Born in Kanagawa Prefecture, 1956.Architect. After finishing his master's degree at Tokyo University majoring in architectonics, Aoki worked at Arata Isozaki & Associates. With his vision of “doing everything that looks exciting”, establishes Jun Aoki & Associates. True to his words, his works ranges from residential housing, public architecture, to commercial architecture such as his series of Louis Vuitton stores. His work for the Yusuikan pool (1993) brought out a succeeding theme for him, and lead to the design of Fukushima Lagoon Museum which won the Prize of Architectural Institute of Japan for Design. This theme continues onto his design of Aomori Museum of Art (completed in 2005, scheduled to open July 2006). His exhibition work of “U bis” opened a new dimention of his creativity as an artist. His literary works include “Kenchiku Bunka/Special Feature: Aoki Jun”(Nov.1999), and exhibition catalogue “atmospherics”(2000). In 2004,a book collecting his works “Jun Aoki Complete Works 1”(INAX) and a collection of his literary works “Harappa to Yuuenchi” (Ohkokusha) was published. He has also received the Minister of Education’s Art Encouragement Prize in 2004.
http://www.aokijun.com/






What is your name?
Jun Aoki
Which country do you wish to represent?
Japan

What did you have in mind when creating your T-1 T-shirt design?
I saw sewing machines at a shop. I learned how to use one. Amazed at how easy you can sew with this, I thought it would be easy to sew a t-shirt. But actually, I still can't sew straight. I can't even cut the thread that needs to be cut off. But come to think of it, a drop-out t-shirt is not bad at all, you know.
What sort of places or situations will best fit your t-shirt design, do you think?
Of course, the answer is Japan today . All the vegetables are reshaped to look correct. It looks very artificial, but people don't want cucumbers which are naturally grown, crooked shaped, and full of worm holes. Artificial looking vegetable that long to look irregular is what looks tasty to us. It's the same on the streets. I'm sure it fits the (underlying) atmosphere of Japan today.
Has your final T-shirt design turned out the same as you initially imagined it would?
I wanted a balance that is strange, but doesn't look intentional. I studied the t-shirt from all three dimensions, with an actual person wearing it. I studied how the design looks when it is worn, how the stitches loosen and unexpectedly the threads look like flowers or animals, that moment.

When you were designing your T-1 T-shirt, how did the process compare with your normal work?
It is very different from my usual work. Unlike architectural design, I can examine it in its actual size.
Please give your T-shirt a name.
stitched
Please give us a a message to all the people who visit the website, to spark their interest in your T-shirt.
The substance of the object is not what you see through your eyes. The condition that you see things in one way, and then you see it another way, lets the image come and go through many changes, is the substance of the object. This t-shirt may look like a white t-shirt, or a t-shirt badly sewn with colored thread, or a t-shirt sewn by a living thread just the way the thread wants to. That is what it is.