There are no forests to see from the 53rd floor of Roppongi Hills Mori Tower. More than 200 meters above the urban jungle of Tokyo, you can hardly make out any trees in the concrete expansion below.
Yet here, over a thousand kilometers away from the woods of rural Hokkaido, the Mori Art Museum showcases the work of an architect whose quintessential landscape is the forests of Japan’s northernmost prefecture.
Rooted in Hokkaido
Sou Fujimoto, one of Japan’s most celebrated architects, grew up in Higashikagura, a small town at the foot of the Daisetsuzan mountain range. Although close to Asahikawa, Hokkaido’s second biggest city, nature is everywhere. Gold and white birch trees line the banks of the winding Chubetsu River. In winter, the snow blankets the landscape, turning it into a white wilderness.
Fujimoto remembers his carefree childhood in Hokkaido fondly. “We ran around in the forest”, the architect recalls. While the days when the 53-year-old played around in the woods are long gone, the feeling of freedom and openness has never left him. The concept serves as a guiding principle for his designs. “The forest is not a closed space — it is always open,” he explains.
World’s Largest Wooden Structure
Fujimoto’s recent project, the iconic centerpiece of Expo 2025, Osaka, Kansai, is a clear expression of his vision. The Grand Ring, a continuous wooden structure with almost two kilometers in circumference, encircles much of the international exhibition. The vast structure guides and shelters visitors, but also gives room to explore the lightness, atmosphere, and elegance of this wooden marvel and, of course, the venue itself.
Constructed from Japanese cedar, cypress, and Scotch pine, the Grand Ring covers an area of 61,035 square meters. It was recognized by the Guinness World Records as the largest wooden architectural structure in the world.
Fujimoto is a prolific creator. The first room of the exhibition titled “Forest of Thoughts” shows more than 1,000 architectural models, some handmade by Fujimoto himself. The final piece of the exhibition is a proposal for a futuristic city.
Fujimoto collaborated with data scientist Hiroaki Miyata to project his vision of floating spherical structures and trees onto the walls of the museum in Roppongi. The area’s name — “Roppongi,” which means “six trees” — is believed to refer to six large zelkova trees that likely stood there when Tokyo was still more forest than city.
