Toyo Ito has been awarded the 2013 Pritzker Architecture Prize, announced Thomas J. Pritzker, Chairman of the Hyatt Foundation, which sponsors the award. The sixth Japanese architect to win the prize, Ito had been considered a leading candidate for years by outside observers. The 71-year old designer has made it his mission to “overcome Modernism” by freeing his buildings from that movement’s geometric, structural, and spatial conventions. In the process, he has created an extraordinary array of libraries, houses, shops, theaters, and other buildings distinguished by their maze-like arches, wavy columns, and other elements that defy the norm. Yet his works are so logical that they seem comfortable in their settings even as they startle us. Said Pritzker juror Yung Ho Chang, “Although Mr. Ito has built a great number of buildings in his career, in my view, he has been working on one project all along—to push the boundaries of architecture.”
Born in Seoul, Korea, but relocated to Japan as a small child, Ito lived in a house designed by the Marcel Breuer-trained architect, Yoshinobu Ashihara, during his high school years. This experience may have influenced his ultimate decision to pursue a career in design (at that time, he might have preferred to play baseball). Ito became serious about architecture while enrolled at the University of Tokyo. After graduating in 1965, he began working for Kiyonori Kikutake & Associates, where he remained until opening his own studio in 1971. “I learned from Mr. Kikutake how to create architecture for the body,” said Ito at his Toyko office. “In terms of design, I still use that direction today.”
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