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Journal of Chinese
Architecture and Urbanism The life and work of Arata Isozaki

Ledoux, all composed in perfect synthesis in an “eclectic pyramids – they used bold geometric shapes to design
ruin of the future;” referencing John Soane’s painting of public libraries, museums, and concert halls.
the Bank of England as a ruin (Muschamp, 1993). Tsukuba In Mito, Isozaki adorned a cultural center with
was drawing from the past to define a future. Importantly, a 300-foot-high tower made of 28 stacked, titanium
Isozaki’s referencing of historical themes and fragments, tetrahedrons. Using solid geometric volumes with clarity,
narrative content and symbolic figuration, did not occur purity, and a sense of playfulness, the architecture of
at the expense of the usability of these buildings, nor was the triumvirate was different from the North American
it superficially attached, but well integrated: the functional postmodernism of Michael Graves or Robert Venturi.
organization of the compositions was usually marvelous. “Unlike those American postmodernists who believed
At this point, in the early 1980s, the three buildings by that classicism held the key to a usable past, Mr. Isozaki
Isozaki, Hollein, and Stirling all signaled a clear and appeared to understand that no amount of historical
radical break with a tired and austere International excavation could uncover a firm foundation on which to
Modernism and its well-documented shortcomings. All build the present,” the critic Herbert Muschamp wrote in
three were considered by many as the leading architects of 1993.
their generation and as unparalleled innovators in postwar
international architecture, with James Stirling arguably Isozaki also realized the renewed relevance of his earlier
the most controversial figure (Leach, 2010; Cohen, 2012; provocative collage, re-exhibiting the 1968 “Re-ruined
Lehmann, 2017). Hiroshima” photomural at the Japanese Pavilion at the
1996 Venice Architecture Biennale (Ku, 2011; Weiss, 2013).
In 1978, theorist Colin Rowe suggested in “Collage Japanese architecture has a long tradition of borrowing
City” that Modernism is not simply Functionalism but from foreign cultures (first from China, and then from the
may also draw on history. According to Rowe, it was not West), and much of Japanese design comes from a process
only acceptable that Modernism would quote from the of borrowing, transforming, and refining. Isozaki saw
rich history of architecture but also that Modernism could himself as nothing less than a key protagonist and actor
be at its best when directly referring to history. He argued in the history of the discipline of architecture, in line with
that in a postmodern reaction to modernism’s “total- other self-conscious innovators like Le Corbusier or Louis
design” approach, an urban design must be considered I. Kahn, who insisted on architecture as an art form, beyond
through “fragmentation, bricolage, and metamorphoses the mere form–function dialectic. Architecture as objects
of interpretations” (Rowe & Koetter, 1978, p. 23). This allowed for all the mystery, surprise, and power these objects
was a completely new reading of modernism, which was could hold. Isozaki displayed a strong understanding that
exhausted and had gradually maneuvered itself into a the design of buildings is a serious intellectual activity and
dead-end. frequently related his own architecture to the works of the
Both Isozaki and Stirling had begun their careers Renaissance masters, such as Michelangelo (Drew, 1982;
with modernistic and Brutalist buildings before starting Futagawa, 1983). His long friendship with Hans Hollein
afresh and subverting the compositional and theoretical and enormous respect for James Stirling’s work allowed a
ideas behind the Modernist Movement. With this, they shift of focus away from purely Japanese topics at the time.
instigated controversy within an architectural culture that The team of Isozaki–Hollein–Stirling was about to
largely conformed to Modernist norms. Postmodernists become known as the “Triumvirate of Post-modernism”
questioned the West’s fundamental belief in Renaissance (Jencks, 1984), and they soon emerged as the leading
unity and functionalism in architecture. For Isozaki, architects responsible for numerous new museums, art
architecture became predominantly a cultural practice – in galleries, and cultural centers. The three became the key
his words, “a machine for the production of meaning.” He figures representing the most significant trends within
designed buildings with symbols and references, imbuing architectural design at that time.
them with irony and humor.
Isozaki’s global activity made him one of the first
Today, the completion of these three radical buildings “Starchitects” and a true global citizen (a long time before
(Stirling’s Stuttgart Staatsgalerie, Hollein’s Abteiberg, the negative connotations now associated with the term
and Isozaki’s Tsukuba Center) is considered by many “starchitect,” Isozaki embodied the master that travels
historians to be a watershed moment in 20 -century from site to site and holds total control over his projects).
th
postwar architecture. Culture, not technology or utilitarian Today, the concept of “star architect” has lost its relevance
functionalism, was now seen as a driving force of and young architects are searching for alternative working
architectural form. Combining platonic solids originating methods that effect change through the empowerment
in the Mediterranean – cylinders, cubes, spheres, and of others (Figure 8). The year 1980 was, however, the

Volume 5 Issue 1 (2023) 6 https://doi.org/10.36922/jcau.353