Japanese architect Arata Isozaki has died at the age of 91. According to several media reports, his agency announced this today. Isozaki died of old age at his home in Okinawa on Wednesday. In 2019 he was awarded the Pritzker Prize for his “fresh” buildings that “defy stylistic categories”.
Tom Pritzker, chairman 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 that at a time when Western societies tended to influence the East.
Isozaki was from Oita on the island of Kyushu in southwestern 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 United States in the 1980s. Part of his method was the Japanese concept “Ma”, which can be understood as a space, a break or an opening in construction and design.
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 has implemented more than a hundred construction projects worldwide, built the Daimler-Benz skyscrapers on 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.
