Arata Isozaki Biography

Arata Isozaki

Arata Isozaki (磯崎 新, Isozaki Arata; born 23 July 1931) is a Japanese architect from Ōita. He graduated from the University of Tokyo in 1954. Isozaki worked under Kenzo Tange before establishing his own firm in 1963. He was awarded the RIBA Gold Medal in 1986.

In 2005, Arata Isozaki founded the Italian branch of his office: Arata Isozaki & Andrea Maffei Associates. Two major projects from this office are currently underway: CityLife office tower, a redevelopment project in the former trade fair area in Milan, and the new Town Library in Maranello, Italy.

Art Tower in Mito, Ibaraki

Born and educated in Japan, Arata Isozaki often integrates Eastern ideas into his designs.

For example, Isozaki wanted to express a yin-yang theory of positive and negative space when he designed the Team Disney Building in Orlando, Florida. Also, because the offices were to be used by time-conscious executives, he wanted the architecture to make a statement about time. 

Serving as offices for the Walt Disney Corporation, the Team Disney Building is a startling landmark on the otherwise barren stretch of Florida's Route I-4. The oddly looped gateway suggests gigantic Mickey Mouse ears. At the building's core, a 120-foot sphere forms the world's largest sundial. Inside the sphere is a serene Japanese rock garden. 

Isozaki's Team Disney design won a prestigious National Honor Award from the AIA in 1992.

Museum of Modern Art Gunma, Japan, 1974

Notable works:

• COSI Columbus, Columbus, Ohio, United States

• Kyoto Concert Hall, Kyoto, Japan

• Ōita Prefectural Library, Ōita, Ōita, Japan

• Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA), Los Angeles, California, United States

• Art Tower Mito, Japan, 1990

• Sports Hall for the 1992 Summer Olympics, Barcelona, Spain

• Team Disney Orlando, Florida, United States

• Weill Cornell Medical College in Qatar, Education City, near Doha

• Torino Palasport Olimpico, Turin, Italy

• Centre of Japanese Art and Technology, Kraków, Poland

• Domus Casa Del Hombre, La Coruña, Spain, 1995

• Weill Cornell Medical College in Qatar, opened 2004

• Bond University, Gold Coast, Australia

• Isozaki Atea, Bilbao, Spain

• Shenzhen Cultural Center, Shenzhen, China

• Diamond Island, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam (complete in 2012)

• Metropolis Thao Dien, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam (under construction)

• Collaborated design in Puerta America hotel, Madrid with 18 other international designers including Zaha Hadid, Norman Foster and Jean Nouvel

• New Concert Hall Building, Thessaloniki, Greece, 2010.