Toyo Ito
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is a Japanese
architect An architect is a person who plans, designs, and oversees the construction of buildings. To practice architecture means to provide services in connection with the design of buildings and the space within the site surrounding the buildings that h ...
known for creating conceptual architecture, in which he seeks to simultaneously express the physical and virtual worlds. He is a leading exponent of architecture that addresses the contemporary notion of a "simulated" city, and has been called "one of the world's most innovative and influential architects." In 2013, Ito was awarded the Pritzker Prize, one of architecture's most prestigious prizes. He was a likely front-runner for the Pritzker Prize for the previous 10 years. A recent trend has seen less experienced and well-known winners, for example Chinese architect Wang Shu in 2012, and the award to Toyo Ito is seen as recognition of a lifetime's achievement in architecture.


Early life and education

Ito was born in Keijō, Japanese Korea (today's
Seoul Seoul, officially Seoul Special Metropolitan City, is the capital city, capital and largest city of South Korea. The broader Seoul Metropolitan Area, encompassing Seoul, Gyeonggi Province and Incheon, emerged as the world's List of cities b ...
, South Korea) to Japanese parents on 1 June 1941. In 1943, he moved to Japan with his mother and two sisters living until middle school age in rural Shimosuwa,
Nagano Prefecture is a Landlocked country, landlocked Prefectures of Japan, prefecture of Japan located in the Chūbu region of Honshu. Nagano Prefecture has a population of 2,007,682 () and has a geographic area of . Nagano Prefecture borders Niigata Prefecture ...
. His father was the chairman of a textile subsidiary of Mitsui & Co. His father returned to Japan just before the end of the Second World War to live with his family. Ito has stated that his experience of living by Lake Suwa and the stillness of its waters had a great impact on him as an architect later in life. Ito attended Hibiya High School in central Tokyo, where he was a member of the baseball team. His first application to the
University of Tokyo The University of Tokyo (, abbreviated as in Japanese and UTokyo in English) is a public research university in Bunkyō, Tokyo, Japan. Founded in 1877 as the nation's first modern university by the merger of several pre-westernisation era ins ...
was unsuccessful and Ito spent a year as a ronin student. He matriculated at the University of Tokyo in 1961, and chose architecture as his field of specialisation in his second year only because his grades for the first year was not good. He originally intended to study either mechanical or electrical engineering. At the time, Kenzo Tange was among the faculty of the university's architecture department, while Arata Isozaki, Sachio Otani, and Kisho Kurokawa were his students. Ito graduated from the University of Tokyo's department of architecture in 1965.


Career

After working for
Kiyonori Kikutake (April 1, 1928 – December 26, 2011) was a prominent Japanese architect known as one of the founders of the Japanese Metabolist group. He was also the tutor and employer of several important Japanese architects, such as Toyo Ito, Shōzō ...
Architect and Associates from 1965 to 1969 (alongside Itsuko Hasegawa), in 1971 he started his own studio in Tokyo, named Urbot ("Urban Robot"). In 1979, the studio name was changed to Toyo Ito & Associates. Throughout his early career Ito constructed numerous private house projects that expressed aspects of urban life in Japan. His most remarkable early conceptual contributions were made through projects of this scale, such as '' White U'' (1976) and ''Silver Hut'' (1984). With the ''Pao for the Tokyo Nomad Girl'' projects in 1985 and 1989, Ito presented a vision of the life of an urban nomad, illustrative of typical lifestyles during the bubble economy period in Japan. ''Tower of Winds'' (1986) and ''Egg of Winds'' (1991) are interactive landmarks in public spaces, resulting from a creative interpretation of contemporary technical possibilities. Whilst their function is in fact exhaust air outlets for the underground system below, their significance lies in Ito's treatment of their opacity, one of the hallmarks of his work. Whilst appearing solid during the day, the perforated aluminium structures "dissolve" at night through the use of computer-controlled light systems which form an interactive display representing measured data such as noise levels in their surrounding vicinity. Toyo Ito's office is known as a training ground for talented younger architects. Architects who previously worked for his office include Kazuyo Sejima and Ryue Nishizawa (
SANAA Sanaa, officially the Sanaa Municipality, is the ''de jure'' capital and largest city of Yemen. The city is the capital of the Sanaa Governorate, but is not part of the governorate, as it forms a separate administrative unit. At an elevation ...
), Astrid Klein and Mark Dytham (KDa), Katsuya Fukushima, Makoto Yokomizo, and Akihisa Hirata.


Critical vision

Ito's work is often said to have affinities with the ideas of philosophers such as Munesuke Mita and
Gilles Deleuze Gilles Louis René Deleuze (18 January 1925 – 4 November 1995) was a French philosopher who, from the early 1950s until his death in 1995, wrote on philosophy, literature, film, and fine art. His most popular works were the two volumes o ...
. Ito has defined architecture as "clothing" for urban dwellers, particularly in the contemporary Japanese metropolis. This theme revolves around the equilibrium between the private life and the metropolitan, "public" life of an individual. The current architecture of Toyo Ito expands on his work produced during the postmodern period, aggressively exploring the potentials of new forms. In doing so, he seeks to find new spatial conditions that manifest the philosophy of borderless beings.


