Taro Tsuruta [Tsuruta Architects]

Thursday 28th October 2021, 6.30pm

Tessa Blackstone Lecture Theatre [0003]

Two main interests underpin the work of Tsuruta Architects. One is good product delivery, which means investigating construction methods and delivery processes, as well as the ways that they are put together efficiently and sustainably. The other is story or memory associated with a building/space, regardless of whether these are individual or shared narratives. This relates to a question of whether the physicality of a building, structure or place defines itself or if it’s the story or memory associated with them that defines value and identity. Both are two different subject matters; one is technical (tactile) and the other is narrative (abstract). In order to maintain equilibrium in each project, Tsuruta explores these two, which could be said as opposite matters but are in fact intertwined. In this lecture, Taro Tsuruta will introduce the practice’s work from these two perspectives through everyday experiences as an architect. 

Taro Tsuruta was brought up in Osaka, Japan and then studied and trained in both Japan and the UK. Tsuruta has worked at several leading London design practices on large complex projects before setting up his own studio in London. The work of the Practice has been written about in numerous publications and has gained a number of industry awards, recently RIBA National Award 2021, RIBA Small project of the year 2021, Wood Award 2020, and most notably for their project House of Trace which received the RIBA Stephen Lawrence Prize 2016 and was nominated for the European Union Prize for Contemporary Architecture Mies van der Rohe Award 2017.