First Major Exhibition for Sou Fujimoto, Designer of the Expo 2025 Grand Ring

Gen de Art
Aug 21
5 min read

Updated: Aug 22

“The essence of architecture is to enclose a particular territory while opening it up to the world at the same time.”

—Sou Fujimoto (“The Architecture of Sou Fujimoto: Primordial Future Forest” exhibition, Mori Art Museum)

L'Arbre Blanc (The White Tree) 2019 Montpellier, France, Photo: Iwan Baan — *L'Arbre Blanc* (The White Tree) 2019 Montpellier, France, Photo: Iwan Baan

The EXPO 2025 Osaka, Kansai, Japan has surely become the grandest international event held in the country this year. The EXPO’s design producer, Sou Fujimoto, is not only one of Japan’s but also the world’s most esteemed visionary architects. Apart from a wide scale of global projects that include the transparent-columned structure Bus Stop Krumbach in Austria, the nomadic house Many Small Cubes in Paris, and the multiplex Souk Mirage/Particles of Light in Doha, Fujimoto has been highly praised for his creation of the exceptional Japan Pavilion at the 2012 Venice Architecture Biennale, for which the pavilion was awarded the Golden Lion for Best National Participation. He has also received the Architectural Review Award Grand Prize in 2006, the Japanese Institute of Architecture Grand Prize in 2008, and the Taiwan Tower International Competition: First Prize in 2011, among other outstanding achievements.

Mori Art Museum is presenting “The Architecture of Sou Fujimoto: Primordial Future Forest” until November 9th this year. This is the first major exhibition of Fujimoto’s remarkable works traversing across almost thirty years of his robust career. Significant works highlight private homes, universities, retail establishments, hotels, public spaces, and multi-purpose complexes. They extract the architect’s profound philosophy and vision for future dwelling.

Among the eight sections covered in the magnificent showcase, “Forest of Thoughts,” perhaps, astounds the visitors the most. The enormous space of 300 square meters is filled with over a hundred projects presented through more than a thousand mock-up models, materials, blueprints, and objects splattered from floor to ceiling. They epitomize Fujimoto’s three genealogies based on “open boundaries” (closed circles that open to the outside), “amorphous” (ambiguous and equivocal quality related to nature and purpose), and “many many many” (myriad of parts that form a single building). The walk-through into this amazing forest-like maze is truly exhilarating as your curious senses tempt you to enter the structures and experience the spatial fluidity.

The striking model of the L'Arbre Blanc (The White Tree) (2019), located in Montpellier, France, features a 113-unit housing complex consisting of twenty floors and numerous cantilevered balconies resembling tree branches. They jut out in multiple directions and help control the sunlight and wind flow, perfectly complementing the city’s outdoor life culture. Fujimoto’s optimal priority on the symbiotic connection between architecture and communities is well proven in this exquisite organic design, which earned the 1st prize for the 2014 International Competition for the Second Folly of Montpellier, France.

In a similar context, the mock-up of the Serpentine Gallery Pavilion in London (2013) exposes a stunning cloud-like, lightweight, and semi-transparent skeleton that appears to rise from the ground like mist. Constructed from 20 mm white steel poles, the actual latticework weaves the surrounding gardens sinuously together with the free-flowing geometry and merges the interior and exterior ambiguously.

In Japan, one of Fujimoto’s most ambitious projects was the Musashino Art University Museum & Library (2010) in Tokyo. The existing building was refurbished into a new two-story library containing about 200,000 books and an integrated art gallery. The model shows the library enclosed by a winding loop of spiraled bookshelves that wrap the periphery as an external wall. People are urged to investigate and explore the infinite layers of books in a radial path, bringing order into chaos.

Moving to some displays of greenery, visitors find the Meiji Park Management and Operations in Fukuoka that is being completed until 2026. It reveals a three-dimensional urban space with a sloping multi-level corridor, floating plaza, and tenant buildings. The intention is to create a “citizens’ oasis” of gently levitated walkways that connect to various park levels for convenient access. The “pathways in the air” can be used for leisurely strolls, exercising, admiring plants, and hosting events, instigating a balance between Fukuoka’s history and contemporary lifestyle.

Also immersed in a verdant landscape is the intriguing model of the House of Music Hungary (2021) in Budapest. The dome-shaped music hall nestles among the trees in the City Park. Light filters through its glass facade and crater-like holes in the undulating roof while sounds echo all around the park. A canopy of over 30,000 decorative leaves embellishes the suspended ceiling, ushering in nature to the facility.

The Grand Ring for Expo 2025 Osaka, Kansai, Japan, 2025. Photo courtesy: Japan Association for the 2025 World Exposition

The design for the Expo 2025 Osaka, Kansai, Japan is finally unveiled in the section “Open Circle.” Visitors sift through the gigantic four-meter-high and 1:5 scaled wooden construction of a part of The Grand Ring for Expo 2025 Osaka, Kansai (2025). In actuality, the ring extends twenty meters tall on the outer side, approximately thirty meters wide, and about two kilometers in circumference. Fujimoto has adopted the traditional Japanese nuki (horizontal beam inserted through a rectangular mortise) column-beam joinery method using strong metal wedges. While circuiting the sheltered passageways, one realizes the unobstructed visual field and depth of dimensional transparency, congruent to the architect’s concept of “Unity in Diversity.” The ring's elevated skywalk also permits panoramic views of the entire Expo site, the Seto Inland Sea, and the Osaka cityscape.

In the section “A Forest/Many Forests,” another colossal installation in 1:15 scale dangles from the ceiling and certainly spellbinds visitors. The International Center Station Northern Area Complex (Sendai), being finalized in 2031, will house a music auditorium and symbolize the memory of the 2011 Tohoku Earthquake and Tsunami. In the exhibition, giant wooden wing-like trellis panels appear to glide at multifarious angles and produce mesmerizing shadows on the ground. Seven study models and images and documents explain Fujimoto’s distinct ideology of “many/one echo(es),” which correlates to “diverse” values “unified” together.

The final room escorts people into the architect’s realm of the “Forest of Future, Forest of Primordial—Resonant City 2025.” A white, crystalline installation of joint spherical clusters signifies anthropocentric communities that can be reoriented to adapt to imminent but unpredictable and complex environmental and social conditions. Each differently sized sphere will be built with an area of 500 meters and equipped with urban life necessities for residences, schools, hospitals, offices, stores, parks, and cultural facilities. Mobile devices will allow free roaming capabilities in the atmosphere. AI enhancement will help augment the true essence of non-hierarchical and non-divisive relationships. The Resonant City aims to eliminate a central axis and rather define a borderless place that overlaps individuals, activities, and manifold life forms like a woodland.

Growing up in Hokkaido, Fujimoto often reminisces about the lush greenwoods, meandering rivers, and snowy terrains that painted his experiences in the pristine wilderness. The loose order of leaves, branches, stones, and bushes is patterned in similar layers of bicycles, billboards, and planters that scatter in the city. That same feeling of intricacy. openness and freedom has always guided his outlook on living spaces. Watching the movie projection in this room entices you to take part in the three-dimensional forest ecosystem.

Other interesting sections include a chronological timeline of Fujimoto’s career, a book lounge of boxed seats with inserted books, five architectural modules casting simulated movements of users, and stuffed toys engaged in discussions about the architect’s selected projects.