Through tsugite and shiguchi joinery, the boundaries of this box blur, making it a small masterpiece of architecture.

Introducing Aya Coizumi’s masterpiece The Structure Inside the Structure I.

A cubic object composed of several separate boxes that are intricately assembled—much like the traditional Japanese architectural joinery techniques of *tsugite* and *shiguchi*. When the longer sides are slid left and right, the internal components detach and the hidden parts are revealed. As the structure continues to unfold, a mysterious three-dimensional space emerges—resembling at once a piece of modern architecture, a train, a steamship, or perhaps the opening scene of a story.

The origin of *The Structure Inside the Structure I* lies in Coizumi’s encounter with *tsugite* and *shiguchi*, traditional Japanese wooden joinery techniques used in architecture that connect elements without nails. Inspired by their principles, she began an exploration of constructing multiple boxes layered and interlocked within one another.

The outer form and the inner form. Thinking about the inside, then the outside; seeing the inside from the outside, and the outside from within. Coizumi believes that a work can only emerge through this constant tension and movement back and forth between the two.

Following her earlier works in which structures were enclosed within a box, during this period the boundary between inside and outside gradually became more ambiguous. Elements such as stairs and bookshelves—suggesting “the beginning of a story”—were deliberately incorporated into the compositions. Moreover, depending on how the box is unfolded, multiple narratives can emerge. This variability recalls the flexible space-time of a book, whose meaning can shift with each reader.

This work would later develop into Coizumi’s *Overlapping Boxes* series.