Arata Isozaki is one of the most influential architects and theorists of the Postmodern era in Japan. He studied architecture at the University of Tokyo under Professor Kenzo Tange. After graduating in 1954, Isozaki worked on several important projects with Kenzo Tange and Urtec up until 1963, including the Tokyo plan (1960) and the main pavilion for Expo '70 in Osaka. Later, he was regarded as Tange's successor in the international architectural scene. Although he started his practice in Tokyo, most of his early works were commissioned and built in Oita, his native town in the southern part of Japan. He went into architectural practice with a sense of absence. His parents had died, and his hometown was burned down during the war. These experiences made him a typical lost-generation architect in Japan. In 1962, he made a drawing titled "City of Ruins," which depicted a future city on the columns of ancient ruins. This became his manifesto as an architect. The juxtapositions of past and future, of destruction and construction, are key motifs of his architecture.

The Oita Medical Hall (1960, demolished in 1999) was Isozaki's first built work. His work from the late 1960s shows the influence of the Metabolism School. In Oita, he designed such early works as Iwata High School and the Nakayama Residence (1964), Oita Prefectural Library (1960), and the Oita branch of Fukuoka City Bank (1967). Years later in the same area, he designed Yufuin Station (1990), the new Oita Prefectural Library (1995), and B-con Plaza (1995). In 1968, he experienced the worldwide student revolution. He considered that revolution symptomatic of the end of the early modern era. Since then, his attitude toward architecture has changed. Through his writing, he revealed his preference for Western architectural history. The Tsukuba Center building (1983) was the embodiment of his writings and consisted of accumulated fragments of the products of Western architectural history from the Renaissance to Neoclassicism. In the center of the building, he placed a copy of the plan of the capital city, Rome, as it was laid out by Michelangelo. The original piazza was lowered, and the central statue of Marcus Aurelius was removed. He assembled the historical elements, but without a recognizable essence. As a result, Isozaki's treatment produced a sense of absence. In 1986, he designed the Contemporary Museum of Art in Los Angeles, his first work abroad. With its dominating pyramidal shape set above an Asian sandstone building, Richard Meier described this museum as "a beacon in the land of the lost."

After the Tsukuba Center building (1983), Isozaki tried to draw his identity from a Japanese sense of place. The Mito Art Tower (1990) shows the results of his quest for identity. He put a double helix-shaped tower among Western motifs in this building complex. At the center of the court, he designed a compelling cascade. In the center of this cascade, a huge stone was suspended with chains and showered with water, an allegorical reference to the battles between students and riot police in the late 1960s. In 1990, he was nominated to design the Sant Jordi Sports Hall in Spain for the Olympics, a project that brought him international recognition. The next year, in Orlando, Florida, he completed the Team Disney Building, in which he inserted a replica of the sacred site of Ise shrine as a central sundial court for the building.

Although Isozaki began his career as a modernist architect, he gradually assumed a critical position toward modernism. He does not believe in reductive functionalism, and his forms have been described as stylized, eclectic, and mannerist, in keeping with a Postmodernist visual paradigm. Throughout his career, Isozaki has constantly changed his method of design from one standpoint to another. Most of his friends are not architects but, rather, artists, composers, and novelists. As early as 1966, he took curves from the body lines of Marilyn Monroe to design furniture and architecture. This technique of anthropomorphic projection was drawn from the works of Marcel Duchamp and pop art. His monument (1977) of Otomo Sorin, a Christian feudal lord in the 17th century; his monument (1993) to architect-poet Michizo Tachihara; and the gravestone (1993) of Italian composer Luigi Nono in Venice are products of his friendship with artists and scholars. In this respect, he is quite exceptional among Japanese architectural professionals. He has written many articles and edited several series of books on art and architecture.

In the 1990s, Isozaki's style became more free and dynamic. Oval, hyperbolic, and parabolic shapes dominated his architecture. Historical references gradually faded away from his design, coinciding with the rise and fall of Postmodern architecture. The Nara Convention Hall (1998) and the Shizuoka Prefectural Convention and Art Center (1998) show his interest in abstract composition. Isozaki inherited enthusiasm for mechanical devices from Kenzo Tange and the Metabolists. He was also influenced by the legacies of Western architecture and contemporary art. Nevertheless, he preferred to treat them with irony. In this respect, Isozaki's architecture can be seen as an opposition to the "will to construct" evident in modernism.

Hiroyuki Suzuki

Sennott R.S. Encyclopedia of twentieth century architecture, Vol.2 (G-O).  Fitzroy Dearborn., 2005.

23 July 1931 Born in Oita City, Japan;

1954 Degree in architecture from the University of Tokyo, Faculty of Architecture, under Kenzo Tange;

1954-63 Worked for Kenzo Tange and Urtec, Tokyo;

1963 Director, Arata Isozaki and Associates, Tokyo from this year;

1969 Visiting professor, University of California, Los Angeles;

1971 Married sculptor Aiko Miyawaki;

1974 Visiting professor, University of Hawaii, Honolulu;

1976 Visiting professor, Rhode Island School of Design, Providence;

1976, 1979 Visiting professor, Columbia University, New York;

1978 Member, Accademia Tiberina, Italy;

1981 Visiting professor, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts;

1982 Visiting professor, Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut;

1983 Honorary fellow, American Institute of Architects;

1983 Honorary member, Bund Deutscher Architekten, West Germany;

1986 Gold Medal, Royal Institute of British Architects;

28 December 2022 Deid in Naha, Okinawa Prefecture, Japan 

Selected Publications

Kenchiku no kaitai [Deconstruction of Architecture], 1975

Shuho ga [On Maniera], 1979

Kukan e [Towards Space], 1984

Anywhere, 1992

Anyway, 1995

Shigen no Modoki: Japanesujiron [Reproduction of Origin], 1996

Anyhow, 1997

Anyone, 1998

Anywhere, 1999

Further Reading

Arata Isozaki, Tange Report 140, Tokyo: Inax, 1999

Drew, Philip, The Architecture of Arata Isozaki, New York and London: Granada, 1982

Frampton, Kenneth (editor), New Wave of Japanese Architecture, New York: Institute for Architecture and Urban Studies, 1978

Futagawa, Yukio (editor), Arata Isozaki, volume 1: 1959-1978, Tokyo: A.D.A. Edita, 1991

Futagawa, Yukio (editor), Arata Isozaki, Tokyo: A.D.A. Edita, 1996

GA Document 57 (1999)

Stewart, David (editor), Arata Isozaki: Architecture, 1960-1990, Los Angeles: Museum of Contemporary Art, and New York: Rizzoli, 1991

Stewart, David, and Richard Meier (editors), Arata Isozaki: 1960-1990 Architecture, Tokyo: Inax, 1991

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