Japanese architect Arata Isozaki has died aged 91. According to various media reports, his agency announced this today. Isozaki died of old age at his home in Okinawa on Wednesday. In 2019, he received the Pritzker Prize for his “fresh” buildings that “defy stylistic categories”.
APA/AFP/Giuseppe Cacace
Tom Pritzker, president of the Hyatt Foundation, once described Isozaki as a visionary of his generation. He was one of the first Japanese architects to build outside of Japan – and this at a time when Western societies tended to influence the East.
Isozaki was from Oita on the island of Kyushu in southwest Japan. He had early successes during the Allied occupation after the end of World War II. He helped export Japanese design to Europe and the US in the 1980s. Part of his method was the Japanese concept of “Ma”, which can be understood as a space, a break or an opening in construction and design.
IMAGO/ZUMA Press/Imago Stock & People Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art
Famous buildings from Los Angeles to Berlin
Isozaki’s most famous buildings include the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles, the Olympic Stadium in Barcelona and the ice hockey stadium in Turin, Italy. Isozaki, who implemented over a hundred construction projects worldwide, built the Daimler-Benz skyscrapers at Potsdamer Platz in Berlin with other architects.
He built museums like the Ceramic Park Mino in Gifu, Japan, concert halls like the Shanghai Symphony Hall in China and the Allianz Tower in Milan.