On the evening of May 2nd, one of the most influential architects of our time took the stage at Museu do Oriente to speak about the relationship between architecture and the natural world. OTIIMA was proud to be part of it.
Setting the scene
There are few occasions in which a city becomes the right stage for a conversation that feels both urgent and timeless. The conference Back to Nature, organized by Espaço de Arquitetura and held at the Museu do Oriente in Lisbon, was one of them. On the evening of May 2nd, Japanese architect Kengo Kuma addressed an audience of architects, engineers, and cultural figures, united by a shared interest in the direction that contemporary architecture must take.
OTIIMA was honored to sponsor the event, and to witness firsthand a reflection that resonates deeply with our own values: the conviction that the built environment should not stand apart from nature, but exist in deliberate and thoughtful exchange with it.
© Gustavo Ramos
The architect
Founder of Kengo Kuma & Associates, Kengo Kuma’s body of work spans some of the most celebrated architectural commissions of the past three decades — from the Japan National Stadium, built for the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games, to the V&A Dundee in Scotland, the first design museum in the United Kingdom outside of London.
What distinguishes Kuma is sensibility. His architecture is defined by a consistent pursuit of lightness: a desire to dissolve mass, to allow materials to breathe, and to create spaces where the natural and the constructed become indistinguishable. His material vocabulary, like stone, wood, bamboo, washi paper, is rooted in craft and in place, yet his practice is unmistakably global.
© Gustavo Ramos
Kengo Kuma in Portugal
The conference carried particular resonance given Kuma’s growing presence in Portugal. His intervention at the Centro de Arte Moderna of Fundação Gulbenkian in Lisbon and the reconversion project at Matadouro do Porto speak to an architect who approaches Portuguese territory as an encounter with its history and materiality.
For those attending the conference, this local dimension added a layer of immediacy to his reflections. Kuma’s ideas were visible, tangible, and walkable.
Back to Nature
Under the theme Back to Nature, Kuma explored what he sees as one of the central responsibilities of architecture in our time: the reconstruction of a sensibility toward territory and environment that industrial modernity has gradually eroded. Nature, in his framework is the very condition of architecture’s meaning.
He spoke of porosity, of materials that age with dignity, of buildings that respond to the surrounding environment. And in doing so, he offered something rarer than technical expertise: a coherent philosophy, expressed with clarity and conviction.
Explore the highlights of the event through our gallery:
