SHUHEI ENDO: PARAMODERN ARCHITECTURE (Electa's Modern Masters)

Japanese architect Shuhei Endo can be defined as an architect of steel since he distinctly favours this material in the buildings he designs and continually experiments with its infinite possibilities. His works are apparently weightless and communicate a sense of liberty: undulating sheets of steel are twisted into spirals and wrapped around buildings in overlapping layers, like petals of flowers, or arranged on different levels to create a membrane around open spaces. This approach is most evident in the "great roofs" that house Endo-designed offices, such as Rooftecture N (Nisinomiya, Hyogo, 1998), or spaces for relaxation and meetings, such as Rooftecture T (Fukui, 1997), as well as private homes, such as Springtecture H (Harima, 1998) and Rooftecture M (Maruoka, 2001). Born in 1960 in Shiga Prefecture, Japan, he graduated in 1986 from the Kyoto School of Art and then joined the Osamu Ishii & Biken Associates architectural studio. In 1988 he founded the Shuhei Endo Institute in Osaka and began teaching at Kinki University, Kobe Design University and the Fukui Institute of Technology.