{"id":15173,"date":"2013-03-23T05:03:23","date_gmt":"2013-03-23T05:03:23","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2025-10-15T11:49:18","modified_gmt":"2025-10-15T11:49:18","slug":"japanese-architect-toyo-ito-wins-pritzker-prize","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/?p=15173","title":{"rendered":"Japanese architect Toyo Ito wins Pritzker Prize"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>After honoring younger and lesser-known figures in recent years &#8212; including 49-year-old Chinese architect Wang Shu in 2012 &#8212; the Pritzker jury this year chose a well-established architect with 40 years of built work to his credit.<\/strong> For at least a decade Ito has been a presumed Pritzker front-runner.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Along with Tadao Ando,<\/strong> the 1995 Pritzker laureate, the 71-year-old Ito is the dean of Japanese architecture, though with his mop of black hair he looks many years younger. He is best known for his 2001 Sendai Mediatheque, a seven-story glass box of a building that was dramatically shaken, though only lightly damaged, by the Tohoku earthquake two years ago.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Like much of his work, it distills a series of complex technical breakthroughs into a spare, even-keeled finished product.<\/strong> The Mediatheque&#8217;s structural and electrical systems are bundled inside 13 vertical tubes, leaving library and exhibition spaces open and accessible from all sides and visible from the street through floor-to-ceiling glass.<\/p>\n<p><object width=\"500\" height=\"360\"><param name=\"movie\" value=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/v\/rRM79WlCOSo?version=3&amp;hl=en_US\"><\/param><param name=\"allowFullScreen\" value=\"true\"><\/param><param name=\"allowscriptaccess\" value=\"always\"><\/param><embed src=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/v\/rRM79WlCOSo?version=3&amp;hl=en_US\" type=\"application\/x-shockwave-flash\" width=\"500\" height=\"360\" allowscriptaccess=\"always\" allowfullscreen=\"true\"><\/embed><\/object><br \/>\n<strong>Ito has designed museums, stadiums, houses and commercial buildings across Japan.<\/strong> His largest and most ambitious project to date, the 620,000 square-foot Taichung Metropolitan Opera House, is under construction in Taiwan and due to open next year.<\/p>\n<p><strong>He has also been a teacher and mentor to many Japanese architects.<\/strong> Two former associates in his office, Ryue Nishizawa and Kazuyo Sejima, who run the firm SANAA, were the joint Pritzker winners in 2010. Recently Ito has been working with a group of Tokyo architects in their 40s to develop community centers for sections of northeast Japan hit hard by the earthquake and tsunami.<\/p>\n<p>In a Skype interview from his Tokyo office, Ito expressed surprise at the news. \u201cAfter a Chinese architect won last year and SANAA three years ago, I did not expect it would be me this time,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p><em>Continue reading at <a href=\"http:\/\/www.latimes.com\/entertainment\/arts\/culture\/la-et-japanese-architect-toyo-ito-71-wins-pritzker-prize-20130312,0,2719958.story\">www.latimes.com<\/a><\/em><br \/>\n<!--break--><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>After honoring younger and lesser-known figures in recent years &#8212; including 49-year-old Chinese architect Wang Shu in 2012 &#8212; the<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":72448,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"colormag_page_container_layout":"default_layout","colormag_page_sidebar_layout":"default_layout","footnotes":""},"categories":[1009,1],"tags":[2004],"class_list":["post-15173","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-art","category-news","tag-art"],"magazineBlocksPostFeaturedMedia":{"thumbnail":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u-113x150.jpg","medium":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg","medium_large":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg","large":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg","1536x1536":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg","2048x2048":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg","colormag-highlighted-post":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg","colormag-featured-post-medium":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg","colormag-featured-post-small":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u-113x90.jpg","colormag-featured-image":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg","colormag-default-news":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u-113x150.jpg","colormag-featured-image-large":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg","colormag-elementor-block-extra-large-thumbnail":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg","colormag-elementor-grid-large-thumbnail":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg","colormag-elementor-grid-small-thumbnail":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg","colormag-elementor-grid-medium-large-thumbnail":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg"},"magazineBlocksPostAuthor":{"name":"Admin","avatar":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/53e6cdc30765aade0129f85e5aeb50124b1d3f5bb9a70373be31e4eb328371e0?s=96&d=mm&r=g"},"magazineBlocksPostCommentsNumber":"0","magazineBlocksPostExcerpt":"After honoring younger and lesser-known figures in recent years &#8212; including 49-year-old Chinese architect Wang Shu in 2012 &#8212; the","magazineBlocksPostCategories":["Art","News"],"magazineBlocksPostViewCount":122,"magazineBlocksPostReadTime":2,"magazine_blocks_featured_image_url":{"full":["https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg",113,170,false],"medium":["https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg",113,170,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u-113x150.jpg",113,150,true]},"magazine_blocks_author":{"display_name":"Admin","author_link":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/?author=1"},"magazine_blocks_comment":0,"magazine_blocks_author_image":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/53e6cdc30765aade0129f85e5aeb50124b1d3f5bb9a70373be31e4eb328371e0?s=96&d=mm&r=g","magazine_blocks_category":"<a href=\"#\" class=\"category-link category-link-1009\">Art<\/a> <a href=\"#\" class=\"category-link category-link-1\">News<\/a>","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15173","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=15173"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15173\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/72448"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=15173"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=15173"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=15173"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}