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‘Tthe future of architecture,” said Salvador Dalí when he met Le Corbusier in 1922, “will be soft and woolly.” Fast forward 70 years to Tokyo, and its surrealist prophecy was the inspiration for the Soft and Hairy House, one of the iconic residential buildings designed by Scottish-Japanese artists Kathryn Findlay and Eisaku Ushida. Creating different cultures of design – a combination of Celtic and “raw” Japanese – covered with a passion for nature, as well as the theory of fractal geometries and chaos, the duo created amazing and magical buildings.
Completed in 1994, Soft and Hairy House he adopted the old plan of the courtyard, thoroughly renovated in pre-millennium Tokyo, its increased softness and circular lines, its hair with a green side that decorates the ceiling. A bright blue, hole-in-the-wall bathroom entered the room like a giant fungus. The interior was the epitome of a Hollywood star’s dream, with soft cushions and inviting lighting.
The duo’s most famous work, the Truss Wall House, looked more like a living sculpture than a workaday house, a conchoidal union made in solid concrete that resembles natural forms – flexible shells or whale jaws – washed up on the city’s shores. Findlay described their method of creating a shape like a worm eating an apple, carving a space out of solid wood, rather than creating a solid frame and filling it.
A new exhibition at Dundee’s V&A Museum examines part of Findlay’s career, abridged when he died of a brain tumor aged 60 in 2014. Forming part of the Royal Scottish Academy’s bicentennial programpresents a series of museum exhibits, focusing on works in Japan, as well as Findlay’s later works. Findlay was the first female architect to be a Scottish apprentice and the RSA now maintains and preserves the archives of the partnership, one of the largest donations in its history, made by the Findlay and Ushida families.
Pictures, drawings, models and sketchbooks show how ideas were started, implemented and gradually modified. Of particular interest is a collection of the most effective hand-drawn drawings from the computer-generated era. More akin to anatomical studies than to architectural style, the pen and ink have a subtle aesthetic appeal, described by Findlay as “thin drawings”, which aim to evoke the medium’s output.
Elsewhere, a mass of 35mm footage – once an architectural marvel, now superseded by digital media – is arranged on a vertical light box, like bright pieces of stained glass. Magnifying glass is provided to help visitors see the buildings, models and life of Ushida Findlay’s studio.
Limiting sustainable and intellectual development of infrastructure is affecting our future. Findlay was the daughter of a sheep farmer in rural Angus, north-east Scotland, not the typical breed of world-renowned craftsman. He later returned to teaching architecture in Dundee, following the end of his marriage and partnership with Ushida.
When the idea of a Scottish site for the V&A was first conceived, he encouraged architects Arup to contact the Japanese architect Kengo Kuma, the first word that helped bring about a new existence. That his work is now on display here seems to be the circle of the circle, although it should have more space than the visual space provided. And inevitably, there’s a bit of sadness about the talent that’s gone too soon. Who knows what 20 or 30 years of Findlay would have given the world?
For his time, Findlay’s route from west to east was uneventful. Inspired by Charles Rennie Mackintosh’s buildings, and their association with design and decoration, he studied at Edinburgh College of Art, then at London’s Architectural Association. His interest in Japan and Japanese culture took him to Tokyo, where he worked for Arata Isozaki, a modern aristocrat, where he met Eisaku Ushida. Miya, their daughter, he is also a builder.
Re-established in the UK, despite financial difficulties, Findlay continued to produce work that defied convention. The Chilterns Grass House, a high-tech project described by architect Peter Cook, his former AA teacher, as a “digi-grass”, playfully subverts traditional materials. Another project, a star-shaped beach palace in Qatar, resembled a tiny pearl in the desert sand.
Findlay also served as architect for the ArcelorMittal Orbit, a sculpture designed by Anish Kapoor and engineer Cecil Balmond that still dominates the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park in Stratford. “Meccano on crack” was one of the catchphrases, but his skill helped him fight 700 visitors per hour at the 2012 Olympic Games. As he freely admitted, he had no interest in “bread and butter”. This information is clear from this impressive display.
