Kurokawa dies aged 73: obituary by bd the Architects Website

architect/artist: Kisho Kurokawa
obituary title: Kurokawa dies aged 73
obituary compilation no: T-06
format: Text
date: 16 October, 2007
appeared in: bd The Architects Website
writer:

photo by:

courtesy: http://www.bdonline.co.uk/story.asp?sectioncode=426&storycode=3097622&channel=577&c=2&encCode=000000000193dc6a

Obituary Details:

Kurokawa dies aged 73

Kisho Kurokawa, the Japanese architect who pioneered the Metabolism movement, has died of heart failure aged 73.

Kurokawa was born in Nagoya, Japan in 1934. He graduated from Kyoto University before co-founding the Metabolists in 1960 at the age of 26.

Described as a kind and compassionate man, his philosophy was based around the idea of a paradigm shift from what he termed the “age of machine principle” to the “age of life principle”.

He defined the latter as being influenced by concepts including symbiosis, recycling, ecology and intermediate space.

In 1972, he built the iconic Nakagin Capsule Tower. The scheme, considered the first capsule building designed for actual use, and using offsite manufacture technologies, inspired later proposals by architects including Piercy Connor.

Despite being placed on international heritage protection group Docomomo’s short list for modern world heritage buildings in 1997, the development failed to win protection and currently faces the threat of demolition, after being found to contain asbestos.

Other well know work included the Wakayama Museum of Modern Art and the Hiroshima Contemporary Art Museum.

He had just completed the design for a Maggie’s Centre in Swansea and the architect’s design for a new football stadium in St Petersburg is currently under construction.

In 2003, Docomomo Japan selected Sagae City Hall as one of 100 distinctive modern buildings in Japan.

A prolific writer, Kurokawa won numerous international plaudits, and was made an honorary fellow of the RIBA in 1986.

He worked to foster relationships between British and Japanese architects, leading a project to take six British architects to Japan and bringing Japanese architects to the UK to exhibit in two shows at the Institute.

He was awarded the Walpole Medal of Excellence in 2005 and last year received the Chicago Athanaeum Museum International Architecture Award.

Docomomo’s Dennis Sharp said: “He was one of the few architects who really worked from a conviction about his own creative ideas.

“There was a quality to his buildings and a comprehensiveness to his work right down to the detail of the handrails and the floor finishes.”

Kisho Kurokawa, b. Nagoya, Japan, April 8, 1934, d. Tokyo, October 12, 2007.

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