Building expectations
The winner of this year's Pritzker Prize, Toyo Ito tells Kate Whitehead that the 2011 Tohoku earthquake taught him a great lesson and explains why architecture must be felt with your entire body
Toyo Ito has been so busy he's barely had time to celebrate. When the Japanese architect received the news last month that he'd won the Pritzker Prize, he and his team were putting the finishing touches to their concept design for M+, the museum of visual culture planned for Hong Kong's West Kowloon Cultural District.
"We stopped for a little drink upstairs and then went back to work," says Ito, sitting in his Shibuya office, in downtown Tokyo.
A heady fragrance fills the room, from baskets of purple and white orchids sent to congratulate the sixth Japanese person to receive the prestigious award.
The judges praised Ito for combining conceptual innovation with superbly executed buildings. He's best known for the Sendai Mediatheque, a seven-storey glass box of a library that opened in 2001 and put him on the international map. Other standout works in Japan include the Tower of Winds (1986), in Yokohama, the Matsumoto Performing Arts Centre (2004), in Nagano and Italian shoemaker Tod's Omotesando Building (2004), in Tokyo. Outside Japan many will be familiar with the Serpentine Gallery (2002), in London, VivoCity (2006), in Singapore and the National Stadium (2009), in Kaohsiung, Taiwan.
The 2011 Tohoku earthquake and tsunami spurred Ito and other Japanese architects to develop the Home-for-All project, creating communal spaces for survivors.
Over more than 40 years, Ito has amassed a huge body of work - and winning the Pritzker might be considered the crowning glory - but he shows no signs of slowing down. Slim and trim - he walks his dog for an hour every morning - he's a young looking 71-year-old and his practice is buzzing.
