Kenzo Tange

Kenzo Tange (1913-2005) was a Japanese architect and urban planner, born in Sakai, Osaka Prefecture. He studied architecture at the University of Tokyo from 1935, worked for Kunio Maekawa, a former assistant of Le Corbusier, and taught at the University of Tokyo from 1946, becoming professor of urban engineering in 1963. He received the Pritzker Prize in 1987.

His Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park and Museum (competition won 1949, completed 1955) places the museum, raised on concrete columns, on one axis with a memorial arch and the ruined Genbaku Dome. The Kagawa Prefectural Government Office in Takamatsu (1958) uses exposed concrete beams in proportions taken from traditional Japanese timber buildings. For the 1964 Tokyo Olympics he built the Yoyogi National Gymnasium, whose roof hangs from cables strung between two concrete masts. St. Mary's Cathedral in Tokyo (1964) is clad in stainless steel.

His 1960 Plan for Tokyo proposed extending the city across Tokyo Bay along a linear spine of roads and buildings. Students and assistants in his university laboratory included Arata Isozaki, Kisho Kurokawa and Fumihiko Maki; Kurokawa and Maki were founding members of the Metabolist group. His later works include the Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building in Shinjuku (1991), a city hall with twin towers.