Fumihiko Maki  

The fifteenth Pritzker - the most prestigious of all architectural awards, given yearly - went to the Japanese architect Fumihiko Maki (Tokyo, 1928), who got his degree in his native city and did further studies at the American universities of Cranbrook and Harvard. Between 1954 and 1966 he worked at the SOM offices in New York and with José Luis Sert in Cambridge, Massachusetts. In 1960, on the occasion of the World Conference of Design in Tokyo, he was a founding member of the ‘metabolist’ group. Like that of the previous Pritzker winner, the Portuguese master Alvaro Siza, Maki's work is characterized by its continuity. He inherited Serfs fidelity to an eclectic and moderate line of modernity. Among his outstanding achievements of the past years are the Makuhari Messe (1989) and the Metropolitan Gymnasium (1991), both in the city of Tokyo.