Riken Yamamoto, born in Beijing in 1945 and raised in Yokohama shortly after World War II, is a Japanese architect celebrated for fostering community through architecture. After founding his practice, Riken Yamamoto & Field Shop, in 1973, he became renowned for works ranging from social housing, such as Hotakubo Housing and Pangyo Housing, to civic projects like the Hiroshima Nishi Fire Station and Saitama Prefectural University, all unified by modular simplicity. Honored in March 2024 as the Pritzker Architecture Prize Laureate, he was praised by jury chair Alejandro Aravena for "blurring boundaries between public and private," fostering spontaneous social interaction, and "bringing dignity to everyday life" by enabling community to flourish through thoughtful design. In this interview with Louisiana Channel, the architect reflects on the social role of architecture, emphasizing the inseparable bond between housing and context, and the need to create spaces that foster visible, meaningful relationships.
In this interview, Riken Yamamoto delves into his personal history and his enduring interest in the origins and evolution of housing. Influenced by early experiences and studies of historical housing models across cultures and centuries, he emphasizes that a house never exists in isolation, it is always part of a village or a broader community. His investigations into communal life, particularly in pre-modern societies, led him to challenge the alienation seen in 20th-century urban housing, where proximity does not equate to connection. He states that architecture should encourage relationships among neighbors and integrate functions that make a building visibly active and socially engaged, such as ateliers or public terraces.
Housing always exists inside a village. Whether the village is large or small, housing always belongs to a village. Everyone is a member of a family, but every family is also part of a community. A family exists under the protection of a community. However, in the post 20th century world, communities have become less visible. In modernized cities of the 20th century, not just in Europe and America, but also in major Asian cities, most people live in condominiums and apartment buildings. But despite living so close to each other, they have no connection. This has become the prevalent lifestyle.
Yamamoto illustrates this philosophy through practical examples, with designs that are open to the public or homes that include visible workspaces, aiming to dissolve the boundary between private and public life. He argues that architecture must begin by considering the type of community it serves, rather than merely the structure itself. Although he recognizes past missteps, particularly Japan's postwar adoption of European, car-centered urban models, he insists on the urgent need for new architectural systems that restore community ties. For Yamamoto, the future of architecture lies in designing shared environments where daily life and mutual visibility reinforce social cohesion.
[During World War II] Many traditional streets were destroyed. Looking back now, the damage was immense. With these streets, traditional lifestyles were also lost. After 1945 people adopted new lifestyles, but they were heavily influenced by European ideas. Many European-style streets were built. [...] We thought the world would revolve around cars. We believed this for a long time. But we've recently come to realize it was a mistake. It took us so long to realize this, that now we are unsure how to go about designing a town without cars. It's not as simple as just switching from gasoline to electricity or replacing driving with walking. So, we need to start rethinking how to develop towns.
Louisiana Channel is a series of video interviews on art, literature, architecture, design, and music produced by the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art. Among the interviews with figures in architecture are: American architect Jenny E. Sabin, who shares her personal journey from artist to scientist, explains how biological and material systems can be applied at an architectural scale, and discusses her teaching and research roles at Cornell University; Mexican architect Gabriela Carrillo, who explores the design of public spaces and the role of preexisting elements in spatial transformation; and ecoLogic Studio, which presents a new approach to architecture that examines the relationship between nature and urban design. Renowned architects such as Shigeru Ban, David Chipperfield, and Rafael Moneo have also shared their perspectives on the interplay between architecture, society, and the physical environment.
Editor's Note: This article was originally published on June 26, 2025.
