Tabula Scripta Tokyo

‘Tabula Scripta Tokyo’ is an exhibition and an architectural intervention designed by HOH Architecten for the Shibaura House in Tokyo.

In a city of constant change and rapid transformation like Tokyo, where buildings are rapidly being replaced by new ones, the exhibition highlights the process of working wíth existing buildings and places and seeing the built environment as a ‘written page’ on which to continue writing. In times that require a radical sustainable transition, the use of the current building stock will play an important role. At the invitation of the Japan-Netherlands Architecture and Cultural Association (JNACA) and the Shibaura House, HOH Architecten showcase characteristic works and design methods for the studio.

On the ground floor, a selection of projects is shown as a complex but coherent collection of layers, printed on large canvases of transparent voile that are freely hung in the publicly accessible space. Layers of time, in which the different construction periods are shown, prior to the layer added by the studio. Layers of ‘before’ and ‘after’, in which the intervention and the need for change become clear. Layers of perception, in which different ways of experiencing a building are shown. Visitors can move freely through the space and the different layers and thus make the projects their own.

The 1:1 intervention on the facade of the Shibaura House is an expression of seeing the existing built environment as a source of inspiration for change. The Shibaura House was designed in 2011 by Kazuyo Sejima for a cultural entrepreneur whose father had a printing house at the same location. The photo of the printing house, printed on canvases of more than 8m high, installed in the same position in the current building is on the one hand an ode to the city of change, but at the same time also questions the demolition-new construction culture in Japan.