"Hiroshi Naito, one of the major exponents of contemporary Japanese architecture, has attracted attention in Europe and North America both through his technically advanced yet culturally and environmentally sensitive buildings, and through his inspiring critique of dominant trends in Western and Western-style Japanese architecture. In this book Naito explains and illustrates a design philosophy that conceives of architecture as a mediating form between the materials used and the landscape into which a construction is inserted. He seeks to design buildings that "breathe with" their natural as well as cultural surroundings. As such, Naito's approach is to be understood as a provocative alternative to an oftentimes rather technocratic ecological architecture of European and North American origin." "This volume presents major projects from 1993 to 2005, among them the Chihiro Art Museum Azumino (Nagano Prefecture), the Makino Museum of Plants and People (Kochi Prefecture) and the Shimane Arts Center (Shimane Prefecture). All works are presented with highly detailed construction drawings, comprehensive technical data and numerous photographs."--BOOK JACKET.