Architect Kurokawa Dies, Aged 73

Source : The Business Times, October 13, 2007

(TOKYO) Internationally acclaimed Japanese architect Kisho Kurokawa died in a hospital here yesterday. He was 73.

Mr Kurokawa, known for designs that merged traditional architecture styles and philosophy, died after heart failure, said a spokeswoman at the Tokyo Women's Medical University Hospital.

He was hospitalised on Tuesday due to an intestinal ailment.

The hospital spokeswoman said no other details could be released because of privacy reasons. Media reports said Mr Kurokawa was suffering from a liver ailment.

Repeated phone calls to his office, Kisho Kurokawa Architect & Associates, went unanswered.

Mr Kurokawa, who made his world debut in 1960 at age 26, led a style known as the Metabolism Movement, advocating a shift from 'machine principle' to 'life principle' in his literary work and architectural designs based on themes including ecology, recycling and intermediate space.

His major works include the National Ethnological Museum in Tokyo, the Kuala Lumpur International Airport in Malaysia that encompasses palm trees and rain forest, the National Art Centre in Tokyo's posh Roppongi that looks like a wavy curtain, as well as the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam.

Mr Kurokawa's design of the Kuala Lumpur airport won the 2003/2004 grand prix awarded by Italy's Dedalo-Minosse International Prize, and was also certified as a sustainable airport by the United Nations' Green Globe 21 in 2003.

'(Kurokawa) demonstrated his genius to open a new passage to architecture. He made distinguished achievements,' Japanese Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda told reporters late yesterday.

'I'm really shocked,' Mr Fukuda said. 'He was doing well just a few months ago when he ran in the elections.'

Compared to his renowned architectural achievements, Mr Kurokawa was seen as a somewhat eccentric candidate this year when he ran unsuccessfully for local and parliamentary elections.

He was born in Japan's central city of Nagoya in 1934.

Mr Kurokawa graduated from prestigious Kyoto University's architecture department before earning a doctoral degree from Tokyo University under his mentor Kenzo Tange, who was hailed as the architect of some of the most beautiful structures of the 20th century.

Mr Tange, who designed the twin gymnasiums with sweeping roofs like upside-down ships' hulls for the 1964 Tokyo Olympics, died in 2005 at 88.

Mr Kurokawa received the Gold Medal from France's Academy of Architecture in 1986. Most recently, he received the Chicago Athenaeum Museum International Architecture Award in 2006. -- AP