The Exploded Architecture of Moriyama House

Moriyama House is a cult building. Created by Ryue Nishizawa (one half of the architectural firm SANAA) and situated in a residential district of Tokyo, it is made up of nine white blocks, exploding over the 300-m² area on which they were built. This allows their inhabitants, the owner and their tenants, to navigate between each block, through the trees and passages, as if wandering through a maze.

Architectural fluidity at the expense of intimacy

It’s a legendary but sometimes criticised construction, particularly due to the lack of privacy offered as a result of the dispersed nature of the different blocks and their openness to the outside world. ‘I was surprised to see how gritty Moriyama House was. It was far from glamorous, with the reality of such small living spaces’, photographer Edmund Sumner tells magazine Deezen. ‘And for the tenants living in these small spaces, reality is far from any glamorous image that might otherwise be projected’, he continues, having wanted to capture the house in its natural state. These photos were taken in 2005, just after Moriyama House was completed. 

Moriyama House (2005) is a building by architect Ryue Nishizawa.