Arata Isozaki

Arata Isozaki, is a Japanese architect who, during a six-decade career, designed more than 100 buildings, each defying a particular category or style. For his work, he was awarded the Pritzker Architecture Prize in 2019. The prolific architect has been credited with facilitating dialogue between East and West, reinterpreting global influences within architecture, and supporting the development of younger generations in the field. His precision and dexterity are demonstrated through his mastery of an intercontinental range of building techniques, interpretation of site and context, and intentionality of details.
Born: 23 July 1931 Ōita, Japan
Died: 28 December 2022 (aged 91) Naha, Okinawa Prefecture, Japan
Nationality: Japanese
Alma mater: University of Tokyo (1954 and 1961)
Occupation: Architect
Spouse: Aiko Miyawaki
Awards:
1986 Royal Gold Medal
2019 Pritzker Prize
Buildings:
Festival Plaza at EXPO70
Art Tower Mito
LA’s Museum of Contemporary Art
Career:
Arata Isozaki was a Japanese architect who, during a six-decade career, designed more than 100 buildings, each defying a particular category or style. For his work, he was awarded the Pritzker Architecture Prize in 2019.
Isozaki was born to an upper-class family, and he witnessed first-hand as a teen the devastation of the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Interested in the rebuilding of such cities, he went on to study architecture at the University of Tokyo.
Upon graduation in 1954, he became an apprentice for nine years to Tange Kenzō, a leading Japanese architect of the post-war period. During that period Isozaki also worked with a design team known as Urtec (Urbanists and Architects). He was somewhat influenced by the Metabolist movement, a Brutalist group that combined a concern for modern technology and utilitarianism.
In 1963 Isozaki formed his own design studio.
The first building for which Isozaki was noted is the Ōita Prefectural Library (1966), a Metabolist-influenced structure.
After working as an architect for Japan’s Expo ’70 world’s fair, Isozaki moved away from his more orthodox Modernist structures and began to examine a variety of solutions to architectural problems. Among his innovative structures of this period were the Kita-Kyūshū City Museum of Art (1974), the Fujimi Country Clubhouse in Ōita (1974), the Okanoyama Graphic Art Museum (1982-84), and the Civic Centre for Tsukuba (1983).
His first international commission was for the Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art in 1986.
Others followed, and he soon worked throughout Asia, Europe, and the Middle East. His notable works included the Team Disney Building (1991) in Lake Buena Vista, Florida, U.S.; Domus (1995; formerly La Casa del Hombre) in A Coruña, Spain; and Qatar National Convention Centre (2011) in Doha.
Isozaki was a visiting professor at a number of universities throughout the United States, including Harvard and Yale.
He wrote many books on architecture, several of which were translated to English, including Japan-ness in Architecture (2006).
In addition to the Pritzker Prize, he was awarded the Royal Institute of British Architect’s RIBA Gold Medal for Architecture (1986) and the Venice Architectural Biennale’s Golden Lion (1996) as commissioner of the Japanese Pavilion.
Design philosophy:
“When I was old enough to begin an understanding of the world, my hometown was burned down. Across the shore, the Atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, so I grew up near ground zero. It was in complete ruins, and there was no architecture, no buildings and not even a city. Only barracks and shelters surrounded me. So, my first experience of architecture was the void of architecture, and I began to consider how people might rebuild their homes and cities”.
“In order to find the most appropriate way to solve these problems, I could not dwell upon a single style. Change became constant. Paradoxically, this came to be my own style”.
His favorited architectural era was the Renaissance in Western architecture, and he used aspects of Neoclassicism and Renaissance Western architecture to design the Tsukuba Centre building in 1983, featuring a replica of Michelangelo’s plan for Rome as well as a statue of Marcus Aurelius. Isozaki’s first abroad project was held by the Contemporary Museum of Art in Los Angeles in 1986, labelled “a beacon in the land of the lost.”
Awards:
Annual Prize, Architectural Institute of Japan in 1967 and 1975
Mainichi Art Award in 1983
RIBA Gold Medal in 1986
International Award "Architecture in Stone" in 1987
Arnold W. Brunner Memorial Prize of the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters in 1988
Chicago Architecture Award in 1990
Honour Award, the American Institute of Architects in 1992
RIBA Honorary Fellow in 1994
Golden Lion, 6 Venice Biennale of Architecture in 1996
ECC Architecture Award in 2012
Pritzker Prize in 2019
Quotes:
"Architecture is a machine for production of meaning."