Pritzker Prize-winning architect Fumihiko Maki, known for designing the Makuhari Messe convention center in Chiba Prefecture and Hillside Terrace in Tokyo’s Daikanyama district, died on June 6 due to old age, his office said Wednesday. He was 95.
Maki was considered one of the most prominent global architects of his generation.
A funeral has already been held among his next of kin, but the office is considering holding a memorial in the future, although the date has yet to be set.
Born in 1928 in Tokyo, Maki graduated from the University of Tokyo and earned a master’s degree from Harvard University. He then went on to teach architecture and urban design at Harvard and Washington University.
A modernist architect, many of his works are made of metal, concrete and glass. The Hillside Terrace apartment complex completed in 1969 is one of his earlier works, developed over 25 years in six phases.
He was among a team who designed the 72-story 4 World Trade Center building in New York constructed after the World Trade Center collapsed in the wake of the 9/11 terrorist attacks. He also designed the redevelopment of the Taipei Main Station area in Taiwan in 2016 and Museum Reinhard Ernst in Germany in 2021.
Maki won the Pritzker Prize in 1993, the most prestigious award for an architect, and was awarded the Gold Medal from the American Institute of Architects in 2011.
The Hyatt Foundation, organizer of the Pritzker Prize, described Maki as a modernist “who has fused the best of both eastern and western cultures” in awarding the prize in 1993.
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