Architektur Denken（Book Design）
This is a Japanese edition of Architektur Denken, published by Birkhäuser in 2010. The book is compiled with a focus on the speech scripts of Peter Zumthor, a Swiss architect. In the early autumn of 2006, Ms. Junko Ogawa of Misuzu Shobo visited Mr. Zumthor at his studio and asked to let Misuzu Shobo publish a Japanese translation of the book. After returning to Japan, Ms. Ogawa asked me, “Do you know Mr. Peter Zumthor? I will ask you for bookbinding if he agrees to publishing.” I answered, “Of course, I would very much like to!” In the spring of the following year, Mr. Zumthor gave an official approval with requests. He said, “The Japanese version should be translated from the German version” (because English is not his native language). He also stipulated that the name of “Peter Zumthor” should be indicated based on the German pronunciation, not on the English pronunciation, and that the translator should be someone with a literature background because the book should be made as an essay collection. After that time, Ms. Hitoko Suzuki (translator) and Ms. Ogawa tried to express Zumthor’s own words in the Japanese language for several years; however, neither Ms. Ogawa nor I could verbalize what attracts us to Zumthor. I wondered if we could translate that nameless feeling into the “small structure” of bookbinding… With this ambitious goal in mind, I spent many long but happy hours of struggle.
