Spotlight: Toyo Ito

As one of the leading architects of Japan’s increas ingly highly-regarded architecture culture, 2013
Pritzker Laureate Toyo Ito (born June 1 ,1941) has defined his career by combining elements of
minimalism with an embrace of technology, in a way that merges both traditional and contemporary
elements of Japanese culture.
Born in what is now Seoul when Korea was under Japanese rule, Ito’s family moved to Japan itself
when he was just two years old; he would eventually attend the University of Tokyo, where his prize-
winning undergraduate thesis secured him a place in the office of Kiyonori   Kikutake, a founder of
Metabolism and one of the leading Japanese architects at the time.