Abstract
This article analyses the work and presents a portrait of Japanese architect Arata Isozaki. His designs and buildings span six decades and it is suggested that these can be categorised into four distinctively different phases. As a former collaborator of Isozaki during the 1990s, the author is able to draw from first-hand observations and knowledge to explain relevant projects. As the discussion points out, Isozaki’s work is highly unusual, original, complex and personal in its absorption of a multitude of influences and its interdisciplinary approach; thus, one could say that he has created ideas and concepts for spaces that defy characterisation as belonging to any single school of thought.
Highlights
With a very productive career that spanned over six decades, over 100 built works and a heterogeneous oeuvre that is unusually diverse and original, writing about the Japanese architect
In 1990, I left the office of Jim Stirling, where I worked in London, to move to Japan and work as a young architect for Arata Isozaki in Tokyo
Arata Isozaki graduated from the University of Tokyo in 1954 and went straight to work under Kenzo Tange, the father of post-war Japanese architecture, before establishing his own firm, Isozaki Atelier, in 1963
Summary
With a very productive career that spanned over six decades, over 100 built works and a heterogeneous oeuvre that is unusually diverse and original, writing about the Japanese architect. Arata Isozaki graduated from the University of Tokyo in 1954 and went straight to work under Kenzo Tange, the father of post-war Japanese architecture, before establishing his own firm, Isozaki Atelier, in 1963 His early Japanese projects, such as City in the Air (1960–1961) and the. Schalk notes that “the image pictures the city as the place where many life-cycles of various cultures rise, overlap, and decline In this juxtaposition of the already declined (Western classical architecture) with the visionary (Japanese Metabolist architecture) and its future (parts of the new scheme already collapsed), historical time appears compressed”. I was always stunned by the unprecedented degree of powerful but geometrically simple forms and formal repertoire in his work He displayed a unique capacity for strong figure-ground compositions which declared architecture to be a compositional art, a celebration of formal expression and a reminder of the urban possibilities large buildings could offer. The interiors of Isozaki’s concert halls and cultural buildings are striking: here he frequently used optical illusion, with curved or mirrored glass and printed patterns on glass, creating enigmatic optical distortion, ensuring a full sensory experience in the elegant entry foyers (from Tsukuba Center Building to the Kyoto Concert Hall)
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