Aida, Takefumi

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Aida, Takefumi (1937– ). Japanese architect and theorist. A founder-member of the counter-Metabolist group ArchiteXt (1971), he questioned the tenets of the Modern Movement relating to form and function. In his Artist's House, Kunitachi, Tokyo (1967), the various elements of the building have curious relationships to each other, and the ‘encounters’ of different parts of buildings, textures, and forms were further exploited in the Nirvana House, Fujisawa (1972), the Annihilation House, Mutsuura (1972), and PL Institute Kindergarten, Osaka (1974). He is mostly known for his designs of so-called ‘Toy Block’ houses, near Tokyo (1978–84), composed of simple block-like elements. In the Kazama House, Kawaguchi (1987), he created a series of parallel walls between which were layers of rooms subdivided by screens, and the interiors afforded views of natural features outside. This ‘architecture of fluctuation’ is also found at his Memorial Park for Tokyo War Dead (1988) and the Saito Memorial Hall, Shibaura Institute of Technology (1990).

Bibliography

Bognar (1990);
Jane Turner (1996)

A Dictionary of Architecture and Landscape Architecture

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Aida, Takefumi

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