Happy Birthday Kenzo Tange!

Kenzo Tange (4 September 1913 – 22 March 2005), the Pritzker-Prize Winning Japanese architect who helped define Japan’s post-WWII emergence into Modernism, would have turned 99 today.

Inspired by Le Corbusier, Tange decided to study architecture at the University of Tokyo in 1935. He worked as an urban planner, helping to rebuild Hiroshima after World War II, and gained international attention in 1949, when his design for the Hiroshima Peace Center and Memorial Park was selected. Tange continued to work in and theorize about Urban Planning throughout the 50s; his “Plan for Tokyo 1960″ re-thought urban structures and heavily influenced the Metabolist movement.

Although his style was modernist, as can be seen in his Yoyogi National Gymnasium and St. Mary Cathedral, Tange was also inspired by Japanese history and culture. As he was quoted as saying:  ”Architecture must have something that appeals to the human heart, but even then, basic forms, spaces and appearances must be logical. Creative work is expressed in our time as a union of technology and humanity. The role of tradition is that of a catalyst, which furthers a chemical reaction, but is no longer detectable in the end result. Tradition can, to be sure, participate in a creation, but it can no longer be creative itself.”

You can find all of Tange’s works on ArchDaily here.

Story via The Pritzker Prize and Wikipedia