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Kenzō Tange
Kenzō Tange (丹下 健三, Tange Kenzō; 4 September 1913 – 22 March 2005) was a Japanese architect. Born in Sakai and raised in China and southern Japan, Tange was inspired from an early age by the work of Le Corbusier and designed his first buildings under Imperial Japan. He first achieved recognition for his projects to reconstruct the destroyed cities of postwar Japan, particularly Hiroshima, where he designed the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park. His engagement with the Congres Internationaux d'Architecture Moderne in the 1950s made him one of the first Japanese architects to achieve international recognition.
Renowned for synthesizing traditional Japanese styles with modernism, Tange's work was emblematic of the Japanese postwar boom. However, he built major projects on five continents. He was a forerunner, mentor, and patron of the metabolist movement. He was also known as an ambitious, original urban planner whose ideas inspired the reconstruction of cities including Skopje. Tange would continue designing buildings until his death in 2005.
Tange won awards for his contributions to architecture, including the Royal Gold Medal in 1965, the AIA Gold Medal in 1966, the Praemium Imperiale for Architecture in 1993, and the Pritzker Prize, the "Nobel Prize of architecture", in 1987.
Born on 4 September 1913 in Sakai, Japan, Tange spent his early life in the Chinese cities of Hankou and Shanghai; he and his family returned to Japan after learning of the death of one of his uncles. In contrast to the green lawns and red bricks in their Shanghai abode, the Tange family took up residence in a thatched roof farmhouse in Imabari on the island of Shikoku.
After finishing middle school, Tange moved to Hiroshima in 1930 to attend high school. It was here that he first encountered the works of Swiss modernist, Le Corbusier. His discovery of the drawings of the Palace of the Soviets in a foreign art journal convinced him to become an architect. Although he graduated from high school, Tange's poor results in mathematics and physics meant that he had to pass entrance exams to qualify for admission to the prestigious universities. He spent two years doing so and during that time, he read extensively about western philosophy. Tange also enrolled in the film division at Nihon University's art department to dodge Japan's drafting of young men to its military and seldom attended classes.
In 1935 Tange began the tertiary studies he desired at the University of Tokyo's architecture department. He studied under Hideto Kishida and Yoshikazu Uchida. Although Tange was fascinated by the photographs of the Katsura villa that sat on Kishida's desk, his work was inspired by Le Corbusier. His graduation project was a seventeen-hectare (42-acre) development set in Tokyo's Hibiya Park.
After graduating from the university, Tange started to work as an architect at the office of Kunio Maekawa. During his employment, he travelled to Manchuria, participating in an architectural design competition for a bank, and toured Japanese-occupied Rehe on his return. When the Second World War started, he left Maekawa to rejoin the University of Tokyo as a postgraduate student. He developed an interest in urban design, and referencing only the resources available in the university library, he embarked on a study of Greek and Roman marketplaces.
His career would begin in earnest by winning a string of national competitions. In 1941, he won the People's House Design Competition. In 1942, Tange entered a competition for the design of the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere Memorial Hall. He was awarded first prize for a design that would have been situated at the base of Mount Fuji; the hall he conceived was a fusion of Shinto shrine architecture and the plaza on Capitoline Hill in Rome. In 1943, he won the competition for Japan-Thai Cultural Hall. None of his winning designs were realised. However, Tange's earliest work represents active engagement with the nationalist paradigms of Japanese imperial architecture. In response to a 1942 questionnaire regarding his views on style and architectural policy for the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere, he stated: "We must ignore both Anglo-American culture and the pre-existing cultures of the Southeast Asian Races. [...] We should start out with an unshakable conviction in the tradition and the future of the Japanese races."
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Kenzō Tange
Kenzō Tange (丹下 健三, Tange Kenzō; 4 September 1913 – 22 March 2005) was a Japanese architect. Born in Sakai and raised in China and southern Japan, Tange was inspired from an early age by the work of Le Corbusier and designed his first buildings under Imperial Japan. He first achieved recognition for his projects to reconstruct the destroyed cities of postwar Japan, particularly Hiroshima, where he designed the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park. His engagement with the Congres Internationaux d'Architecture Moderne in the 1950s made him one of the first Japanese architects to achieve international recognition.
Renowned for synthesizing traditional Japanese styles with modernism, Tange's work was emblematic of the Japanese postwar boom. However, he built major projects on five continents. He was a forerunner, mentor, and patron of the metabolist movement. He was also known as an ambitious, original urban planner whose ideas inspired the reconstruction of cities including Skopje. Tange would continue designing buildings until his death in 2005.
Tange won awards for his contributions to architecture, including the Royal Gold Medal in 1965, the AIA Gold Medal in 1966, the Praemium Imperiale for Architecture in 1993, and the Pritzker Prize, the "Nobel Prize of architecture", in 1987.
Born on 4 September 1913 in Sakai, Japan, Tange spent his early life in the Chinese cities of Hankou and Shanghai; he and his family returned to Japan after learning of the death of one of his uncles. In contrast to the green lawns and red bricks in their Shanghai abode, the Tange family took up residence in a thatched roof farmhouse in Imabari on the island of Shikoku.
After finishing middle school, Tange moved to Hiroshima in 1930 to attend high school. It was here that he first encountered the works of Swiss modernist, Le Corbusier. His discovery of the drawings of the Palace of the Soviets in a foreign art journal convinced him to become an architect. Although he graduated from high school, Tange's poor results in mathematics and physics meant that he had to pass entrance exams to qualify for admission to the prestigious universities. He spent two years doing so and during that time, he read extensively about western philosophy. Tange also enrolled in the film division at Nihon University's art department to dodge Japan's drafting of young men to its military and seldom attended classes.
In 1935 Tange began the tertiary studies he desired at the University of Tokyo's architecture department. He studied under Hideto Kishida and Yoshikazu Uchida. Although Tange was fascinated by the photographs of the Katsura villa that sat on Kishida's desk, his work was inspired by Le Corbusier. His graduation project was a seventeen-hectare (42-acre) development set in Tokyo's Hibiya Park.
After graduating from the university, Tange started to work as an architect at the office of Kunio Maekawa. During his employment, he travelled to Manchuria, participating in an architectural design competition for a bank, and toured Japanese-occupied Rehe on his return. When the Second World War started, he left Maekawa to rejoin the University of Tokyo as a postgraduate student. He developed an interest in urban design, and referencing only the resources available in the university library, he embarked on a study of Greek and Roman marketplaces.
His career would begin in earnest by winning a string of national competitions. In 1941, he won the People's House Design Competition. In 1942, Tange entered a competition for the design of the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere Memorial Hall. He was awarded first prize for a design that would have been situated at the base of Mount Fuji; the hall he conceived was a fusion of Shinto shrine architecture and the plaza on Capitoline Hill in Rome. In 1943, he won the competition for Japan-Thai Cultural Hall. None of his winning designs were realised. However, Tange's earliest work represents active engagement with the nationalist paradigms of Japanese imperial architecture. In response to a 1942 questionnaire regarding his views on style and architectural policy for the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere, he stated: "We must ignore both Anglo-American culture and the pre-existing cultures of the Southeast Asian Races. [...] We should start out with an unshakable conviction in the tradition and the future of the Japanese races."