Kenzo Tange

Born 4 September 1913

Osaka, Japan
Died 22 March 2005 (aged 91)
Tokyo, Japan
Alma mater The University of Tokyo
Occupation Architect
Awards Pritzker Prize, RIBA Gold Medal,AIA Gold
Medal, Order of Culture, Praemium
Imperiale, Order of Sacred Treasures
Practice 1946 Tange Laboratory
1961 The Urbanists and Architects Team
Kenzo Tange Associates

Architect Kenzo Tange was a Japanese architect,

and winner of the 1987 Pritzker Prize for
architecture.

He was one of the most significant architects

of the 20th century, combining traditional Japanese
styles with modernism, and designed major buildings
on five continents. Tange was also an influential
patron of the Metabolist movement. He said: "It was,
I believe, around 1959 or at the beginning of the
sixties that I began to think about what I was later
to call structuralism", (cited in Plan 2/1982,
Amsterdam), a reference to the architectural
BIOGRAPHY movement known as Dutch Structuralism.
 Born on 4 September 1913 in Osaka, Japan, Tange spent his early life in the Chinese cities of Hankow 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 University of Tokyo's architecture department. He studied
under Hideto Kishida and Shozo Uchida. Although Tange was fascinated by the photographs of 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 Jehol 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. 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. The design was not realized.
In 1946, Tange became an assistant professor at the university and opened Tange Laboratory. In 1963, he was
promoted to professor of the Department of Urban Engineering. His students included Sachio Otani, Kisho
Kurokawa, Arata Isozaki, Hajime Yatsuka and Fumihiko Maki.

ARCHITECTURAL STYLE “Modern

architecture
need not to be
 Architect Kenzo Tange combined the traditional Japanese styles with modernism. He was considered as the patron of
Metabolist movement in Japan. Disliking postmodernism, Tange considered this style of architecture to be only
"transitional architectural expressions”. Until three years before his death, Tange continued to incorporate the
traditional Japanese styles into his designs.

PHILOSOPHIES / CONCEPTS

 “Architects today tend to depreciate themselves to regard themselves

as no more than just ordinary citizens without the power to reform
the future.”

 “The city must be subject to growth, decay and renewal.”

 "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."

ARCHITECTURAL WORKS
Peace Centre in Hiroshima (1950- April 1, 1954)

The Kagawa Prefectural Government Hall (1958)

 St. Mary's Cathedral (Tokyo Cathedral) (Roman Catholic), Tokyo, 1964

Kenzō Tange's own house (1951-1953) Kagawa prefectural gymnasium;

Rikkyô university or library; Nishi-
Takamatsu (1964)
ikebukuro, Tôkyô (1960)
 Yukari
(Former KURASHIKI CITY HALL) Museum of nursery school; Tokyo 1967
Fine Arts; Kurashiki (1960) Sôgetsu kaikan / sôgetsu art center;
Tokyo 1977

Yamanashi
Kuwait
broadcasting and press center; Kôfu Hanae
embassy; Tokyo 1970
city (1966 / extension 1974) Mori building Aoyama
Tôkyô 1979
 United Nations University; Tokyo 1991
Ôtsu prince hotel
ôtsu 1995 Salvatore Ferragamo; Ginza store; Tokyo
2003

Dentsu Yokohama
Company; Tokyo 1967 Museum of Art; Yokohama (1989) Tôkyô fashion town building
Tokyo 1996
 Grand prince hotel Akasaka; Tôkyô 1982

Tôkyô city hall complex; Tokyo 1991 Fuji Sankei building / Fuji Tv head office; Tokyo 1991
 Shinjuku park tower; Tokyo 1994 Tôkyô Dome Hotel; Tôkyô 2000

Tôkyô mode Gakuen; Tôkyô 2009 Shizuoka press & broadcasting center; Tôkyô 1967
Yoyogi National gymnasiums for Tokyo Olympics; Tokyo (1964)