Arata Isozaki was born on 23 July 1931. He is a Japanese architect and an urban designer from Ōita. He received the RIBA Gold Medal in 1986 and the Pritzker Architecture Prize in 2019. During his six-decade career, he has designed more than 100 buildings.
Isozaki was born in an upper-class family. He witnessed the devastation of the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki during WWII when he was a child. Because of his interest in the rebuilding of the bombing cities, he went to study architecture at the University of Tokyo. After earning his bachelor’s degree in 1954, he found Tange Kenzō, who was a leading Japanese architect during the postwar period, he became an apprentice for Tange for 9 years. Also, in the meantime, he worked with a design team that was consisted of Urbanists and Architects. In 1963, Isozaki established his personal architectural design studio.
The first building Arata Isozaki designed was the Ōita Prefectural Library, which was a Metabolist-influenced structure designed in 1960. He was influenced by the Metabolist movement during his apprentice period. The Metabolist was a Brutalist group that combined modern technology and utilitarianism. After working as a selective architect for Japan’s Expo in 1970, Isozaki stop focusing on his Modernist structures and began to explore a variety of solutions to architectural problems.
In the later 80s, he has gained increasing prominence outside of Japan, leading to important international commissions to design the Museum of Contemporary Art Grand Avenue in Los Angeles in 1987.
Isozaki was also a visiting professor at lots of universities in the United States, such as Harvard and Yale. He wrote many books on architecture, such as Japan-ness in Architecture, which was published in 2006. In addition to the Pritzker Prize, and the Royal Institute of British Architect’s Gold Medal for Architecture in 1986, he was awarded the Venice Architectural Biennale’s Golden Lion in 1996 as commissioner of the Japanese Pavilion.
Some of his famous works are the Team Disney Building in Lake Buena Vista, Florida, U.S. designing in 1991; Domus in Coruña, Spain, designing in 1995; and Qatar National Convention Centre in Doha, designing in 2011.
References:
“Arata Isozaki” The Pritzker architecture prize, Accessed Dec 6, 2020. https://www.pritzkerprize.com/laureates/arata-isozaki
“Biography of Arata Isozaki” Thought Co., Accessed Dec 6, 2020. https://www.thoughtco.com/arata-isozaki-father-japanese-new-wave-177411
“Spotlight: Arata Isozaki” Arch Daily, Accessed Dec 6, 2020.
https://www.archdaily.com/529896/spotlight-arata-isozaki
“Arata Isozaki — TIME SPACE EXISTENCE” Youtube, Accessed Dec 6, 2020.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E54K8wACQRc
OMG, his works are beautiful and avant-garde.
I actually have seen some of his works which are really compelling. Thank you for sharing new information about this amazing architect.