Just as ethnography explores the society and culture of ethnic groups, architectural ethnography by Japanese studio Bow-Wow looks at public space and the lives of people in the space around architecture. Observation, hand drawing and reflection help Bow-Wow to break down preconceived notions of what architecture is.
Their method first appeared in Made in Tokyo, a guide to Tokyo published by Bow-Wow in 2001. In it, they depict in simple hand drawings the chaotic reality of a city that responds spontaneously to the needs and activities of its inhabitants. Detailed renderings of golf courses, food stalls, spaces under expressways... unimaginably small yet useful spaces. This experiment was the beginning of their other projects and research.
Momoyo Kaijima studied home economics at Japan Women's University, Tokyo Institute of Technology and Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich (ETH), where she has been a professor of architectural behavioural science since 2017. She also teaches at the University of Tsukuba.
In 1992, Momoyo Kaijima and Yoshiharu Tsukamoto founded the Bow-Wow studio. The studio's productions can be found in Japan, Europe and the United States. Momoyo Kaijima and Yoshiharu Tsukamoto are this year's recipients of the Wolf Prize for the Arts, a prestigious Israeli international award given to scientists and artists for their achievements in the interest of humanity. The studio was last presented in Prague in 2011 with the exhibition House Behaviorology at the Jaroslav Fragner Gallery.
Momoyo Kaijima's performance will introduce an international six-day workshop for students, organized in Prague by ETH Zurich in cooperation with the FA CTU. The topic will be the potential of architectural drawings, mapping urban spaces and everyday life in them. The students will draw views of urban spaces in different locations in Prague, the common drawing will function as a platform for communication. A series of Public Drawing Workshops have already been held in Zurich, Venice and Rome.
