ARATA ISOZAKI

Arata Isozaki, (born in 1931 in Oita Prefecture - d. Dec 28th, 2022 inOkinawa, Japan), Isozaki is a world-renowned and one of the Japan’s leading architects. He established Arata Isozaki & Associates in 1963. His representative architectural works include Oita Prefectural Library (present Art Plaza), The Museum of Modern Art, Gunma, Art Tower Mito, Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art, Nara Centennial Hall, Akiyoshidai International Art Village, Shanghai Himalaya Center, Qatar National Convention Center.

He is the recipient of the Annual Prize, Architectural Institute of Japan, for the Ōita Prefectural Library and The Museum of Modern Art, Gunma (1967 and 1975 respectively, Japan), L’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres (1997 Officier, France), RIBA Gold Medal for architecture (1986 United Kingdom), Leone d’Oro, Venice Architectural Biennale, as commissioner of Japanese Pavilion (1996 Italy), Gran Cruz de la Orden del Mérito Civil (1997 Spain), Ordine al Merito della Repubblica Italiana (2007 Italy), and The Lorenzo il Magnifico Lifetime Achievement Award, Florence Biennale (2017). He was an honorary member of the Royal Academy of Arts (1994) and the American Academy of Arts and Letters (1998), and a member of the Japan Arts Academy (2017). He was appointed to the first Pritzker Prize Jury in 1979, and continued on as a member for five additional years.

Solo exhibitions featuring the work of Isozaki have included Arata Isozaki: Architecture 1960-1990 at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (California, USA) and Tokyo Station Gallery (Tokyo, Japan); Arata Isozaki: Works in Architecture at the Brooklyn Museum (New York, USA), Galleria D’ Arte Moderna, Comune di Bologna (Bologna, Italy), The Netherlands Architecture Institute (Rotterdam, The Netherlands), The National British Architecture Institute (London, United Kingdom), Miro Museum (Barcelona, Spain) and Moni Lazariston (Thessaloniki, Greece); Arata Isozaki – Electric Labyrinth at Castello di Rivoli, Museo d’Arte Contemporanea (Torino, Italy) and Serralves Museum of Contemporary Art (Porto, Portugal); and Arata Isozaki UNBUILT at the Central Academy of Fine Arts (Beijing, China), Shanghai Urban Planning Exhibition Centre (Shanghai, China) and Guangdong Museum of Art (Guangzhou, China).

Isozaki has served as a visiting professor at several U.S. universities including: Columbia University, New York (New York, USA); Harvard University (Cambridge, MA, USA) and Yale University (New Haven, Connecticut, USA). He is based in Okinawa with offices operating in Japan, China, Italy and Spain.