Today we travel the longest way so far, today I am really honoured to welcome architect Takefumi Aida, born in Japan in 1937and, for 86 years, has never stopped playing.

I bring good and bad news.

Bad news first: age won't bring us certainties.

Now the good news: age won't bring us certainties.

After over 60 years thinking about architecture, Takefumi Aida confesses he is “continuously thinking about what architecture is”. Maybe…this “thinking about what architecture is” is architecture itself.

It’s polemic…but the probability that "architecture is not 100% expressed in the realised architecture” is a strong possibility. Fortunately, its guaranteed we find Takefumi Aida’s full intent out of his models and drawings. 

“The importance of architecture is in the thinking. The building is one kind of result.”

He has approached architecture with a 3D kind of though, playing with Toy Blocks.

He has approached architecture with a 2D kind of though, playing with cards and parallel walls.

Currently, “I want to design architecture by a one dimensional thinking way. (…) I have started to think about that but I haven’t yet developed a design method for it.”

I bring more bad news: “There is not a single project that I am satisfied with.”

I also bring more good news: “I still have the same motivation I had when I was a young child. That is why I don’t stop.”

Beautiful.

Guest: Takefumi Aida (Tokyo, Japan)

Host: Ana Catarina Silva (Porto, Portugal)

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