Fumihiko Maki

Fumihiko Maki is a Japanese architect. In 1993, he received the Pritzker Prize for his work, which often explores pioneering uses of new materials and fuses the cultures of east and west.

Born: September 6, 1928 (age 95), Tokyo

Alma mater:
University of Tokyo (B. Arch, 1952)
Cranbrook Academy of Art
(Masters, 1953)
Graduate School of Design, Harvard University (Masters, 1954)

Occupation: Architect

Awards:
Pritzker Prize
AIA Gold Medal

Practice: Maki and Associates

Buildings:
Yerba Buena Centre for the Arts,
Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum,
4 World Trade Centre

Projects:
Expansion of the headquarters of the United Nations in Manhattan.

Early Life:

Maki was born in Tokyo. After studying at the University of Tokyo and graduating with a Bachelor of Architecture degree in 1952, he moved to the Cranbrook Academy of Art in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, graduating with a master's degree in 1953. He then studied at Harvard Graduate School of Design, graduating with a Master of Architecture degree in 1954.

Career:

In 1956, he took a post as assistant professor of architecture at Washington University in St. Louis, where he also was awarded his first commission: the design of Steinberg Hall (an art centre) on the university's Danforth Campus. This building remained his only completed work in the United States until 1993, when he completed the Yerba Buena Centre for the Arts building in San Francisco. In 2006, he returned to Washington University in St. Louis to design the new home for the Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum and Walker Hall.

In 1960 he returned to Japan to help establish the Metabolism Group. He worked for Skidmore, Owings and Merrill in New York City and for Sert Jackson and Associates in Cambridge, Massachusetts and founded Maki and Associates in 1965.

In 2006, he was invited to join the judging panel for an international design competition for the new Gardens by the Bay in Singapore. Maki designed an extension building for the MIT Media Lab in Cambridge, Massachusetts, which was completed in 2009.

After completing a $330 million expansion of the headquarters of the United Nations in Manhattan, Maki designed Tower 4 at the former World Trade Centre site which opened in 2013. While it has criticized his 51 Astor Place project as "out of place," New York magazine called Tower 4 "pretty exquisite."

Maki will be designing the London campus of the Aga Khan University along with a cultural centre as part of the King's Cross development project. These will be Maki's first European projects and represent the third and fourth Aga Khan projects for Maki, who also designed the Delegation of the Ismaili Imamat in Ottawa and Aga Khan Museum in Toronto. He was also assigned by the Sonja & Reinhard Ernst Stiftung to design the Museum Reinhard Ernst in Wiesbaden, Germany, to display the foundations’ collection of abstract art.

Design philosophy:

Maki is known for fusing modernism with Japanese architectural traditions. For instance, he introduced the concept of oku, which is a spatial layout unique to Japan in which spaces wind around a structure. This is demonstrated in the use of walls and landscape in the Shimane Museum of Ancient Izumo.

Maki often speaks of the idea of creating "unforgettable scenes"—in effect, settings to accommodate and complement all kinds of human interaction—as the inspiration and starting point for his designs.

Fumihiko Maki’s adopts the basic design principles of making spaces functional, flexible and practical so it can withstand the continuous changes of human needs. A design that reassembles the concept of one fit all.

Fumihiko Maki calls himself a modernist, unequivocally. His buildings tend to be direct, at times understated, and made of metal, concrete and glass, the classic materials of the modernist age, but the canonical palette has also been extended to include such materials as mosaic tile, anodized aluminium and stainless steel.

His work fuses the cultures of east and west.

“I was never attracted to the idea of a large organization. On the other hand, a small organization may tend to develop a very narrow viewpoint. My ideal is a group structure that allows people with diverse imaginations, that often contradict and are in conflict with one another, to work in a condition of flux, but that also permits the making of decisions that are as calculated and objectively weighed as necessary for the creation of something as concrete as architecture”.

Awards:

1988: Wolf Prize in Arts
1993: Pritzker Architecture Prize
1993: International Union of Architects Gold Medal
1999: Praemium Imperiale
2011: AIA Gold Medal

Quotes:

“I understand that, today, some developers are asking architects to design eye-catching, iconic buildings. Fortunately, I've not had that kind of client so far.”

“Architecture must not only express its time, but survive it”

"Architects can control only certain things"