ARCHI-MAGICIAN: Arata Isozaki at his Roppongi studio in Tokyo (above), and one of his current projects, the Qatar National Library (below), which draws on a plan he had for a "city in the sky" in the 1960s. YOSHIAKI MIURA PHOTO (above); ARATA ISOZAKI & ASSOCIATES (below)
He may be almost 77, but there's no end to his groundbreaking ideasBy EDAN CORKILL, Staff writer
TOKYO (The Japan Times), June 1, 2008:
If the entire Japanese architectural fraternity was one big royal family, then Arata Isozaki would be a king approaching the end of a long and glorious reign.
The "pedigree" of this majestically silver-maned 76-year-old is, quite simply, faultless.
Architecturally speaking, Isozaki's "father" was the great Kenzo Tange — best known for his 1950 Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park and the National Gymnasium in Yoyogi built for the 1964 Tokyo Olympics. Isozaki was taught by Tange at the prestigious University of Tokyo in the early 1960s — along with those other architectural luminaries, Kisho Kurokawa and Fumihiko Maki.
But then, tracing Isozaki's architectural roots back past Tange leads straight to Kunio Maekawa, with whom Tange worked just before World War II. In terms of modern Japanese architecture, it might well be said that Maekawa was the first, the original king before Isozaki. After working for Le Corbusier in Paris in the 1920s, Maekawa became one of the most important interpreters of Modernist architecture in Japan.
Like any great monarch, however, Isozaki's conquests gradually spread further and further afield as they mirrored the growth of his stature. Beginning in 1964 with a humble public library in his native Oita Prefecture in Kyushu, his next large projects were dotted around Tokyo's outskirts, including the Museum of Modern Art, Gunma (1974), the Tsukuba Center Building (1983) and Art Tower Mito (1990).
In these works he developed an original style built around simple concrete forms — giant rectangular prism-shaped galleries perched on stilts for the Gunma museum, for example, or spherical, pyramid-shaped and cubic masses arranged like children's building blocks across a site at Tsukuba and Mito.
Then, by 1982, Isozaki was pioneering Japanese architecture overseas, making the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles (1986) and the Team Disney building in Florida (1991).
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This year you are celebrating your 77th birthday. What have you got planned?
I do architecture and urban planning. I've also done lots of work with artists. I write, half as a critic, half as a historian. The only way to present all of this work is through exhibitions. When I turned 60, about 20 years ago, they gave me an exhibition at Los Angeles MOCA to celebrate, and it toured the world for about three years. When I turned 70, the Deutsches Architekturmuseum in Frankfut, put on an exhibition for me, too.
But in Japan it is actually 77 that is the most important milestone. When you write the characters for 10 and 7 you end up with the character for yorokobu, which means "to celebrate." This is the year of celebration, as far as I'm concerned. There are seven different exhibitions that I will be holding at different times during the year. You should come and see them!
Information about Isozaki's seven exhibitions being held throughout this year can be found at www.isozaki.co.jp. Highlights include an exhibition of his museum designs at the Museum of Modern Art, Gunma (till June 22), an exhibition of his residence designs at Art Plaza in Oita City, Kyushu (till January) and an exhibition about the exhibitions he has curated at Hara Museum Arc, Gunma (July 27 through Sept. 23). The exhibition at Hara, which was itself designed by Isozaki, coincides with the opening of a new pavilion that he has made for the institution.
(C) The Japan Times
