[In Singapore] 15th November 2019, TOTO Asia Oceania, successfully held its third architect seminar programme in Singapore that attracted more than 1,000 attendees. Featuring Hiroshi Naito as the main speaker, a widely known Japanese Architect who is currently one of Japan’s most active and innovative architects. His special passion is complex wooden structures and the use of ornate and artistic roofing tiles. Along with TOTO Gallery MA, TOTO’s not-for-profit gallery in Tokyo that promotes architecture and design.
Hiroshi Naito have shared with the students and professionals his works over the past 30 years, the history from his early work to the recent work by using artistic roofing tiles for his project. He further explains on the importunes of how every architecture should have body and soul as part of the component where architecture is created.
“With TOTO’s ongoing commitment to art and architecture, we have launched this evening’s architect seminar programme, featuring Hiroshi Naito sharing his experience on his prominent projects over the past 30 years. Through this event, we hope to inspire the young generation towards art and architecture, and to provide a platform for idea sharing and engagement among the working architects.” said Mr Hirasawa, Vice President of TOTO Asia Oceania.
At the seminar, a Q&A discussion was also carried out where Hiroshi Naito was joined by Prof Peter, professor lecture of SUTD. They have answered 3 questions from the audiences and discussed on the thoughts behind Hiroshi Naito’s work, how the experience he hopes to achieve when someone walks into the architecture that he built, the sharing of basic steps to developing empathy in understanding the perspective of the user and the reason behind why he uses Body & Soul of Architecture instead of Body and Spirit of Architecture of his lecture topic.
Date: Friday, 15th Nov 2019 (ended)
Title: “Body & Soul of Architecture” by Hiroshi Naito
Venue: Singapore University of Technology & Design
Time: 7pm- 9pm
Hirsoshi Naito
Hiroshi Naito is a Japanese architect born in Yokohama, Japan in 1950. He is the principal architect at Naito Architect & Associates based in Tokyo. Awarded with numerous architectural awards, his major architectural works include the Toba Sea-Folk Museum (Mie, 1992), Chihiro Art Museum Azumino (Nagano, 1996), etc. He also received a B.Arch from Graduate School of Waseda University. Back in Japan, he worked at Kiyonori Kikutake from 1979 to 1981 before establishing Naito Architect & Associates in 1981. Till date, Naito is the Emeritus Professor at the University of Tokyo.