Purple Magazine
— Purple #43 S/S 2025
The Tokyo Diary Issue
tadashi kawamata
Tadashi Kawamata, “nids & cabanes,” 2024-2025, exhibition view, île-d’arz, france
Tadashi Kawamata, tree huts, 2010, wood, installation in situ, centre pompidou, paris, photo charles duprat
Tadashi Kawamata, avalanche, 2024, installation views, dover street market paris, commissioned by philéo and supported by adidas, photos copyright tom dagnas
Tadashi Kawamata, tree huts, 2008, wood, installation view, madison square park, new york, photo ellen page wilson
interview and portrait
by ALEPH MOLINARI
Born in Mikasa, a mining town on the island of Hokkaido, world-renowned artist Tadashi Kawamata creates dynamic structures using reclaimed wood, planks, and furniture. He builds ephemeral installations in galleries, streets, buildings, and even trees. His work challenges the notions of architecture and permanence, while addressing ecology, social inequality, and the fragility of our hypertechnological society.
ALEPH MOLINARI — Your work intersects with many fields — art, architecture, and design. How did this evolve?
TADASHI KAWAMATA — I studied painting in Tokyo, and then in the late 1970s, I began doing installations that
were closer to architecture. But I have no real skills or studies in architecture. The first work I did was for a private house in 1983.
I began collecting materials and working together with art and architecture students to build the structure. We made it and then took it down.
ALEPH MOLINARI — What’s your creative process?
TADASHI KAWAMATA — I start with miniature models. These small studies help people visualize the installations I propose. Of course, it depends on the project. Some are very private, some are bigger or smaller, and some are even towers or walkable structures like bridges. Others are more pastoral. I’ve worked with many architects, including Tadao Ando, who have invited me to intervene in their work.
ALEPH MOLINARI — Are all of your pieces temporal?
TADASHI KAWAMATA — Yes, but recently I’ve been considering making them semipermanent or permanent with maintenance every 10 or 20 years.
ALEPH MOLINARI — Could your work be described as “meta-architecture,” pushing the limits of traditional architecture?
TADASHI KAWAMATA — It has to do with bypassing many of the regulations on architecture and urbanism — from the configuration of urban spaces to building codes, laws, and even the aesthetic of a city. My work, in a sense, is like a parasite that connects to the building, and that, at times, connects the interior to the exterior. So, it’s very much another skin that emerges from the inside.
ALEPH MOLINARI — Why do you use only wood?
TADASHI KAWAMATA — Wood is easy to find anywhere in the world. Anyone can use wood, whereas with stone or metal, you need special equipment. Working with wood is very simple — even small kids can use a hammer. So, I don’t need much at the site. I collect the materials, work with local people to build the installations, and then take them down. It’s a communal system.
ALEPH MOLINARI — Is collaborating with local people and communities a part of your artistic practice?
TADASHI KAWAMATA — Yes. I like to work with local people — students or carpenters or anybody — who bring their family to the site, protect the project, and tell the whole neighborhood about it. Because at the end of the day, I’m just an outsider. So, it’s very important for me to interact with the local people and the city.
ALEPH MOLINARI — In addition to cultivating a sense of participation, does your work also address sustainability?
TADASHI KAWAMATA — Yes. When I started working with reclaimed materials in the 1980s, nobody mentioned the words “ecology” or “sustainability.” Even recycling wasn’t a big thing. I didn’t have any money, so I started collecting materials and working with people on the fringes. It was a very minimalist and primitive way of working. But now, it has become very fashionable to be sustainable.
ALEPH MOLINARI — Your work seems to embody imperfection and impermanence. Would you say it reflects the principles of wabi-sabi?
TADASHI KAWAMATA — My conception of time is what I think links me to the Japanese mentality. In Japan, time is always changing. We have had so many natural disasters, from tsunamis to earthquakes. History may be built, but it can all come crashing down in a moment.
ALEPH MOLINARI — And time collapses.
TADASHI KAWAMATA — Yes, and then it starts again. It’s not like European history, which is a continuous piling up of history and time. In Japan, we don’t believe structures last forever because something can always happen. My projects are temporary and certainly could be seen as part of that Japanese sensibility. Also, some architects today create systems for easily building and disassembling temporary structures — even shops that are open for a month and then taken down.
ALEPH MOLINARI — Do you think Japanese artists have a unique approach to art, viewing it more as an intimate craft than a product?
TADASHI KAWAMATA — Yes. Our expectations of artists differ from those shaped by the European contemporary art system and its art fairs. We see artists more as artisans, part of an old style. This comes from a deep sense of respect for craftspeople in Japan, and the long family history behind craft traditions. But contemporary art breaks that lineage.
ALEPH MOLINARI — What is specific to Japanese architecture, from your point of view?
TADASHI KAWAMATA — There truly is a sense of the material, a sense of time, and a sense of contact with nature that is quite unique to Japan.
ALEPH MOLINARI — There’s also an obsessiveness to your work. You’re almost like a bird that wants to make a nest everywhere it goes.
TADASHI KAWAMATA — Yes. [Laughs] I’m like a bird migrating to build nests, like a stork. I’ve been living in Paris since 2007, but I’m always traveling and constructing everywhere.
ALEPH MOLINARI — What’s the role of artists?
TADASHI KAWAMATA — Artists and architects should be more like connectors. It’s really important to connect with nature, with our environment, with the context, and with people, rather than create totally autonomous buildings or artworks.
ALEPH MOLINARI — Tell me about your tree houses. Is that childhood nostalgia?
TADASHI KAWAMATA — My childhood wasn’t really like that. The idea for the tree houses came when I traveled to São Paulo for the Biennale. I was fascinated with the favelas and how they build from scrap materials, as a big community and without any connecting laws. It’s totally out of control. It’s like a parasite formed from the same elements as the body, altering its cells and transforming the urban system. I started incorporating this favela principle into my work. Looking at the homeless people in New York, one day I had the idea of imitating their shelters on the street and putting them into trees. This simple idea was the starting point for my series of tree houses.
ALEPH MOLINARI — I’m from Mexico, and I’ve seen these encrustations of informal architecture popping up in extreme urban topographies.
TADASHI KAWAMATA — I believe it’s part of the energy of human beings to be free and to build in marginal spaces. When I was in Germany, I invited refugees to help me build my favela-inspired structures. It was really interesting to involve them and work together.
ALEPH MOLINARI — Do you still hold a deep connection to Japan?
TADASHI KAWAMATA — Every summer, I go back to Sendai, a city north of Tokyo. There was a tsunami there, so the city asked me to help rebuild it. For seven or eight years now, I’ve been going back to work with the local people to build what they need, such as a bridge that was destroyed in the tsunami.
ALEPH MOLINARI — Artists seem to know how to capitalize on accidents as new possibilities.
TADASHI KAWAMATA — Through accidents, creativity can emerge.
END
ALL ARTWORK COPYRIGHT TADASHI KAWAMATA, COURTESY OF THE ARTIST AND MENNOUR, PARIS
