Architect Toyo Ito donates archive to the CCA

The Canadian Centre for Architecture (CCA) announced the addition of the early works of Toyo Ito to its archives. Ito is known for transcending the boundaries of architecture while also speaking out about social needs.

The CCA Collection includes ideas, provocations, inspirations, and trials and errors that have formed the basis of international research, exhibition and publication program. Containing more than 200 archival holdings, the collection has continued to grow over the years with the donation of works by international architects, historians, and critics that document the history, culture, and production of architectural ideas.

According to the CCA, Ito’s decision to donate his archives follows an intention to continue encouraging new research into his work, while also putting it in dialogue with the other artifacts and bodies of work in the CCA Collection.

“The CCA is an architectural museum and research centre I have the utmost trust in. Upon this donation, I received requests from many Japanese architects and researchers, asking if it is possible to keep those archives in Japan. However, I have the confidence that CCA offers unparalleled accessibility for future researchers from around the world to study my works,” said Ito.

Ito was born in 1941 in Gyeongseong (now Seoul), Korea and graduated from the University of Tokyo. He then worked alongside Itsuko Hasegawa, for Kiyonori Kikutake, a central figure in the Metabolist movement. He founded his studio Urban Robot in Tokyo in 1971, which was later renamed Toyo Ito & Associates, Architects.

Ito constructed private house projects that expressed aspects of urban life in Japan throughout his early career. His most remarkable early conceptual contributions were made through projects of this scale and include White U (1976), a house he designed for his sister and her children. This project, which is known for its lightness and openness, is an icon of experimental residential architecture in Japan.

The archival donation to the CCA includes the work produced by his Tokyo-based office between 1971 and 1995.  The donation to the CCA also includes the Aluminium House (URBOT-001), Ito’s first design (1971) published in Toshi Jutaku, the Useless Capsule House (URBOT-002), and the House at Koganei (1979).

“Much of our work originates in the collection, both in our curatorial practice—selecting and applying a contemporary lens to collection material in order to discuss issues of present and future relevance—and in our activity as a research centre—seeking ways to multiply the connections and relationships within this body of material, making it as widely accessible as possible, and facilitating dynamic interpretations of the history of our environment,” said Giovanna Borasi, director and chief curator of the CCA.

Ito has already shared his ideas at the CCA several years ago, during the Anyplace conference that the institution hosted in 1994.

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