WHAT MUSEUM to Hold Model Competition Judged by 8 Emerging Architects Starting Tuesday, April 21, 2026

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

This public call is implemented as a related project to the exhibition "Corrugated Iron and Coral Reefs - Eight Practices of Throwing Architecture Far Away," which will be held from Tuesday, April 21, 2026. This exhibition conveys the thoughts and practices of architects through new models created by eight emerging architect groups active domestically and internationally. Focusing on models as tools to understand an architect's thinking, it introduces the attempts of architects to re-evaluate architecture from a broad perspective, using familiar materials and structures as clues.

In this public call, we widely open up the perspective of grasping architecture while going back and forth between the familiar and the distant, and short time and long time, as indicated by the exhibition. Under the theme of "Things nearby and things far away," we seek ideas that express diverse thoughts about the nature of architecture and society through models. The judging will be handled by the eight architect groups exhibiting in the exhibition, and winners will receive 50,000 yen as model production costs. Completed works will be exhibited in the architectural warehouse of WHAT MUSEUM for about one month, and an Audience Award will be determined by a general vote from visitors.

Against the backdrop of the advancement of information technology, disasters, pandemics, and climate change, the premises of society are fluctuating greatly. In the field of architecture, while a quick response to immediate challenges is required, the importance of envisioning from a long-term perspective beyond time and place is being questioned anew. In such an era, this public call aims to provide an opportunity to reconsider architecture from a broader perspective and, by extension, re-examine our relationship with society.

[Application Theme]

"Things nearby and things far away"

To intentionally distance the reality right in front of you. To pull something so far away that it's unimaginable close to hand. A model can be considered a device to travel back and forth between them.

Under this theme, this public call re-examines the role of the medium of the model. Things that have become invisible because they are too close, or things that are thought to be unrelated to you because they are too far away. Through a model, that distance can be slightly stretched and shrunk. It should be possible to handle a large problem in the palm of your hand, and to place a small event within a broader perspective.

A model does not need to be a mere miniature of completed architecture. It can be a fragment in the middle of thinking, or a proposal for a mechanism. Re-examining the model leads to re-examining the nature of architecture, and by extension, questioning the distance we take from society.

Through the medium of a model, please present your own perspective on this theme.

[Event Outline]

Name: "Corrugated Iron and Coral Reefs - Eight Practices of Throwing Architecture Far Away" Related Model Competition Official Website: https://what.warehouseofart.org/exhibitions/corrugatedcoral_competition