Shin Takamatsu

Having graduated as an architect from Kyoto University in 1971, Shin Takamatsu began his career in the second half of the ´seventies, designing small single-family houses. Later he moved on to plan commercial buildings, a sphere where he achieved immediate success. The aggressive originality of Takamatsu´s work enabled him to impose his mark on the chaotic and exciting Japanese urban landscape, and offer his patrons strong, catalysing images.
During the second half of the ´eighties, Takamatsu´s buildings became ever-more fragmented, eccentric and paradoxical. His buildings resembled giant robots, and their hi-tech architectural features resulted in amazing structures where the constructive elements are hard to discern. During the ´nineties, Takamatsu´s untiring capacity for expression underwent a decisive change: now his creations were based on composition involving the spectacular use of pure geometric shapes, enabling him to export his works outside Japan.
The book, introduced by the critical essays of Masaru Kawatoko and Waro Kishi, describes Takamatsu´s most significant works in a career spanning more than forty years.
Text in English and Italian.