A dog's life gets a little cooler

An ongoing exhibit at the 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art in Kanazawa, Japan, explores architecture’s new creative possibilities by reinterpreting it from a canine’s viewpoints and perspectives.

Running until May 10, “Architecture for Dogs” features 28 works by 13 leading architects and designers, Kengo Kuma and Kazuyo Sejima among them. Designer Kenya Hara is the director of the show.

And if you assume the exhibits are simply about kennels, well, then you’re barking up the wrong tree.

Particularly surprising is a work for Chihuahuas by architect pair Reiser + Umemoto. Titled “Chihuahua Cloud”, it features orange textile materials that cover the head and body of the dog like a dress. Using detailed mesh for the part covering the face, the work is designed to allow a dog to look around.

It looks like a fanciful dress in a fashion show, but the artists maintain the work is intended to be “architecture that travels with the dog”.

If you are a dog lover, you'll certainly be moved to tears by Hiroshi Naito’s work, “Dog Cooler,” a piece inspired by his own pet.

Naito had a beloved male spitz named Pepe, who was always panting from the heat. The work is dedicated to the artist’s furry friend, with whom he spent 16 years.

The work was created by connecting wood with aluminium pipes, a material with high heat conductivity, using rubber, assuming it will help cool down a dog resting on it if ice-packed vinyl bags are put into the pipes, Naito said.

“I thought dogs wouldn’t like it if only aluminium was used because it would make it slippery,” Naito says. “So I used wooden material in between to give dogs something to cling to with their claws.”

That certainly makes it architecture with careful consideration of the “client”.

Focusing on smell, Torafu Architects created “Wanmock,” which is a pun made from the words hammock and wan (Japanese for bark), for the Jack Russell terrier.

The work was specially designed for the Jack Russell, a breed known for an acute sense of smell and its ability to bond with owners over the odour of their clothing. The simple design – made by covering a wooden frame with an owner’s old clothes – makes the work particularly impressive. During production, the creators looked at photographs of Bouillon, copywriter Shigesato Itoi’s dog, to get ideas.

A work by Toyoo Ito, which he created for his Shiba dog Momo, looks like a buggy. The artist said he decided on the design out of a desire to create “mobile architecture that helps his beloved dog get around even in old age”.

Looking at the variety of works on display, it’s clear that creators did not regard their works simply as “kennels”. They all seem to prove that a pleasant space for dogs can be a pleasant space for human beings, too.

 

ON THE WEB

www.ArchitectureForDogs.com.