Toyo Ito

The Imperial House of Japan and the Japan Art Association award the Praemium Imperiale yearly since 1989. Endowed with 15 million Yen (132,000 euros), the prize is presented to five artists in the categories of painting, sculpture, architecture, music, and cinema or theater. The 2010 awardees have been, in the aforementioned order: Enrico Castellani, Rebecca Horn, Toyo Ito, Maurizio Pollini and Sophia Loren. The Japanese Toyo Ito, born in Seoul, Korea, in 1941, studied at Tokyo University. After working at the office of Kiyonori Kikutake, Ito began his independent career in 1971, developing residential projects mainly. In 1984 he received the prize of the Architecture Institute of Japan for his own house, a work marked by a lightness and transparency that attracted the attention of the international media. Other significant works are the Wind Tower (1986), the Sendai Mediathèque (2001), the Tod’s store in Omotesando (2004) or the recently built Porta Fira Towers in Barcelona (2009), carried out in collaboration with the studio of Fermín Vázquez/b720. Currently, about 80% of his activity develops outside Japan.