Visionary Japanese architect Kengo Kuma joins Leonie Bell, director of V&A Dundee, the groundbreaking structure Kengo designed as Scotland's design museum, inspired by the dramatic Scottish coastal landscape. Chaired by the director of London's Sir John Soane's Museum and former arts editor of the BBC, Will Gompertz, this conversation will dissect how materials can be transformed into vessels for cultural memory and unveil the hidden dialogues between a building and those who use it.
Ahead of the talk, violinist Midori Komachi performs Paper Clouds: Materiality in empty Space in a washi paper dress inspired by samurai armour, a piece she composed for Paper Clouds: Materiality in Empty Space, the 2025 Japan pavilion at London Design Biennale, curated by Sekisui House – Kuma Lab and Clare Farrow Studio.
Location: The Great Hall, King's College, London
This edition of the Global Design Forum is supported by our Digital Media Partner, STIR.
Should you have any access requirements, please contact us at rsvp@globaldesignforum.com to accommodate your visit.
This talk is talking place at part of the Global Design Forum at London Design Biennale. View the whole programme here.
SPEAKERS
Kengo Kuma was born in 1954. He established Kengo Kuma & Associates in 1990. He is currently a University Professor and Professor Emeritus at the University of Tokyo and a member of the Japan Art Academy after teaching at Keio University and the University of Tokyo. KKAA projects are currently underway in more than 50 countries. Kengo Kuma proposes architecture that opens up new relationships between nature, technology, and human beings. His major publications include Kengo Kuma Onomatopoeia Architecture Grounding (X-Knowledge), Nihon no Kenchiku (Architecture of Japan, Iwanami Shoten), Zen Shigoto (Kengo Kuma – the complete works, Daiwa Shobo), Ten Sen Men (Point Line Plane, Iwanami Shoten), Makeru Kenchiku (Architecture of Defeat, Iwanami Shoten), Shizen na Kenchiku (Natural Architecture, Iwanami Shinsho), Chii-sana Kenchiku (Small Architecture, Iwanami Shinsho) and many others.
Leonie Bell is director of V&A Dundee, Scotland’s Design Museum. As Director, she leads the organisation from its spectacular home on Dundee’s reimagined waterfront and delivers the museum’s vision to inspire and empower through design and to champion design and designers. Leonie is responsible for ensuring that V&A Dundee continues to grow and evolve as a world-class design museum, for deepening the museum’s social and civic reach and for welcoming visitors from around the world. The museum’s unique architecture is animated through an ambitious and dynamic programme that generates joy and sparks curiosity in design as well as creating spaces and ways to explore, reflect and learn. Leonie is an Honorary Professor of Design at Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art & Design, University of Dundee, a Royal Society of Edinburgh Fellow, a Design Economy Ambassador with the Design Council, a member of the Bonnetmakers Craft, one of the Nine Incorporated Trades of Dundee, a member of the Policy Evidence Centre for Creative Industries Advisory Board and a trustee of the Edinburgh International Festival.
Will Gompertz joined the Soane from the Barbican, where – as Artistic Director – he helped reopen the centre after the pandemic. Prior to the Barbican, he was the BBC’s Arts Editor for eleven years. He has interviewed countless architects, artists, actors, writers, musicians and directors, as well as writing and presenting documentaries for BBC television and radio. Will spent seven years as a director of the Tate Galleries and has written three internationally celebrated books: What Are You Looking At? (2012), Think Like an Artist (2015) and See What You’re Missing (2023). He has lectured on the arts and creativity nationally and internationally, including giving talks at the Museum of Modern Art, V&A, National Gallery, Picasso Museum, Louvre Museum, Royal Academy, and Oxford and Cambridge Universities.
As an internationally acclaimed Japanese violinist and composer, who first performed solo at the age of 12 in Zurich, Midori Komachi has performed widely across Europe and Japan as both a classical and experimental artist. In 2021 she composed and performed the music for Kengo Kuma’s ‘Bamboo Ring: Weaving into Lightness’ installation in Milan Design Week, and she has now created this music for ‘Paper Clouds: Materiality in Empty Space’, the 2025 Japan Pavilion by Sekisui House - Kuma Lab for London Design Biennale, also curated by Clare Farrow Studio. She is wearing the Washi paper dress designed for the project, inspired by traditional Japanese armour detail, but turning metal into paper.
