Sumida Culture Factory

Sumida Culture Factory, Itsuko Hasegawa, 1994.  Exhibition space, library, planetarium, restaurant and  multipurpose hall.
Itsuko Hasegawa is the first famous female architect in Japan, she is contemporary with Toyo Ito (both born 1941) in many ways. Her career however is shorter, and today less notable. This building as well as its contemporary projects eventually leading up to the master piece of the style Sendai Mediateque by Toyo Ito. She worked as the assistant of Kazuo Shinohara at Tokyo Institute of Technology. Shinohara also deeply influenced the work of among others Toyo Ito with whom Kazuyo Sejima of SAANA worked before she started her own firm. (For more of this kind of genealogy see After the Crash: Architecture in Post-Bubble Japan by Thomas Daniell, an excellent collection of essays about Japanese architecture.) This isn't just gossip but it also provides a framework for understanding the contemporary context of a building.
When I visited it, woefully unprepared, suddenly a lot of things came together. The history of architecture suddenly seemed a little bit more clear. This is partly why I choose this building but for the most part it is because I like it.

Sumida Culture Factory

Ett kulturcenter av Itsuko Hasegawa, 1994. Hon var en av de första kvinnliga arkitekterna i Japan som slog igenom. Samtida med Toyo Ito, både i stil och i det faktum att båda var djupt influerade av Kazuo Shinohara. Hon arbetade som assistent åt Shinohara under en period på Tokyo Institute of Technology, den första kvinnliga sådana. Vilket är en viktig roll i skolans organisatoriska system.

Sumida Culture Factory är insprängt mellan betydligt mindre hus. Det har ett kläd av perforerad metall.

Vilket ger en upplösningseffekt när man ser innergården skymta genom det.

Detta är japanskt 90-tal.

Interiören påminner starkt om delar av Sendai Mediateque.

Ut ser man väldigt tydligt genom rastret.

Gång mellan olika delar av byggnaden.

Läsrum och entré till en del av komplexet.