2026.2.18
WHAT MUSEUM to Host Exhibition “Corrugated / Coral – Eight Practices to Project Architecture Afar” Featuring New Models by Eight Groups of Architects Starting from April 21st (Tue), 2026
Step inside, approach, and hold in hand: Encountering the thinking of emerging architects through a diversity of models
WHAT MUSEUM, the museum of contemporary art and architecture operated by Warehouse TERRADA, will host the exhibition, "Corrugated / Coral – Eight Practices to Project Architecture Afar" from April 21st (Tue) to September 13th (Sun), 2026. WHAT MUSEUM's ARCHI-DEPOT has stored and showcased architectural models entrusted by architects and architectural firms, and has promoted architectural culture through these works. This exhibition focuses on "models" as a medium for expressing architects' ideas and philosophies, showcasing models created specifically for this exhibition by eight groups of architects active in Japan and abroad. Visitors are invited to discover each architect's unique ideas, which cannot be fully captured by words or drawings alone, through spatial and physical experiences.
Models as Tools for Understanding Architects' Thinking
Architectural models are widely recognized as three-dimensional representations of buildings. At the same time, they are an essential means of expression for architects to give form to their perspectives and thoughts on space, structure, and society.
The models introduced in this exhibition are not intended to show the completed form of a building. They are three-dimensional representations of the architects’ very thinking—how they perceive and approach the world. Through these models, visitors can physically and spatially experience the architect’s thinking that drawings and words alone cannot fully convey.
New models created specifically for this exhibition by eight groups of cutting-edge architects
The participating architects are the following eight groups: ALTEMY, Office Yuasa, Garage, GROUP, DOMINO ARCHITECTS, Tetsuo Hatakeyama + Taiki Yoshino + Archipelago Architects Studio, Toshiki Hirano, and RUI Architects. Each has been practicing architecture while confronting the question “What is architecture?” amid today’s rapidly changing society, and they have created new models specifically for this exhibition. The venue features a model with a perimeter of approximately 12 meters, installations that allow visitors to step inside and experience the space, and objects that they can hold in their hands.
Changing Society and Architectural Thinking
The foundations of society are shifting dramatically amid advancing information technology, disasters, pandemics, climate change, and other factors. In architecture, while immediate responses to pressing challenges remain essential, the importance of envisioning solutions from a long-term perspective, transcending time and place, needs to be reexamined.
The exhibition title “Corrugated / Coral” refers to two entities of differing natures: corrugated sheets, a familiar, man-made building material and coral reefs, a natural structure formed over vast spans of time. It represents a state where their respective timescales, dimensions, and rates of formation intersect and coexist. This exhibition introduces architects’ attempts to reexamine architecture from a broad perspective, using familiar materials and structures as their starting points, all presented through their models. Via this medium, visitors encounter their thinking and imagination, experiencing firsthand how architects engage with society and the environment.
[Overview of the Exhibition]
Title: Corrugated / Coral – Eight Practices to Project Architecture Afar
Dates: April 21st (Tue) – September 13th (Sun), 2026
Venue: WHAT MUSEUM (Warehouse TERRADA G Building, 2-6-10 Higashi-Shinagawa, Shinagawa-ku, Tokyo 140-0002)
Opening Hours: Tuesday – Sunday 11:00 AM – 6:00 PM (Admission until 5:00 PM)
Closed on: Mondays (but open when Monday is a public holiday, then closed the following Tuesday) *Note: Open on May 4th (Mon) and May 5th (Tue), 2026.
Admission: Adults 1,500 yen / University or vocational college students 800 yen / Students under high school age Free
*200-yen discount for online purchased tickets for a designated date and time (cannot be combined with other discounts)
Organizing: WHAT MUSEUM
Planning: WHAT MUSEUM’s ARCHI-DEPOT and SUNAKI
Endorsement: Shinagawa City and Shinagawa City Board of Education
Official website: https://what.warehouseofart.org/exhibitions/corrugatedcoral/en
*During the exhibition period, talk events featuring the exhibiting architects and related displays at ARCHI-DEPOT are scheduled. Details will be announced in due course.
[About Exhibitors and Exhibiting Works] * In Japanese alphabetical order
©ALTEMY
ALTEMY “Inter-Embodiment”
Urban crowds and observers intertwine, establishing a reciprocal relationship where each becomes the architecture of the other.
This work presents architecture as the very situation in which one discovers a “distinct body” within homogenized humans, and “I” and the other perpetually become each other’s environment.
Profile: An architecture design studio and a first-class registered architect’s office, represented by Eri Tsugawa. They design across various fields, including architecture, landscape, installation, mobility, and fashion, treating all as “architecture.”
©Office Yuasa
Office Yuasa “Darkness, Afterglow”
A wall and five reading desks with chairs, all coated with phosphorescent paint, reveal traces of visitors’ lighting and reading as a phosphorescent glow after the lights are turned off. Outlines of absence superimposed in the darkness weave patterns of faint light, emerging with a delay as transparent relationships within instantly consumed moments of daily life.
Profile: Ryosuke Yuasa/Born in Tokyo in 1982. Completed his Master’s Program at Tokyo University of the Arts. After working at Hiroshi Naito Architect & Associates, he established Office Yuasa in 2019. Associate Professor at Tama Art University since 2024.
