Kengo Kuma might be the most self-effacing architect around. His trademarks are not large monumental forms or breathtaking sculptural shapes, but finely wrought details such as elegant stone cladding on a high-rise tower, an unlikely pitched roof or a superbly framed view on a garden.
More often than not, Kuma's buildings defer to something external — the client's predilections, their site, the location's history, the architecture that was there before them, and even the perceived expectations of the public. Kuma refers to his own work as the "architecture of defeat" — saying that it "loses" to everything.
It is no coincidence that this architect who is willing to take on board everyone's opinions was selected for one of the most potentially controversial building projects in Japan in the last few years: the rebuilding of kabuki theater's traditional home, the Kabuki-za, in Tokyo's Ginza district.