Unlike other published collections of Shinohara’s work, this volume features multi-page architectural sketches reproduced at 1:1 scale in its opening section. These are accompanied by texts written by architectural historian Miyake Riichi, then a professor at Shibaura Institute of Technology. Miyake analyzes how Shinohara employed images as textual expressions to articulate his structure-driven architectural philosophy—particularly through the various spatial section sketches he produced after the 1970s, which offer a glimpse of the architect’s brush strokes tracing the path of gravitational force. From his 1974 journey to Africa, to his 1984 appointment as visiting professor at Yale University, and his participation in projects like the urban development plan “Euralille” in Lille, France, curated by Rem Koolhaas (1944-), this volume gradually unfolds worldviews prompted critical shifts in Shinohara’s architecture across different “styles.” Yet through his hand-drawn sketches, the enduring themes of geometry and mechanics that underpin his spatial concepts become evident, revealing his inner origin. Paired with the book’s clear architectural drawings and dynamic full-page photographs, readers can engage with and preserve Shinohara’s profoundly influential works, which have shaped contemporary architectural design thinking, from a more comprehensive perspective.
Originally published in 1996 by TOTO Publishing in Tokyo, this now-out-of-print volume can be said to have summed up Shinohara’s career. In the final pages, the essay “Toward the Fifth Style” serves as both a retrospective and a prospectus. Drawing on his background as a mathematician, Shinohara likens the evolution of his architectural style to the derivation of mathematical formulas. Facing today’s rapidly changing social and cultural environment, he proposes a spatial response grounded in an architect’s rigorous personal design logic.
