Toyo Ito
interview by ERICA SCALCIONE
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Are there architectures that embody happiness for you?
The city of Tokyo, where I live, is getting ready to host the Olympic Games in 2020 and is in huge development, but I don't believe that this really represents happiness. Very often we relate happiness to economic wealth, but that is not a decisive factor to the achievement of a man's happiness.
We have to seek happiness beyond economic wealth and that kind of inner richness could become an element that help us in Architecture.
I recently visited a small island of Japan where, together with the residents, we are trying to find new methods to increase our happiness and this is becoming a really important theme to me.
What advice would you like to give to all the young architects like us?
When you think about an architecture project, you always have to design by facing with other people who are going to live in that place, otherwise you can never realize a good project.
Toyo Ito Museum of Architecture
In the book "Transforming Japan by exploiting architecture", Shueisha, 2016, Toyo Ito collects the testimonies on the island of Omishima Island.