Ryo Abe

Ryo started his Architects Atelier in 1995 and pays great attention to traditional Japanese forms, materials and techniques and their further development. He conceives every building as part of the environment / nature and refers to the Japanese Shinto philosophy in which every object, space and phenomenon has its own soul and everything is connected.

He and his team, who care about the social (re)activation of places, planned the renovation of an old, vacant house on the remote island of Teshima, creating the community restaurant and art theater „Shima Kitchen“, which became one of the main venues for the Setouchi International Art Festival in 2010. In 2015, an old Motoyu hotel was renovated / reactivated in the shrinking mountain village of Nishiawakuramura, which has now developed into a meeting place for older people, young couples with children and migrant families. In 2016, Ryo Abe created the public garden „Sorala“ on the roof of the Fukuya department store, one of the oldest buildings in the center of Hiroshima, which survived the atomic bomb and is now the city’s landmark. Ryo Abe has also been active in Europe: In 2018, he took part in a call from the Camargo Foundation and the Calanques National Park in Cassis (France). Finally he designed the entrance zone (temporary pavilion „Seed“) in the national park.

For his residency in Krems it is planned to encourage Ryo Abe to engage specifically with Krems-Lerchenfeld, which was already the subject of Artists like Cornè Strootman and Gerold Kunz in 2021, in order to continue this focus. The district, which is dominated by VOEST, Kremser Hafen and the workers housing estates, offers a lot of communal space that could be more used by local people. Abe is interested in dealing with everyday life, regional spatial characteristics and structures in order to create a basis for regional revitalization and to design places for activities by the residents. The Japanese idea of relationship between man and nature is his basis for design, this cultural perspective from the outside could be interesting.

Citizenship: Japan

Lives in: Tokyo

Residence: September and October 2023

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