GO-SEES AOYAMA, PREMIER / mtka

This book focuses on 2 photo studios “GO-SEES AOYAMA” and “GO-SEES PREMIER” designed by Tokyo based architectural studio mtka. The book was mainly composed by the following 3 elements: Basic information of the space / Models’ photos took by the architect / Completed buildings’ photos shot by a photographer. There is almost no superiority between the architect who designed the studios, the photographer and the graphic designer who designed the book. Furthermore, the 3 elements cited above were arbitrary classified in different paper type / paper weight / paper format / printing method and all the pages are designed so that several elements overlap each other.

The 2 studios are located in existing buildings at different locations (Aoyama and Ebisu) and were designed based on the same concept, which is to use the outside shape of the existing building. In Aoyama, the existing building has a large rectangular plane with an arc on one side and a small rectangle diagonally attached to it. In Ebisu, the existing building is sited in a corner lot and has a corner cut-off plane as a result of building restriction. These characteristics were extracted: In Aoyama, as an object that makes up the space and in Ebisu as an element that modifies the space dynamics. In this book, the 2 studios are connected by the makeup room “mirror” which is a common motif of those studios, and the pictures are placed so that the reader cannot identify which space it refers to. Furthermore, the pictures shot by the unique point of view of the photographer and the models’ pictures which represent the traces of the architect consciousness during the designing process are compressed by a particular bookmaking method to create a space. This book is a reflection about how to enable a virtual experience of a real space (like a photo studio) that can be experienced only under specific conditions, by multiplying visual experience in various ways.

Pages: 38
Dimensions: 225 × 305 mm
Format: Softcover
Language: English
Year: 2021
Color Photography: Gottingham
Model Photography: mtka
Book Design: Masayuki Makino
Printing: Atelier Gray
Publisher: mtka