Opening hours: The interior exhibition is open on Fridays from 13–17 and during events, while the window exhibition can be experienced 24/7 from the street.
Entry fee for interior exhibition: 30 kr / free for members of CAFx Community.
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Make Do With Now introduces the thinking and projects of a new generation of architects and urban practitioners working in Japan today. Born between the mid-1970s and mid-1990s, the architects featured in the exhibition largely entered their professional practice following the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake and Fukushima nuclear disaster. This is a generation that must grapple with a range of urgent problems currently facing the country, including a declining, greying population; an emptying countryside; the proliferation of vacant houses across the nation; profit-driven urban development, mostly without the involvement of architects; a stagnant economy; and, of course, the global climate crisis.

Instead of being humbled into resignation, however, many architects of this cohort are choosing to confront these challenges head-on. Turning their marginalised position into a strength, they are developing a range of critical, ecological, and social practices that creatively "make do" – with limited resources, with found materials, or with existing spaces. In contrast to the clean lines and minimalist spaces most recently associated with contemporary Japanese architecture, these projects pursue a decidedly different aesthetic politics that is unafraid to leave things rough around the edges. Whether working from the periphery, exploiting gaps in the system, or occupying roles in the process that have previously been overlooked, these practitioners are articulating a new architectural agency that radically departs from the traditional image of the architect-author.

Anything but a marginal phenomenon, these approaches coming out of Japan today hold crucial relevance for a world that is coming to terms with a future beyond a paradigm of constant growth. These projects demonstrate that to “make do” by no means signalises a lack; rather, they make us realise the creative flourishing that follows when we recognize that what we have is already more than enough.

Curated by Yuma Shinohara, ‘Make Do with Now’ is an exhibition traveling from the S AM Swiss Architecture Museum, which is now being presented in an adapted version at CAFx. From street level, you can experience five Japanese practices and the context they operate in. Inside, we broaden the topic with 20 experimental projects from Japan, and two projects from Denmark by Pihlmann Architects, one being the actual exhibition space itself, the other being a project under-construction at Thoravej in Copenhagen NV.
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Exhibition Project

Window section: Five Practices

This section presents the work and thinking of five young architecture practices working in Japan today, each embodying a distinct approach to the question of the architect’s role in society: Mio Tsuneyama and Fuminori Nousaku, 403architecture [dajiba], CHAr, tomito architecture, and dot architects. Here, the focus is on process and approach: what are young architects in Japan thinking as they design? How do they work, and where? And what alternative visions of what architecture can be – and do – might come into view as we observe their work? The profiles unite photographs, films, drawings, and other materials from the offices to provide holistic portraits of their process. In a series of video portraits developed with Studio GROSS (Anne Gross and Sebastian Gross) for this exhibition, the architects explain their thinking in their own words.

Interior section I: 20 Projects

This section presents twenty representative projects, all started or completed in the last five years. Diverse in both scale and program, the selection aims to provide an x-ray scan of contemporary architectural production in Japan and shows that it is difficult to reduce the various attitudes and concerns of this generation of architects to a single issue. Rather, the image that emerges is that of a generation engaged in a search for new models of architectural engagement in an effort to articulate an adequate response to the challenges facing the profession and society at large today. Nonetheless, it is possible to identify certain interests and tendencies among the featured projects, and six themes are used for for navigating this new architectural landscape: Architecture as Transformation, The Architect on Display, From Building to City, Alt-Architect,  Main Street is Quite All Right, and Material Histories.

This part features projects by:
GROUP, Masaaki Iwamoto / ICADA, Ishimura + Neichi, Norihisa Kawashima / Nori Architects, Chie Konno / t e c o, Lunch! Architects, Murayama + Kato Architecture / mtka, Fuminori Nousaku Architects, Jumpei Nousaku Architects, Shun Takagi / Root A, Rui Itasaka / RUI Architects, Studio GROSS, SSK, Keigo Kawai / TAB, Tsubame Architects, Shigenori Uoya, VUILD, Suzuko Yamada, Maki Yoshimura / MYAO

Interior Section II: Pihlmann Architects

For the last part of the exhibition we are panning the view towards the local context with a look at two projects by Pihlmann Architects that take on a similar ethos: Halmtorvet 27, the place of the exhibition, was recently transformed from a bank into a flexible office- and exhibition space with materials extracted from the building itself. The idea of turning the inside out is continued in the spatial layout where excess building components are repurposed as exhibition displays in various ways. At Thoravej the transformation is still in the making: A film by Hampus Berndtson shows the search for the new in the old, revealing hidden potentials in un-loved architecture, when an anonymous office building makes way for a new art centre.

Credits

Curator: Yuma Shinohara, Films: Studio GROSS, Photography: Go Itami, Scenography: Yusuke Seki, Exhibition Graphic Design: 75W / Tilmann S. Wendelstein.

For the danish adaption, Photography: Hampus Berndtson.

The exhibition at CAFx Halmtorvet 27 is adapted by CAFx team: Josephine Michau, Søren Nørkjær Bang, Ida Willadsen Bang Kjeldsen, Valeria Granillo, Alexandra Wedderkopp Emelianov.

Biographies

Director S AM‍

Andreas Ruby (*1966) is an architectural publicist, curator, book publisher and, since May 2016, director of the S AM Swiss Architecture Museum. He studied art history at the University of Cologne. He and Ilka Ruby founded the architectural publishing company Ruby Press in 2008, with which he has realised over twenty book projects as an editor and publisher, some of which have won awards. In parallel, he has taught architectural theory at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, at Graz University of Technology, and at ENSAPM in Paris.

Curator‍

Yuma Shinohara (*1991) works as a curator and editor in the fields of architecture and urbanism. After working at Storefront for Art and Architecture, Ruby Press, the Academy of Arts Berlin, and the Canadian Centre for Architecture, he is currently a curator at the S AM Swiss Architecture Museum. At the S AM, Shinohara co-curated the exhibitions ‘Swim City’ (2019) and ‘Beton’ (2021) and over-saw the adaptation of ‘Access of All’ (2021) in collaboration with the Architecture Museum of TU Munich and the Institute of Architecture of the University of Applied Arts Northwest Switzerland. As a translator, he has translated Bruno Taut into English,
among others, and worked for magazines such as ARCH+ and A+U. He graduated with a degree in comparative literature and society from Columbia University in New York.

Project partners

Graphic Design‍

75W (Theory of a Small World) is the interdisciplinary design studio of Tilmann Steffen Wendelstein, a designer and art director whose life and work oscillate between Berlin and Tokyo. With project-based teams the studio serves a wide range of clients from Europe and Asia. Clients range from cultural institutions and publishing houses to a variety of brands from the worlds of food, furniture, fashion and beyond. Wendel-stein is also a co-founder of Journal du Thé, a magazine on contemporary tea culture.

Film‍

Anne and Sebastian Gross are architects and filmmakers and founders of ‘Studio GROSS’ – an architectural practice and experimental project space in Tokyo. Besides collaboration with the Canadian Centre for Architecture and the German Embassy in Tokyo, their film work was mentioned and screened at the Swiss Transfer Architecture Video Awards. Their architectural practice touches upon refurbishments in response to Tokyo's growing housing vacancy. They incorporate research at the Tokyo Institute of Technology into their projects, focusing strongly on the rehabilitation of the local community. Both graduated from a travelling European Architecture program investigating eight cities under various planning, design, and artistic methods.

Photography‍

Go Itami (*1976) is a photographer and artist based in Japan. His monographic publications include photocopy (Rondade, 2018), this year’s model (Rondade, 2014) and study (Rondade, 2013). His work has been shown in solo and group exhibition in Japan and abroad, including CIBONE (Tokyo), VACANT (Tokyo), SIGMA Satellite Gallery (Kyoto), Motto (Berlin), Centre for Con- temporary Photography (Melbourne), and the Kunsthalle Wien (Vienna). Itami’s photographs have received awards from organizations such as the Brno International Biennale of Graphic Design, the New York Art Director’s Club, and the Society of Photography, Tokyo.

The Exhibition Project is Supported by

Dreyers Fond, Realdania, Statens Kunstfond, and the Municipality of Copenhagen.

Opening Hours and Admission

The window exhibition can be experienced 24/7, free of charge.

If you want to know more about the exhibition, you are welcome to drop by our space at Halmtorvet 27. It is open to the public every Friday from 13:00 to 17:00.

Admission to the space is 30 DKK; it is free for members of CAFx Community.

Public Program

‍6 October 16:00–19:00
Exhibition Opening: Make Do with Now – Meet the Curators and Drinks

‍CAFx invites you to the opening of the exhibition Make Do with Now: New Directions in Japanese Architecture with drinks and introductions by the curators from Swiss Architecture Museum. ‍

13 October 18:00–00:00
Kulturnatten: Generation Transformation‍

An evening of transformation with Pihlmann Architects.‍

25 October 16:00–17:00
Renovation 2.0: Site visit to Ørsteds Haver with LOKAL‍

Join the architectural office LOKAL for a site visit to their prize-winning renovation of the façade of Ørsteds Haver in Frederiksberg, taking the renovation of a 1960s 'eyesore' building to a new level.‍

26 October 16:30–18:30
Japanese Architecture between Tradition and Transformation‍

How does the ‘Generation Renovation’ of younger Japanese offices relate to the traditions and history of Japanese architecture? ‍

2 November 16:30–18:30
Salon Transformation: New Values of a New Generation in Danish Architecture ‍

Join us for an exploration of how younger Danish architects make do with now, transforming and renovating the existing structures rather than making grand gestures from scratch. ‍

16 November 16:30–18:30
‍Architectural potentials in a resource perspective - Panum & Kappel studio visit and lecture‍

The young architectural office Panum & Kappel invites you to a studio visit at their Vesterbro-based office, where they will tell about their circular construction principles, showing models of radical transformation experiments exhibited at Utzon Centre's recent Super Danish exhibition.