©Garage
Garage “Disentangled boundaries”
This work focuses on the collective and physical nature of architecture and deploys an improvised, temporary structure. They are “disentangled boundaries” that open and close, connecting different domains. This is a full-scale study model, yet it also functions as a dramatic space imbued with festivity.
Profile: An architectural collective composed of members specializing in architecture, film, and theater. They view architecture as “a phase in an ever-changing phenomenon,” and practice design activities that encompass not only space but also time including various means such as film, theater, festivals, and fieldwork.
Photo by ma.psd
GROUP “City Asleep”
In Shibuya, Tokyo, drowsiness comes over me.
In the haze of half-sleep, the smells and sounds of Shibuya blend, and my body sways faintly with my breath.
People move between the buildings like waves.
In the spaces between, I find a place to sleep, put away my phone, and close my eyes.
Profile: Through architectural projects, GROUP aim to create spaces where people with diverse expertise can collaborate both temporarily and continuously, engaging in architectural design, research, and construction.
©DOMINO ARCHITECTS
DOMINO ARCHITECTS “PULP FICTION (jetway)”
A model for preserving and observing a thought experiment. There are several spaces I’ve long imagined. A looping aerial walkway formed by linking together the movable jetways found at airports. One could walk forever along that functional, symbolic, fleeting slope between passing through the boarding gate and stepping onto the aircraft. Though without any entrances or exits, you would never actually board a plane.
Profile: DOMINO ARCHITECTS explores connections with history and context through both design practice and theory, reframing the relationships between information and material, digital and analogue, high-tech and low-tech. Shaped through collaborations with diverse teams, its work spans architecture, interiors, product design, research, writing, and education.
©Archipelago Architects Studio
Tetsuo Hatakeyama + Taiki Yoshino + Archipelago Architects Studio ”What is ○△□ ?”
Do we truly know the circle, the triangle, and the square? If it were possible to see them as they are, what would be there—and what would not be there?
Profile: Tetsuo Hatakeyama/Born in Toyama Prefecture in 1986. After working with Shingo Masuda + Katsuhiro Otsubo, he established Archipelago Architects Studio in 2017. Taiki Yoshino/Born in Kumamoto Prefecture in 1988. After working at Go Hasegawa and Associates, he joined Archipelago Architects Studio in 2020.
©︎Toshiki Hirano
Toshiki Hirano “A Hakoniwa Plan for Tokyo”
This work explores a methodology for projecting the individual unconscious and obsessions, materialized through Hakoniwa therapy techniques and generative AI, onto an urban-scale project set within Tokyo Bay.
Profile: Architectural designer and researcher. Born in 1985, Hirano earned his Ph.D. from the University of Tokyo. His research and practice are situated at the crossroads of architecture, art, technology, crafts, and philosophy, exploring the vast, uncharted ‘hole’ that exists within this intersection.
©︎RUI Architects
RUI Architects “Prop”
After walking through the city and making models of places that caught my eye, things that had somehow made peace with each other in this world full of contradictions began to speak. This is an attempt to capture the humor and helplessness that exists there.
Profile: Founded in 2018 by Rui Itasaka. The studio focuses on architectural design while actively engaging in other fields, encompassing product and material development, artistic creation and more. Received the Under 35 Architects Exhibition 2021 Gold Medal.
[Audio Guides]
By downloading the official WHAT MUSEUM app, visitors can use the audio guide when visiting the museum. (Free)
The Japanese and English audio guide navigator for this exhibition is Saya Ichikawa, a model. She will offer accessible explanations of the exhibiting works on display and highlights of the exhibition to help visitors better appreciate the exhibition.
Saya Ichikawa Profile
Grew up in Detroit, USA. Scouted at age 16 and debuted as an exclusive model for magazines.
She has since appeared in numerous fashion magazines. Her diverse interests include music, reading, watching anime, railways, art, sumo, and food-hopping.
[About WHAT MUSEUM]
WHAT MUSEUM, operated by Warehouse TERRADA, is a unique museum that only a warehouse company could create—transforming warehouse space into a place for encountering contemporary art and architecture. The name of WHAT (WAREHOUSE OF ART TERRADA) implies the cultural value which is gleaming quietly in the warehouse, and the museum exhibits two- and three-dimensional works as well as architectural models, photographs, films, literature and installations. By showcasing artworks entrusted to Warehouse TERRADA by collectors and artists, the museum bridges artwork storage, exhibition, and engagement. Moreover, as a hub of the international art district, Tennoz, Tokyo, it serves as a nucleus for the local art community, bringing art and culture from the warehouse space to the world.
https://what.warehouseofart.org/en
[About ARCHI-DEPOT]
WHAT MUSEUM’s ARCHI-DEPOT, holding over 800 architectural models from architects and architecture firms, showcases a selection on public display. To promote the fascination of architecture through architectural models, WHAT MUSEUM has hosted numerous exhibitions, including “GAUDI QUEST” (2019), “The Words for Architecture” (2020), and “SENSE OF STRUCTURE” (2023–2024). It also hosts special exhibitions, workshops, and events featuring architectural models.
Photo by Katsuhiro Aoki
Photo by Katsuhiro Aoki
- For Inquiries about WHAT MUSEUM
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WHAT MUSEUM
E-MAIL: info.what@terrada.co.jp