Reuse, Revive: Making Old Things New Again
Professor Dana Buntrock
Wednesday, February 23, 2022.
7:00 PM to 8:00 PM (Eastern Time)
Online via Zoom
Register for this program at: https://tinyurl.com/PittBuntrock
Contemporary Japan seems, so often, to also make us aware of earlier history and traditions. Grandma's furoshiki, once used to wrap andcarry gifts, become chic handbags. Traditional teahouses are rendered in unusual materials like synthetic skin. Pavilions foregroundancient carpentry practices. Abandoned elementary schools become community centers. In the spirit of mottainai (never letting anythinggo to waste) and monotsukuri (making and handicraft), ludic designers sometimes hold on to obsolete objects from the past, stylishlyrepurposing them. This lecture will offer a few delightful examples of how reuse results in nostalgic reminiscence and natty revival.
Dana Buntrock is a Professor in the University of California, Berkeley’s Department of Architecture and was the Chair of the Center for Japanese Studieson campus from 2015-2020. She held the first Tomoye Takahashi endowed chair from 2017-2020 and was selected as a Distinguished Professor of the(North American) Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture in 2018.
Her work focuses on interdisciplinary collaborations within Japanese architecture and construction practices, starting with her first book, Japanese Architecture as a Collaborative Process: Opportunities in a Flexible Construction Culture (London: Spon, 2000). Her second book, Materials and Meaning in ContemporaryJapanese Architecture: Tradition and Today (London: Routledge, 2010) looked at how contemporary architects like Kengo Kuma draw on Japanese traditions intheir work.
This program is brought to you by the Asian Studies Center at the University of Pittsburgh and made possible with the generous support of the Japan Foundation Center for Global Partnership