Architecture’s connections to concepts and mindsets known from anthropology, archaeology and geology are spotlighted in the exhibition with the two studios DnA_Design and Architecture (Beijing) and ATTA – Atelier Tsuyoshi Tane Architects (Paris).

Central to the exhibition – the second in the series on ‘Architecture Connecting’ – is the notion that the human narrative is central when it comes to creating space for the dreams of future generations.

The two studios are led by Chinese Xu Tiantian and Japanese Tsuyoshi Tane, who both seek to “excavate” stories about places and landscapes in order to connect past, present and future. To this end, their studios develop new working methods that link social traditions, cultural heritage, craftsmanship and production conditions together in complex networks.

Architectural acupuncture can be used in particular to give new life to existing buildings without requiring a complete renovation. For Xu Tiantian, both the ruin and nature are seen as architectural typologies in themselves: “We can find many reasons to build,” says Xu, “but a building is not always necessary to create architecture.”

In so-called “productionscapes,” she works to facilitate and modernize traditional manufacturing processes and techniques while making room for audience experiences. In this way, factories also become a form of living museums.

Three of Xu Tiantian’s projects are presented in Memoryscapes. The project Meizhou Island tells the story of Xu’s so-called architectural pinpointing and includes, among other things, a large 1:1 bamboo installation. The work of revitalizing ruins without extensive renovation is conveyed through models of the traditional Chinese ‘Tulou building’.

The third project in the exhibition is a section of a production landscape, a mushroom center in Zhejiang province, which also functions as both a factory and a living museum in Louisiana.

His studio ATTA – Atelier Tsuyoshi Tane Architects – works on numerous scales and within a wide range of categories. Currently most of their projects are being realized in Japan, developing a new green city plan for Tokyo and renovating the capital’s legendary Imperial Hotel.

This renovation aims to both honor and preserve a more than 130-year history that contains elements of both traditional Japanese architecture and Japanese modernism, in addition to an extension by star architect Frank Lloyd Wright.

One of their former projects, Tane Garden House at the Vitra Campus in Weil am Rhein, equally builds on Tane’s ‘archaeological’ approach. Traditional and site-specific materials and craftsmanship have been transformed into contemporary architecture.

At Louisiana, Tsuyoshi Tane and his studio’s approach to history and site-specific architecture is conveyed in an installation consisting of thousands of research images and a large number of working models built from available materials.

Tane’s archive of objects found on sites and travels is displayed in a room he calls ‘archaeological thinking’, and a series of films explaining his working method are also presented here. The films are produced by the Louisiana Channel.

Louisiana’s exhibition series Architecture Connecting focuses on how architecture is connected to science and research within a wide range of other fields of knowledge such as biology, neuroscience and anthropology.

The first exhibition in the series ‘Living Structures’ was shown in 2024-2025 and introduced three studios / design labs – ecoLogicStudio, Atelier LUMA and Jenny Sabin Studio – working at the intersection of algorithms and nature to develop methods that re-evaluate the question of sustainable architecture and climate considerations. Read more about the exhibition here.