WHAT MUSEUM to Hold a Model Competition Judged by Eight Emerging Architects, Starting Tuesday, April 21, 2026

WHAT MUSEUM, a museum of contemporary art and architecture operated by Terrada Warehouse (Shinagawa-ku, Tokyo; President & CEO: Kohei Terada), will hold a competition to solicit ideas for model works starting Tuesday, April 21, 2026.

This open call is held as a related project to the exhibition "Corrugated Iron and Coral Reefs - Eight Practices for Throwing Architecture Far," which will be held from Tuesday, April 21, 2026. This exhibition introduces the thoughts and practices of architects through new models created by eight architects active in Japan and overseas. It focuses on the model as a device for knowing the architect's thinking and introduces the attempts of architects who re-examine architecture from a broad perspective, using familiar materials and structures as clues.

In this open call, we will broadly open up the perspective of capturing architecture by moving back and forth between the near and the far, the short and the long, as indicated by this exhibition. Under the theme of "things that are near and things that are far," we are looking for ideas that express diverse thoughts on the state of architecture and society through models. The judging will be conducted by the eight architects exhibiting in the exhibition, and the winners will be presented with 50,000 yen for model production costs. The completed works will be exhibited at the Architectural Model Warehouse of WHAT MUSEUM for about one month, and an Audience Award will be decided by a general vote of visitors.

Against the backdrop of advances in information technology, disasters, pandemics, and climate change, the premises of society are greatly fluctuating. In the field of architecture, while immediate responses to immediate issues are required, the importance of conceptualizing from a long-term perspective that transcends time and place is being questioned anew. This open call aims to be an opportunity to re-examine architecture from a broader perspective and, by extension, to reconsider our relationship with society in such an era.

【Theme】

"Things that are near and things that are far"

Try to distance yourself from the reality right in front of you.

Try to bring things that are too far to imagine closer to hand.

A model can also be thought of as a device for traveling between the two.

Under this theme, this open call re-examines the nature of the model as a medium. Things that are too close to be seen, or things that are thought to be unrelated to oneself because they are too far away. The model allows us to slightly stretch or shrink that distance. It should be possible to handle large problems in the palm of your hand and to place small events in a broader perspective.

A model does not have to be a mere reduction of a completed building. It can be a fragment in the middle of thought or a proposal for a mechanism. Re-examining the model leads to re-examining the state of architecture, and by extension, to questioning what distance we take from society.

Please present your own perspective on this theme through the medium of the model.

【Event Overview】

Name: "Corrugated Iron and Coral Reefs - Eight Practices for Throwing Architecture Far" Related Model Competition

Official Website: https://what.warehouseofart.org/exhibitions/corrugatedcoral_competition