Human beings should have realised by now that they are not the only ones capable of building great architecture. It is from the interest in seashells that the exhibition “Architecture of Shells” was born in Tokyo. It is open until 15 March 2020 at the Koishikawa Annex of the University Museum at the University of Tokyo.

The exhibition curated by Takenori Sasaki, professor of Paleontology at the University of Tokyo, and designed by Fumio Matsumoto includes more than 400 specimens from all over the world, with 150 of them dissected to highlight the amazing internal structure.

Shells are the involucre that molluscs build to defend themselves from the outside world, following the constructive principle of incremental growth. Many modern architects, including Le Corbusier, Antoni Gaudì, John Utzon and Zaha Hadid, have developed buildings inspired by their geometries, that are impressive both for their ability to contain loads and for the creation of nested and functional structures inside them.