architecture and society, which was detrimental to criticism - and reflects the global shift towards so-called post-critical philosophy.In this book, 20 Japanese architects - including Toyo Ito, Kengo Kuma, Yoshiharu Tsukamoto and Kentaro Yamazaki - reflect on this change in interviews and essays, revealing a lively, albeit more subtle, form of criticism in contemporary practice.