Fumihiko Maki

Fumihiko Maki studied at University of Tokyo, Harvard Graduate School of Design and Cranbrook Academy of Art. The recorded working language is Japanese. The field of work recorded is architecture. Places of work recorded in the authority are Tokyo. Employment is recorded with University of Tokyo, Harvard University and Washington University in St. Works named in the authority record are Tokyo Metropolitan Gymnasium, 4 World Trade Center and Spiral. Work by Fumihiko Maki is recorded in the collections of San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and Museum of Modern Art. Distinctions recorded are Pritzker Architecture Prize, Praemium Imperiale, Wolf Prize in Architecture and Person of Cultural Merit.

Maki was born in Tokyo. While studying at the University of Tokyo, one of his professors was Kenzo Tange, one of the most influential post-war architects. Tange introduced him to Metabolism and Urbanism which was very influential to Maki. He then graduated with a Bachelor of Architecture degree in 1952, moved to the Cranbrook Academy of Art in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, graduating with a master's degree in 1953. A year later he studied at Harvard Graduate School of Design, graduating with a Master of Architecture degree in 1954. Maki stated that the Urban Design conference was an influential event he attended while at the GSD (Graduate School Design). As noted above, Maki was awarded the Pritzker Prize in 1993, being the second Japanese Architect to receive this award after Tange. This was influential for Maki because it acknowledged his work and achievements globally.

From 1956 to 1963, he took a post as assistant professor of architecture at Washington University in St. Louis, where he also was awarded his first commission: the design of Steinberg Hall (an art center) on the university's Danforth Campus. This building remained his only completed work in the United States until 1993, when he completed the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts building in San Francisco. In 2006, he returned to Washington University in St. Louis to design the new home for the Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum and Walker Hall. In 1960 he returned to Japan to help establish the Metabolism Group, an avant-garde movement that formed in 1960. "The group adopted the world to express their ambitions to actively, metabolically develop a city through continuous growth and renewal." This group allowed Maki to learn and create new ideas about Urbanism. Fumihiko stated that Urbanism is "the essential backcloth to architecture." This is necessary because without knowing the background and culture of an area, the design won't having meaning to that place. Architecture is supposed to build greater meaning to where it is being placed. After leaving Washington University, he became an assistant professor at Harvard in 1964. Maki worked for Skidmore, Owings and Merrill in New York City and for Sert Jackson and Associates in Cambridge, Massachusetts and founded Maki and Associates in 1965. When he returned to Tokyo in 1965, he worked on the Hillside Terrace Project for almost a quarter of a century beginning in 1967. This project that he had been working on over a long period of time helped show how the project evolved his career. It had six different phases each at a different time in his life. He mentioned how this project shaped his architectural views and experiences as the lifestyle in Tokyo had changed, meaning the project was as well. In 2006, he was invited to join the judging panel for an international design competition for the new Gardens by the Bay in Singapore. Maki designed an extension building for the MIT Media Lab in Cambridge, Massachusetts, which was completed in 2009. After completing a $330 million expansion of the headquarters of the United Nations in Manhattan, Maki designed Tower 4 at the former World Trade Center site which opened in 2013. While it has criticized his 51 Astor Place project as "out of place," New York magazine called Tower 4 "pretty exquisite." Maki designed the London campus of the Aga Khan University along with a cultural centre as part of the King's Cross development project. This was Maki's first European projects and represented the third and fourth Aga Khan projects for Maki, who also designed the Delegation of the Ismaili Imamat in Ottawa and Aga Khan Museum in Toronto. He was also assigned by the Sonja & Reinhard Ernst Stiftung to design the Museum Reinhard Ernst in Wiesbaden, Germany, to display the foundations' collection of abstract art. Maki's work was guided by philosophy, he always thought about it as the way a person could use the space, basing it on human experiences and spatial perception. According to Maki, light entering a space is a central point of the design, and is the driving force from every scale even in materiality choice. Maki also mentioned how light entering a space is very crucial, playing a role in the way people interact, and feel. He wrote, "naturally, patterns of light and shadow, earthy colors and textures, as well as the sound of water, when integrated into built environments, are imbued with a special poetic quality of their own. It follows that various poetic and architectonic principles, experienced simultaneously as related."

Maki is known for fusing modernism with Japanese architectural traditions. For instance, he introduced the concept of oku, which is the idea of "inwardness" and a spatial theory. He wrote, "perceiving space is important in formulating ideas of what future cities should be like". Also, as written in his journal, he mentioned many different types of oku which are "oku-dokoro (inner place), oku-guchi (inner entrance), oku-sha (inner shrine), oku-yama (mountain recesses), and oku-zashiki (inner room), all relevant to the notion of physical space; oku-gi (secret or hidden principles) and oku-den (secret or hidden mysteries of an art)." This is demonstrated in the use of walls and landscape in the Shimane Museum of Ancient Izumo. Maki's other notable projects include the following: Japan: Toyoda Auditorium, main building and landmark of Nagoya University (1960) Hillside Terrace (1969) Expo '70, with Kenzo Tange and others (1970, Osaka) St. Mary's International School (1971) Osaka Prefectural Sports Center (1972) Okinawa Ocean Expo Aquarium(1975–2002) Spiral (1985) Makuhari Messe (1989) Keio University Shonan Fujisawa Campus (1990) Tokyo Metropolitan Gymnasium (1991) TV Asahi (2003) United States Steinberg Hall at Washington University (1960s in St. Louis) Yerba Buena Center for the Arts (1993 in San Francisco) Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum and Walker Hall at Washington University (2006 in St. Louis) MIT Media Lab Extension at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (2009 in Cambridge, Massachusetts) Annenberg Public Policy Center at the University of Pennsylvania (2009 in Philadelphia) 51 Astor Place (2013 in Manhattan, New York) 4 World Trade Center (150 Greenwich Street) (2013 in Manhattan) Germany Ensemble Global Gate (2000–2006 in Düsseldorf) Office Building Solitaire (2001 in Düsseldorf) Singapore Republic Polytechnic (2006) Skyline @ Orchard Boulevard (2015) Canada Delegation of the Ismaili Imamat (2008 in Ottawa) Aga Khan Museum (2014 in Toronto) Switzerland Building Square 3 at Novartis Campus (2009 in Basel) China Sea World Culture and Arts Center (2017 in Shekou) United Kingdom Aga Khan Centre (2018 in London) India Bihar Museum 2015 in Patna Works in progress United Nations new building in New York City Andhra Pradesh capital city, Amaravati New city hall of Yokohama Reinhard Ernst Museum in Wiesbaden