AP Features, October 12th, 2007
Internationally acclaimed Japanese architect Kisho Kurokawa, known for designs that merge traditional architecture styles and philosophy, died Friday, a Tokyo hospital spokeswoman said. He was 73.
Kurokawa died of heart failure Friday morning, said Keiko Yamazaki, spokeswoman at the Tokyo Women's Medical University Hospital, where he was hospitalized Tuesday due to an intestinal ailment.
Yamazaki said no other details could be released because of privacy reasons. Media reports said Kurokawa was suffering from a liver ailment.
Repeated phone calls to his office, Kishio Kurokawa Architect & Associates, went unanswered.
Kurokawa, who made his world debut in 1960 at age 26, led a style known as the Metabolism Movement, advocating a shift from "machine principle" to "life principle" in his literally work and architectural designs based on themes including ecology, recycling and intermediate space.
His major works include the National Ethnological Museum in Tokyo, the Kuala Lumpur International Airport in Malaysia and the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam.
Kurokawa's design of the Kuala Lumpur airport won the 2003/2004 grand prix by Italy's Dedalo-Minosse International Prize, and was also certified as a sustainable airport by the United Nations' Green Globe 21 in 2003.
Compared to his renowned architectural achievement, Kurokawa was seen as somewhat eccentric candidate this year when he ran unsuccessfully for local and parliamentary elections.
Born in Japan's central city of Nagoya in 1934, Kurokawa graduated from prestigious Kyoto University's architecture department before earning a doctoral degree from Tokyo University.
Kurokawa received the Gold Medal from France's Academy of Architecture in 1986, and most recently the Chicago Athenaeum Museum International Architecture Award in 2006.
