Kengo Kuma/KKAA: Earth / Tree

Copenhagen Contemporary invites audiences into Kengo Kuma/KKAA’s sensorial architectural universe.

For the first time, internationally acclaimed Japanese architect and studio Kengo Kuma & Associates present an exhibition at an art center in Denmark as Copenhagen Contemporary opens a new chapter in its exhibition series “CCreate” on March 28 with a site-specific installation by Kengo Kuma/KKAA. The exhibition Earth / Tree transforms Hall 4 into a poetic architectural landscape where visitors are invited to experience architecture through body and senses. The exhibition is rooted in Kengo Kuma’s philosophy of “gentle architecture”—an architecture that emerges in dialogue with nature, place, and people. 

Kengo Kuma/KKAA is world-renowned for their sensitive approach to materials. Drawing on the fundamental elements of earth and wood, the installation explores architecture’s most primal point of departure: the need to seek shelter beneath a tree. The concept revolves around the Japanese term komorebi—an aesthetic concept describing sunlight filtered through the leaves of trees, creating a living interplay of light and shadow on the ground. From this starting point, the exhibition unfolds as a landscape-like space in which a monumental, ceiling-suspended veil of handcrafted wooden elements—created especially for the exhibition space—allows light to filter down toward the stone materials of the floor in an immersive, physical experience.

The site-specific installation created for CC by KKAA, led by partner Yuki Ikeguchi, brings together Japanese and Nordic perspectives on nature. With wood and brick as primary materials, the installation explores the tactile and historical dimensions of materiality. Wood and earth appear as living materials with deep cultural and human narratives—from Japanese timber-building traditions to Nordic landscapes and craftsmanship.

As an integral part of the exhibition, visitors are invited into KKAA’s creative process in a dedicated workshop zone. Here, guests can shape landscapes in sand and experiment with architecture through various building systems: Tsumiki, a building block designed by Kengo Kuma; Danish-produced wooden building blocks; and miniature versions of brick. Developed specifically for CCreate, the workshop emphasizes that architecture is something you can create, play with, and explore—regardless of age or experience.

Copenhagen Contemporary’s director Marie Laurberg states: “Architecture shapes the way we exist in the world—both physically and sensorially. Kengo Kuma works with a rare sensitivity to nature and humanity, and it is a great joy to bring his universe into CCreate. The exhibition speaks directly to our vision of strengthening creativity as a living force in all people. Here, audiences gain insight into the creative process of one of the great creators of our time and the opportunity to experience how architectural aesthetics can be something you participate in, play with, and learn from.”

Earth / Tree is an invitation to experience architecture with all the senses: to inhale the scent of wood and earth, feel the textures of materials, and move through a space where architecture is experienced as something bodily and intuitive.

About CCreate
Earth / Tree is the second installment of Copenhagen Contemporary’s CCreate project, which focuses on creativity and creative processes. Each year, an artist or architect from different aesthetic fields is invited to transform Hall 4 into a sensorial and participatory universe. The hall previously functioned as a painting studio for the Royal Danish Theatre’s scenic painters, and with CCreate, the space has been reborn as a spectacular atelier.

With CCreate, Copenhagen Contemporary aims to strengthen creative confidence in both children and adults. The project is based on a vision that creativity is an innate ability that can be nurtured through artistic encounters, experimentation, and play.

About Kengo Kuma
Kengo Kuma (b. 1954, Japan) is one of the most influential architects of our time and is known for his materially sensitive approach to architecture. Through an extensive international practice, he has worked with natural materials and site-specific solutions in which architecture enters into close dialogue with its surroundings. His work spans museums and cultural buildings to temporary installations and experimental projects, with sensorially and human scale at the core. In Denmark, KKAA is known for the award-winning H.C. Andersen Museum in Odense, as well as the upcoming water culture house on Papirøen in Copenhagen, expected to open in autumn 2026.

About Yuki Ikeguchi
She is a Partner architect and The Executive Vice President of KKAA Paris. She has been playing the essential role in leading multiple major projects abroad, with particular focus in public and cultural projects in Europe. The fundamental in a design approach is biophilic design that appeals to our senses, to generate the form of architecture in response to the surroundings, culture, history, and to the life between buildings through in-depth analysis and observations in micro/ macro scales simultaneously.

Artist talk and exhibition preview
On Thursday, March 26, audiences are invited to an exclusive preview of the exhibition as well as a conversation with Kengo Kuma and Yuki Ikeguchi. The event requires a separate ticket and can be bought at copenhagencontemporary.org.

Exhibition opening
CC invites everyone to the opening of CCreate: Kengo Kuma/KKAA – Earth / Tree on March 28, with free admission.

Programme
11:00–12:30 Free admission to CC

12:30 Opening speeches by CC’s Head of Learning, Julie Thaning Mikines, and Yuki Ikeguchi, Partner Architect and Executive VP at KKAA Paris.

Further programme: TBA

Sponsors
Buro Happold / Dinesen / Petersen Tegl / Anker & Co / Kvadrat

For more information about the exhibition
Marie Amalie Skinnebach, Curator, marieamalie@cphco.org / T +45 2127 5060
Press contact: Nicolai Oreskov Westh, Head of Communication, nicolai@cphco.org / T +45 52504201