Junya Ishigami

Junya Ishigami is renowned for his unique and poetic approach to architecture. He attended the Tokyo University of the Arts, and began his career at SANAA before founding his own practice, junya.ishigami+associates, in 2004.

His oeuvre, which transcends the traditional constraints of architecture, was quickly recognised for its singular originality and he has received numerous awards. In 2010, he won the Golden Lion at the Venice Architecture Biennale, and, in 2019, the Serpentine Gallery commissioned him to design their summer pavilion. His architectural projects, which he enthusiastically compares to landscapes or forests, include such works as the Kanagawa Institute of Technology (2008), the restoration of the museum garden of the Moscow Polytechnic Museum (2011), the design of the House of Peace in Copenhagen (2014), a building in the form of a cloud to symbolise peace, as well as the creation of the Chapel of the Valley, in Bailuwan, in the Chinese province of Shandong (2016), an edifice forty-five metres high that appears to spring out of a fissure in the rock that holds it.