Built Environment: An Alternative Guide to Japan

Exhibition opening: Tuesday, 10 May 2022 at 12:00
HE Mr. Katsumata Takahiko, Ambassador of Japan to the Republic of Serbia, will open the exhibition.
The Acting Director of the Museum of Applied Art, Biljana Jotić, will give the welcoming speech.

Exhibition coordinator: Milica Cukić, museum advisor

Organizer: Japan Foundation and the Embassy of Japan in RS

 

The guest exhibition, entitled “Built Environment: An Alternative Guide to Japan,” marks a special jubilee: 140 years of friendly relations between the countries of Serbia and Japan. The exhibition is a traveling one and consists of photographs, texts and video images representing 80 examples of buildings, civil engineering works and landscapes created in Japan from the late 19^th century to the present day, while geographically covering at least one work from each of the 47 Japanese prefectures.

Japan is an archipelago that stretches from north to south. Many regions have a full range of seasonal changes, while a very diverse relief characterizes the whole country. As a result, Japan is often subjected to natural disasters such as earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, tsunamis and typhoons. Accordingly, the entire architecture, construction projects and landscapes in Japan strongly reflect these conditions.

The elegant design and sophisticated technology are the primary albeit not the only features that make Japanese buildings special. This exhibition aims to present them as a product of a dialogue between the historical background and spatial context, focusing on intriguing buildings, construction projects and landscapes from the perspective of built environments. What kind of dialogues took place between the time when Japan entered the modern era and today, after a period of high economic growth and the ‘financial bubble’? Architectural historians, landscape design experts and art curators have considered this issue from multiple angles and created this exhibition to provide visitors with a deeper understanding of Japanese history, environment and culture. The idea was for the exhibition to be an alternative guide and to showcase new aspects of the country that had not been widely represented in the past.