Exhibitions

Ito's work has been exhibited widely. In 1991, Ito used 130 video projectors to simulate the urban environment of Tokyo for the ''Visions of Japan'' exhibition at The
Victoria and Albert Museum The Victoria and Albert Museum (abbreviated V&A) in London is the world's largest museum of applied arts, decorative arts and design, housing a permanent collection of over 2.8 million objects. It was founded in 1852 and named after Queen ...
in London. Later, in 2000, his ''Vision and Reality'' at the
Louisiana Museum of Modern Art The Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, also known as the Louisiana, is an art museum located north of Copenhagen, Denmark. Attracting over 700,000 guests annually, the Louisiana is Scandinavia's most visited museum for Modern art, modern and contempor ...
also became a traveling exhibition. Ito similarly exploited the effect of video projection as a medium with which to exhibit architecture in his ''Blurring Architecture'' exhibition, initiated at the Suermondt-Ludwig-Museum in Aachen and traveling to four other cities (Tokyo, Antwerp, Auckland, and Wellington between 1999 and 2001). Ito designed the '' Berlin-Tokyo/Tokyo-Berlin'' Exhibition (2006) at the
Neue Nationalgalerie The Neue Nationalgalerie (New National Gallery) at the Kulturforum is a museum for modern art in Berlin, with its main focus on the 20th century. It is part of the National Gallery of the Berlin State Museums. The museum building and its sculpt ...
, Berlin. The design featured a smooth, undulating landscape that occupied almost the entirety of the museum's main exhibition space. This exhibition, in collaboration with the Mori Art Museum, was one of the largest undertakings in the museum's history. A major retrospective of Ito's work was shown at the Tokyo Opera City Art Gallery in 2006 as ''Toyo Ito: The New "Real" in Architecture.''


List of works

Source: * 1976 – White U House (house for his sister) * 1984 – Silver Hut (Ito's own house, adjacent to White U) * 1986 – Tower of Winds, West Exit, Yokohama Station, Nishi-ku,
Yokohama is the List of cities in Japan, second-largest city in Japan by population as well as by area, and the country's most populous Municipalities of Japan, municipality. It is the capital and most populous city in Kanagawa Prefecture, with a popu ...
* 1991 – Yatsushiro Municipal Museum * 1994 – Old People's Home in Yatsushiro * 2001 – Sendai Mediatheque: a multi-function complex accommodating a mixed programme of library, art gallery, audio-visual library, film studio and café. It was a competition winning scheme chosen in 1995 from amongst 235 competing proposals. Widely recognised as one of Ito's seminal works. * 2002 – Temporary
Serpentine Gallery The Serpentine Galleries are two contemporary art galleries in Kensington Gardens, Westminster, Greater London. Recently rebranded to just Serpentine, the organisation is split across Serpentine South, previously known as the Serpentine Galler ...
Pavilion, in Kensington Gardens, London * 2002 –
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pavilion * 2004 – Matsumoto Performing Art Center, Matsumoto * 2004 – Tod's Omotesandō Building, Tokyo * 2006 – First Prize "Taichung Opera International Competition" in Taiwan * 2006 – VivoCity Singapore at HarbourFront * 2007 – Library of
Tama Art University or is a private Art school, art university located in Tokyo, Japan. It is known as one of the top art schools in Japan. History The forerunner of Tamabi was Tama Imperial Art School (多摩帝国美術学校, Tama Teikoku Bijutsu Gakkō) fou ...
, Tokyo * 2008 – World Games Stadium in Kaohsiung, Taiwan * 2008 – Huge Wine Glass in
Pescara Pescara (; ; ) is the capital city of the province of Pescara, in the Abruzzo Regions of Italy, region of Italy. It is the most populated city in Abruzzo, with 118,657 (January 1, 2023) residents (and approximately 350,000 including the surround ...
(broken after 64 days from unveiling) * 2009 – Suites Avenue Building,
Barcelona Barcelona ( ; ; ) is a city on the northeastern coast of Spain. It is the capital and largest city of the autonomous community of Catalonia, as well as the second-most populous municipality of Spain. With a population of 1.6 million within c ...
, Spain * 2009 – Torre Realia BCN and Hotel Porta Fira, L'Hospitalet de Llobregat, Barcelona, Spain * 2009 – Za-Koenji Public Theater, Kōenji, Suginami, Tokyo * 2009 – White O, Marbella, Chile * 2011 – Toyo Ito Museum of Architecture, Imabari, Ehime, Japan * 2011 – Ken Iwata Mother and Child Museum, Imabari, Ehime, Japan * 2013 – College of Social Sciences, National Taiwan University, Taipei, Taiwan * 2013 – Taipei New Horizon Building, Taipei, Taiwan * 2014 – National Taichung Theater, Taiwan * 2014 – CapitaGreen, Singapore * 2015 – Meiso no Mori Municipal Funeral Hall Kakamigahara-shi, Gifu, Japan * 2016 – International Museum of the Baroque, Puebla, Mexico * 2019 – The Tokyo Toilet project - Three Mushrooms, Tokyo, Japan


