Japanophiles: Astrid Klein & Mark Dytham - Japanology Plus | NHK WORLD-JAPAN - NHKニュース

*First broadcast on November 20, 2025 For over 35 years, Italian-born Astrid Klein and UK-born Mark Dytham have worked together as architects in Tokyo, designing not just buildings but also spaces for communication and creativity.

A distinctive facade inspired by traditional Japanese openwork carving.

It's a landmark located on one of Tokyo's most iconic shopping streets.

with the essence of traditional Japanese culture.

and Mark Dytham, from the United Kingdom.

They met at the Royal College of Art in London and came to Japan in 1988.

share insights from their decades of work in Japan.

Hello, and welcome to Japanology Plus. I'm Peter Barakan.

Today we present one of our Japanophile profiles.

who say that living and working in Japan provides them with their inspiration.

Their office is just a few minutes from here, so let me go and join them.

- Nice to see you. - Good to see you.

Thanks for coming to Klein Dytham architecture.

Thank you for having us. I love your welcoming gnome.

Let me introduce you to everybody at KDa.

And this is our best partner, Hisayama.

- Nice to meet you. - Nice to meet you too.

You know, without the team, nothing happens.

So... you know, it's not just two people.

They do all the work. We just direct, you know?

Klein Dytham architecture was founded in 1991.

including architecture, interior design, public spaces, and installations.

Do the two of you split duties or you collaborate on everything or what?

It's Mark, myself, and Hisa, and we oversee every single project together.

And the team as well, everybody has their favorite thing they work on. And...

Depending on what project we're working on, we put the team together like that.

But we generally oversee all the projects together.

rather than a Klein project or a Dytham project or...

So it's like the early days of Lennon and McCartney.

Let's take a look at a few of their best-known works.

This is the Leaf Chapel, completed in 2004.

one made of glass, the other of steel.

and the roof simultaneously opens to reveal a beautiful natural backdrop.

that looks like mushrooms popping up in the forest.

was T-Site in Tokyo's Daikanyama district, built in 2011.

It's a commercial complex with a bookstore, several cafes and shops.

each featuring a design based on a large “T.”

we devised a screen made of lots of little “T”s as well.

You know, I've been here so often in the past and I never realized.

We can show you a little secret about the “T”s.

they all have to rack in an earth— they have to move in an earthquake.

- Everything has to move in an earthquake. - Right, right.

So this joint here is... this is a solid concrete joint,

to allow the whole façade to move in an earthquake.

the amount that we had to allow it to move in an earthquake.

And this is where this size came from.

linking all three first floors and filled it with magazines.

So Magazine Street connects both... all three buildings.

And the thing that we came up with this... How do you navigate a massive bookstore?

that's where the fashion books are.

When you find the magazines on cars, that's where the car books are.

So it was like... it's like a content spine that runs through.

So you were involved in all of that organizing as well?

And obviously working with the client as a team, we always do that.

- So it's not just us. - Sure, sure.

to make this building feeling like your home, like your living room.

So when you find the art magazines...

...you have that... there are the art books,

and just to lighten it up, some fun goods.

not only is it like the contents, but magazines change every month.

So every time you come in, you see this, there's a constant change.

and it's the same old books or the same old thing.

there's always something fresh and new.

we do... this bookstore is broken down by these pop-ups.

And so there are other things than books.

The books bring you here, and the books are really important.

Well, you don't even know what's up there.

I don't really have a problem with it.

- It looks very inviting. - Yeah, exactly.

So make it look like a grand stair.

If you don't go up the stairs, you feel like you're going to lose out big time.

And so that's the idea of having these stairs looking a little bit special.

Yeah, grand with the hand-hammered copper panels cladding it.

To make it look special, we also had these beautiful lights from Ingo Maurer.

This is gold leaf, yeah, so it's...

You know, gold leaf pattern is very Japanese.

which has been made by a young Japanese artist.

with walls lined with rare magazine back issues and works of art.

Customers can also bring up books from the bookstore.

It's a cozy, luxurious space where you can spend time at your leisure.

The client always wanted... wants...

was talking about it being romantic in here as well.

It was very important. And that's very unusual for a client to say,

“Can you make my project romantic?”

and it would be a place to hang out.

where the architects recently completed a striking project.

So, Peter, welcome to the guitar store here in Harajuku.

And this is your most recent project, right?

But, yeah, it's... it's quite a recent project.

We have a Telecaster curve that runs through the store to draw you in.

who are buying guitars now is young women.

Hence... Exactly, that was the brief from Fender.

they're sort of man caves, and they didn't go in.

whether it's a handbag store or a jewelry store.

It's something that you could walk in and feel at ease.

It does have a kind of boutique-y feel, doesn't it?

But that was exactly the brief from the client.

They've been thinking about this for years and years.

and introduce you to our good friend and client Bud, Bud Cole.

- Hi, Peter, nice to meet you. - Nice to meet you.

We always kind of say, you know, “It's no good being a good architect.

If you don't have great clients with a vision, we're not gonna get there.”

Can you tell us what your concept was and is for this store?

even computer brands like Apple, are doing amazing things at retail.

and they helped us bring our dream to reality.

how people could experience and fall in love with guitars again.

And we've had almost a million people walk through the store in two years.

Astrid Klein was born in 1962 in the Italian city of Varese.

With an early talent for drawing, she dreamed of becoming an artist.

so she kind of talked me into that.

I did interior design because I liked sculpture and installations.

And I liked materials. I liked the way they lighted it. I liked the colors.

“Look, how about you look at interiors as an installation?”

there was always a window in the wrong place.

And so I said, “Who decides about where the windows go?”

so I better kind of have a good look at architecture as well.

that I would do architecture in an art-oriented school.

