Interview with Tsuyoshi Tane

At the end of June, on the occasion of the opening of the exhibition “Archeology of the Future“ at the Gallery of Contemporary Art in České Budějovice, there was an opportunity to ask several questions to the Japanese architect Tsuyoshi Tane about work experiences, architectural competitions, the memory of places, or his passion for collecting.

His colleagues from the Paris studio ATTA carefully installed thousands of exhibits in DUČB throughout the week. After Tokyo, Sao Paulo, and Basel, the exhibition arrived at its fourth destination, where it had to cope with a smaller space and shorter duration. In the entrance hall, you are greeted by an installation made from waste materials collected from construction sites in České Budějovice, combined with a large-scale projection. After moving the curtain, a trio of rooms follows, containing thousands of artifacts (working models, historical objects, reference photographs). In the final room, there is an updated showcase of all Tsuyoshi Tane's projects, including the winning project of the Imperial Hotel in Tokyo, whose completion is scheduled for 2036, or a small garden house at Vitra's campus, which Tsuyoshi Tane unveiled just the following week after his visit to České Budějovice. Thanks to the efforts of Michal Škoda, another global personality was presented to the Czech audience, about whom we will hear a lot more. You can view the exhibition “Archeology of the Future“, showcasing the extensive work of ATTA, at DUČB until the end of August.

What prompted you to go to Europe to gather your first work experiences after studying architecture in Japan?
I was born in Tokyo, but I studied architecture at Tokai University on the island of Hokkaido, which has a more rural character.

Moreover, it is a cold and snowy island.
At that time, I received an offer for an exchange internship in Sweden. Before that, I had never even thought that I would travel outside Japan.

Especially to a similarly cold environment in Scandinavia.
Only there did I begin to take a greater interest in Scandinavian culture, society, and design, which I found very interesting. Then I moved from Sweden to Denmark and later relocated to London, where I worked for David Adjaye. At the same time, we participated in a competition for the Estonian National Museum, where we won, and that kickstarted our independent careers.

At that time, the winning team also included Lina Ghotmeh from Lebanon and Dan Dorell from Israel. How did you meet?
We had mutual friends in London. Although we each worked somewhere else, we wanted to create something together until we discovered the competition in Estonia, where we applied and our proposal won.

So you met with Lina and Dan in the evenings and worked on the competition?
It was a demanding two weeks almost without sleep. During the day we went to the office, and in the evenings we worked on the competition.

You then founded a joint studio in Paris?
When we won the competition, both partners already lived in Paris. We were thinking about what to do next—whether to be based in London or Paris.

There is excellent train connectivity between the two cities.
In the end, I decided to move to Paris and start my career here. It wasn't planned at all in advance. Everything flowed from winning the competition. We then worked on the project for another ten years until the museum was completed. Afterwards, we decided to go our separate ways and each opened our own studio (though everyone remained in Paris).

That's a dream start for many architects. Did you go to Estonia to see the site before you started designing the competition project?
We didn't go. Visiting the site is often essential, but research work is also very important. Sometimes, history and memory can differ. History is written in a linear way. It is framed from the perspective of one person or a particular country. The history of one country can be in conflict with the interpretation of another country's history. Sometimes it can be misinterpreted or misused in politics. More than history, I am interested in memory that is tied to place and can be very specific. We can gradually uncover it and discover many things. Visiting the site is very important, but sometimes the experience can be too overwhelming.

Especially in Estonia, where it was a former Soviet military base, and the history is chilling in many aspects.
I am afraid that if I saw the airbase before creating the first concept, it would have tied my hands. It was similar with the project for the new Japanese National Stadium Kofun in Tokyo, where we visited the site only after clarifying the idea to confirm that we were on the right path. Initially, it is a very conceptual work, which is then applied to the specific site.

In your manifesto (the introduction to the catalog from the Toto publisher in 2018), you mention that “place is born together with architecture,” from which I infer that without architecture, places cannot exist. Can places also exist without memory?
There are many different levels. When a plot arises in the city center or a historic site, we can uncover many memories. We can find not only the story of the place but also of the people who brought various objects here during different historical periods. There is an exchange between many people and cultures taking place. Conversely, in the countryside, the history of the place or the memory of nature is not immediately apparent.

Literally, you have to dig deeper.
However, memory does not necessarily have to be tied to a single place. Throughout history and in our memory, there are many examples where we bring different ideas from different cultures. Even though we start with the same conditions and environment, we ultimately discover something entirely different as we gradually reveal it.

In creating a concept, do you focus more on memory because it is more subjective and based on feelings than precisely described history?
It is necessary to differentiate between personal memories and collective memory, which I am more interested in.
I perceive collective memory as a deep mark left in the past. It plays a significant role in understanding culture. Personal memory is tied to memories of the past, but collective memory is the driving force for creating the future. In this way, we gather memories where individual layers become part of collective memories, which gradually transform into architecture. Architecture needs shared spaces. For this reason, memory is important to us.

The exhibition Archeology of the Future was first presented a year before the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic, so only the visitors in Tokyo could fully enjoy the exhibition. The reprise in Basel already took place under strict safety measures and was not accessible to the general public. How did it happen that the exhibition came to České Budějovice? Perhaps you visited not only Budějovice for the first time but also the Czech Republic.
We are pleased that the exhibition is able to travel to other countries again. The pandemic not only halted our intentions but affected everyone worldwide. We had to transport the models back to our studio. One day, Michal Škoda contacted me, expressing his desire to present our exhibition in České Budějovice. People abroad usually think of Prague when they hear the term Czech Republic, but from Michal's dealings, I felt the significance he attributed to this exhibition, so we understood each other immediately.

What plays the most important role for you in designing architecture? Is it space, materiality, craftsmanship, or a combination of everything?
The most important thing is always the place. It's not so much about the building itself. Place is everything to me. A place cannot be moved or replaced by something else. Places are memory and space. Place creates time. People gather at the place, and memories are formed—that's how architecture can be helpful in this regard.

Among other things, you have also written: “With architecture, a place is created. Architecture shapes places for events to take place.” So without architecture, a place does not exist.
Before that, it is a site, which we begin transforming into a place where people start gathering, events occur, and life begins. Of course, nowadays, large glass buildings are also being created that can exist without the need for a specific place. However, this is the result of a global or international style that cannot be called architecture. It is merely a product. Although buildings have technical equipment and serve people, we should be more interested in architecture and everything that shapes it.

At the exhibition, various historical objects are displayed alongside your work. Is this your personal collection? Does it serve as a source of inspiration for you?
I enjoy visiting antique shops. I visited one in Budějovice today as well. They are collections of objects that someone else has owned before. I take them from these collections to use in my life and most likely will give them away again in the future. It is very similar to architecture. I perceive that architecture is not our possession. We only use it for a short period, and then during our lives or afterwards, we pass it on to someone else. From the objects, you can sense the previous owners. Some are a hundred years old, others 10,000 years old. You feel that someone has touched them before you. Now they are in my possession, and in the future, they will serve someone else. Similarly to architecture.