Gallery of works

File:Nagaoka Lyric Hall 001.jpg, Nagaoka Lyric Hall (1994, Nagaoka) File:Serpentine Pavillion 2002.jpg,
Serpentine Gallery The Serpentine Galleries are two contemporary art galleries in Kensington Gardens, Westminster, Greater London. Recently rebranded to just Serpentine, the organisation is split across Serpentine South, previously known as the Serpentine Galler ...
, London, UK (2002) File:Matsumoto Performing Arts Centre 2010.jpg, Matsumoto Performing Arts Centre (2004) File:TOD'S.jpg, TOD's Omotesando Building, Tokyo, Japan (2004) File:Mikimoto Ginza2.JPG, Mikimoto Ginza 2, Tokyo, Japan (2005) File:VivoCity 106.JPG, VivoCity, Singapore (2006) File:Tama Art University Library.JPG, Library of
Tama Art University or is a private Art school, art university located in Tokyo, Japan. It is known as one of the top art schools in Japan. History The forerunner of Tamabi was Tama Imperial Art School (多摩帝国美術学校, Tama Teikoku Bijutsu Gakkō) fou ...
, Tokyo, Japan (2007) File:World Games Stadium and National Sports Training Center 2022 02.jpg, World Games Stadium, Kaohsiung, Taiwan (2008) File:Barcelona 2010 August 005 Hotel.JPG, Torre Realia BCN and Hotel Porta Fira, L'Hospitalet de Llobregat, Barcelona, Spain (2009) File:Toyo Ito Museum of Architecture Steel Hut.jpg, Toyo Ito Museum of Architecture, Imabari, Ehime, Japan (2011) File:National Taichung Theater aerial view 2019.jpg, National Taichung Theater, Taichung, Taiwan (2014)


Honors and recognition

Ito's awards and honors include: * 1986 – Architectural Institute of Japan Award for ''Silver Hut'' * 1992 – 33rd Mainichi Art Award for ''Yatsushiro Municipal Museum'' * 1997 – IAA 'Interach '97' Grand Prix of the Union of Architects in Bulgaria Gold Medal * 1998 – Education Minister's Art Encouragement Prize in Japan * 2000 – Arnold W. Brunner Memorial Prize in architecture from the American Academy of Arts and Letters * 2001 – Gold prize of the Japanese Good Design Award * 2006 – RIBA Royal Gold Medal * 2008 – Frederick Kiesler Prize for Architecture and the Arts * 2009 –
Asahi Prize The , established in 1929, is an award presented by the Japanese newspaper ''Asahi Shimbun'' and Asahi Shimbun Foundation to honor individuals and groups that have made outstanding accomplishments in the fields of arts and academics and have greatl ...
* 2010 – Praemium Imperiale * 2012 - Golden Lion for Best National Participation at the Venice Biennale of Architecture * 2013 – Pritzker Prize for Architecture * 2013 –
Asahi Prize The , established in 1929, is an award presented by the Japanese newspaper ''Asahi Shimbun'' and Asahi Shimbun Foundation to honor individuals and groups that have made outstanding accomplishments in the fields of arts and academics and have greatl ...
* 2014 – Mathew Art Award in Berlin * 2016, 2017 – Prix Versailles World Judge * 2017 – UIA Gold Medal * 2018 – Person of Cultural Merit * 2020 – Design Educates Award, Jury member * 2023 – Honorary Royal Academician (HonRA)


Professorship

Ito holds a professorship at the
Japan Women's University is the oldest and largest of private Japanese women's universities. The university was established on 20 April 1901 by education reformist . The university has around 6000 students and 200 faculty. It has two campuses, named after the neighbo ...
. He is also an honorary professor at the
University of North London The University of North London (UNL) was a university in London, England, formed from the Polytechnic of North London (PNL) in 1992 when that institution was granted university status. PNL, in turn, had been formed by the amalgamation of the No ...
and has served as guest professor at
Columbia University Columbia University in the City of New York, commonly referred to as Columbia University, is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Churc ...
. He teaches at
Tama Art University or is a private Art school, art university located in Tokyo, Japan. It is known as one of the top art schools in Japan. History The forerunner of Tamabi was Tama Imperial Art School (多摩帝国美術学校, Tama Teikoku Bijutsu Gakkō) fou ...
Graduate program as a professor.


References


External links


Ito interviewed by C.B.Liddell at Architecture Week




* Thomas Daniell

''Artscape'', 2 November 2006. * Nicolai Ouroussoff
"Inside the Exteriors of Architect Toyo Ito"
''
The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''NYT'') is an American daily newspaper based in New York City. ''The New York Times'' covers domestic, national, and international news, and publishes opinion pieces, investigative reports, and reviews. As one of ...
'', 8 July 2009. {{DEFAULTSORT:Ito, Toyo 1941 births Living people People from Seoul People from Nagano Prefecture University of Tokyo alumni Recipients of the Royal Gold Medal Recipients of the Praemium Imperiale * Pritzker Architecture Prize winners Compasso d'Oro Award recipients 20th-century Japanese architects 21st-century Japanese architects Persons of Cultural Merit