Hence, I went to the Royal College of Art.

Mark Dytham was born in 1964 in the English county of Northamptonshire.

As a child, he loved drawing and making models.

where... to see where they were building the shopping center.

And it always had a real impact on me.

And from that moment, I was gonna be an architect.

You're both in the same course in the same year.

Yes. And the thing was... I really liked Astrid's work

except she couldn't explain it very well in English.

I would help her explain what she couldn't explain.

Like, “I think she means da da da.”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's exactly what I mean.”

- So you became friends through that. - Exactly. Yeah, really.

and decided to visit Japan for research.

They wanted to see Japanese architecture firsthand.

You arrived here in 1988, which was the height of...

well, everybody in Japan just refers to it as the bubble.

If it wasn't for the bubble, we wouldn't have probably come to Japan.

all of the Japanese magazines with all this crazy stuff being built here.

It was very avant-garde, wasn't it?

and everybody was doing traditional buildings.

And in the city of London, the Royal Fine Arts Commission...

And, you know, kind of, line windows up, line... roof lines up.

Be, kind of, you know... The material choice was going to be contextual.

And the planner then could tell you whether you did it or not.

It wasn't really up to the architect in the end.

Whereas in Japan, we have no visual planning, and so...

You might have been going right back to London afterwards.

Yeah, yeah. Absolutely, absolutely.

which we could have done a really fast career track.

But in the end, we decided that Japan was...

Every day you see something interesting or new, you know, that was...

So you basically just ended up staying.

I mean, you must have had to go back to get visas and stuff.

first, we asked our parents to send our winter coats, I think.

But we didn't know if it was gonna last for three weeks or three months, you know.

share a favorite feature of Tokyo's train stations.

Putting up all these, kind of, plastic sheets and taped them to the ceiling.

And it has this lovely little tube going down the column.

Yes. I knew you were going to say that.

you know, I kind of... it fascinates me.

And that's what's been interesting for us here.

It's a Japanese approach to dealing with things.

Which I think is really interesting, you know.

the two introduced themselves to a renowned architect.

the most prestigious award in the world of architecture.

we picked which architects would we like to go and see.

And, kind of, “Okay, we want this one, we want this one, we want this one.”

And we didn't realize two different buildings were both by Ito-san.

for his fluid and bold designs and use of membrane structures.

and he unveiled ambitious projects one after another.

they brought their graduation design with them.

It was incredibly beautiful and made a strong impression on me.

than any graduation project by Japanese students.

they came to me again and said they loved Japan.

They said they wanted to work in Japan and stay here for a while.

I remembered that a friend wanted to renovate their hair salon in Ginza.

So I asked the pair to do the design.

I think that's the reason they've been able to work in Japan for so long.

their own architectural firm here as foreigners.

They obviously put in a lot of effort. Fitting into Japanese society isn't easy.

But their command of the Japanese language is truly remarkable.

- What did you learn from him? - A lot. Yeah.

“first there are people, and then from there grows the architecture.”

It's not “first there is the architecture, and then people go in it.”

So the architecture should grow out from the people.

And so it's very people-centric in a way.

And I think that's what we have in common.

rather than, you know, architecture-centric.

on creating spaces where people can gather and connect.

Notably, in 2003, they launched PechaKucha Night.

using 20 slides that change automatically.

Every event has sparked new connections.

Currently, PechaKucha Nights are held in over 1,300 cities around the world.

And you are already, I'm sure, quite busy enough with your architectural work.

Is there any way that the two feed into each other?

appeal to them, keep them in the space so they're comfortable.

with the lighting, with the sound, with the stage.

Yeah. And, you know, it's, kind of, really understanding the audience,

which is what you need to do for architecture.

trying to make it people-centric, human-centric.

You know, just imagine having a PechaKucha in here.

Japan has many earthquakes, typhoons, and other natural disasters.

including to a nuclear power plant.

Many people lost their homes and moved into temporary housing.

Communities were broken apart and personal connections severed.

But in the aftermath, something new was also created—the Home-for-All.

These community hubs became a source of comfort for disaster victims.

The idea was proposed by their mentor Ito Toyo and other architects.

About 160 Home-for-All houses have been created around Japan.

constructing this building in Northeast Japan.

they built another one in the affected area.

we've built a small Home-for-All there, which has been really successful.

And again, bringing the community together.

which is about 30 kilometers from...

- From the exclusion zone. - From the exclusion zone.

were very concerned about their 0-to-3-year-old toddlers.

and carrying their kids even for, you know...

so the kids would never step outside on the ground.

Okay. They needed a place for their kids to play safely.

Exactly. So that's where we built the Home-for-All Kids in Soma,

which looked a bit more like a straw hat in the middle of the park.

And we made the columns like trees.

So they... the columns go and then spread out like branches of the tree,

and they support that roof you're looking at.

Within the structure, we've carved out birds and rabbits and different things.

Okay. We... I think we're up to our last question now,

and it's always the same one on the Japanophile programs.

Oh, I didn't know this question was going to make it.

Japan is... I'm so glad I kind of chose to be here.

I really find it a very friendly country.

I think there is... I think for Brits, it's quite a lovely place.

We're both island countries. We both have royal imperial families.

And there's some sensibility that I feel a kinship, a friendship with Japan.

But it's also super inspiring every day.

there's always something new and something inventive that keeps us here.

Yeah. I think, in that sense, you know, Japan is full of opportunities.

And I think that's what I'm most grateful for.

You know, you gotta obviously be able to spot them.

and that's why we stayed here in the first place. So...

Thank you, Peter. It's been really brilliant talking to you today.