How can design evolve to create new meanings? Thomas Heatherwick founded his studio in 1994 to bring together architecture, urban planning, product design and interiors into a unique perspective. The designer works across geographies, locations and scales and the agency has developed into a team of 200 makers and inventors. The studio epitomises London’s creativity. Today, it handles many projects around the world.

The amazing Mori Art Museum, Tokyo, celebrates this incredible career and all the innovations the studio brought to light with Heatherwick Studio: Building Soulfulness an exhibition running in the spectacular Tokyo City View (indoor observation deck) on the 52F of the Roppongi Hills Mori Tower until 4th June.

“Every design is rooted in a belief that even projects as large as a city can have a human-scale, while harnessing the energies of the natural world and memories contained within architecture into new designs. At the core of this approach is the creation of places for gathering, dialogue, recreation, and enjoyment, instead of the design of “hard” elements that so often characterise products and buildings.” the museum says.

The studio studies the history of objects and places, researches a wide spectrum of materials, and pays homage to traditional craftsmanship, their spaces, to deploy the latest developments in engineering. This exhibition is the first one in Japan to showcase twenty-eight major projects of Heatherwick Studio through maquettes, drawings, objects, videos and quotes. It is one of the most comprehensive exhibitions on Heatherwick’s stellar work.

“The studio’s founder Thomas Heatherwick comes from a background immersed in materials and making. His curiosity and passion for problem-solving matured into the studio’s current design process where every architect, designer, landscape architect and maker is encouraged to challenge and contribute ideas. Positive and pragmatic, the studio’s team are collaborators whose role is to listen, question, then lead the conception and construction of special and unusual places. Ingenuity and inspiration are used to make projects that are affordable, buildable and sustainable. And our client is vital, who comes on the journey and challenges our thinking; together we look for the opportunities that might traditionally be overlooked. Our best future projects are the ones that will teach us the most.” the studio writes.

The 28 projects honoured in the exhibition include ‘Azabudai Hills’ (2023), a new district in Tokyo currently under construction, and the studio’s first project in Japan; The Zeitz Museum of Contemporary Art Africa (2017), a public non-profit museum; the memorable Shanghai Expo UK Pavilion (2010), also known as the ‘Seed Cathedral’. Additional highlights such as the reinvention of the London buses, and the London Olympic flame holders are on view in this fantastic show.

The exhibition explores how architecture and design can bring the best of humanity through ideas of beauty, empathy and sometimes chance and error. The Mori Art Museum’s presentation is rich, in-depth and approachable for all audiences. This is one of the most remarkable exhibitions of the season.

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Images: installation view – ‘Heatherwick Studio: Building Soulfulness’, Tokyo City View (2023), image © Furukawa Yuya, courtesy Mori Art Museum, Tokyo and Heatherwick Studio ‘Spun’ (2007), courtesy Magis, installation view – ‘Heatherwick Studio: Building Soulfulness’, Tokyo City View, Tokyo, 2023 | image © Furukawa Yuya, courtesy Mori Art Museum, Tokyo.