“A fascinating survey of postwar architecture in Japan”
The Guardian

Staged in London and Rome, the core of the exhibition ‘The Japanese House: Architecture and Life After 1945’ was a life-size reconstruction of Ryue Nishizawa’s 2005 Moriyama House. At the Barbican, visitors could wander in and out of the interconnecting apartments as if through the alleys and gardens of a densely populated Tokyo neighbourhood. Upstairs, the exhibition continued with films, models, drawings, photography and more full-scale architectural features.

Our design for the exhibition graphics took a purposefully unobtrusive approach. Set in the same typeface – Optimo Plain – as the catalogue we produced as the first stage of our commission, the exhibition’s most notable design flourish was the introduction wall, which was spray-painted in metallic silver. This gesture was inspired by architect Kazunari Sakamoto, who would paint reinforced concrete walls silver in order to both accentuate and defamiliarise them.