In front of the emptiness of architecture. Arata Isozaki
This year he was awarded the famed Pritzker Prize for Architecture to japanese master Arata Isozaki. Rather than talking about his works, let us know the ideas behind them to approach a fundamental concept of architecture, its temporality.
The Pritzker Prize for architecture follows the logic of double reasoning. On the one hand, it serves as a lighthouse that illuminates new directions, paths or visions that the discipline can adopt in its evolution worldwide—such is the case of Wang Shu (2012), Shigeru Ban (2014) or Alejandro Aravena (2016); and on the other hand he recognizes the work of outstanding architects as a tribute. An example of this latter approach is his most recent award-winner, Arata Isozaki, who receives the award at 87 years of age, having built, experienced and corroborated the possible paths of architecture. So much so that in his latest projects he has been able to drink from his own language, "quoting" himself within his buildings.
However, the beginning of his career starts, like that of many of his projects, from facing a vacuum.
He was 12 years old when atomic bombs reduced Hiroshima and Nagasaki to ruins, cities near his native Oita. From the mute space that remained around him, a need for action arose: rebuild damaged homes and cities, be an architect.
It was thus that he began in the profession, emphasizing the constructive nature of it, which led him first to try to understand the world—to incorporate the best of each place into his work—and then to try to establish connections between the different answers that discipline offers.
He was a pioneer in networking and exchanges with his Western colleagues. Surely this is why he preceded his own teacher—the 1987 Pritzker, Kenzo Tange—when it came to building abroad. "By the time I turned 30, I had gone around the world for 10," he said after learning that he had been awarded the 2019 Pritzker. He attributes that thirst for movement to Japan in which he grew up: ravaged by world war II bombings. In his country everything was to be done and, therefore, he learned to know his cities in a state of permanent change, between uncertainty and emptiness.
Another fundamental idea in his work is that of architecture as a matter of balance between constraints. For Isozaki, style is not a primary aspect, but the result of an analysis that takes into account the ideas of future users, materials and available technology. "Without a style I feel free and that's the only consistency in my style." Perhaps for this reason, he has been the only architect who has dared, in a pop gesture, to put Mickey Mouse's ears on a door, even if it was for the Disney Team Building itself in Florida, United States.
Among his works are several emblematic buildings such as the Central Library of Kitakyushu (1974) or the Museum of Modern Art of Gunma, inaugurated in 1974, a clear cubic structure that reflects his fascination with the void and the grid. In the United States, the Museum of Contemporary Art of Los Angeles (1986) and Disney's aforementioned headquarters in Florida (1991); while in Europe the Sant Jordi Palace, which he designed for the 1992 Barcelona Olympic Games and the interactive museum Domus de La Coruña, stands out. In China he held the CAFA (Art Museum of the Central Academy of Fine Arts in Beijing), inaugurated in 2008, or the Shenzhen Cultural Center, 2007. In recent years, despite his advanced age, he has demonstrated "extraordinary dynamism" with works such as the Qatar Convention Center (2011) or the spectacular Ark Nova inflatable concert hall, designed in 2013 with Indian artist Anish Kapoor, for regions of Japan affected by the 2011 tsunami. One of his last works is the Allianz Tower, which opened in Milan in 2018.
We can look at Arata Isozaki's work as a response to uncertainty, a renewed sense of change, which leads him to pose his buildings as the realization of a theory based on their transitoryness: since they are temporary, their role in the present is to please those who relate to them, both inside and out. "If the buildings are not meant to last forever, unless they are beautiful." He went so long as to claim.
The notion of constantly facing the void can be corroborated in the interview of the newspaper El País, on April 27, 2002. In it he was asked his position in the face of proposals signed by prestigious architects to occupy the place left by the Twin Towers in New York. His answer is blunt:
"I would never do any. All those conjectures seem to me games with the pain of others and lack of touch on the part of the architects. For me, the only thing to do is silence. I respect the pain of Americans, among which I have many friends, and the pain of Afghans, who are equally victims. I lived very closely through World War II and that is not forgotten. I'm against negotiating with pain."
Perhaps Isozaki's greatest legacy is not his buildings or his recognitions, but the humility of his thinking, in proposing an architecture of service that reflects in its simplicity, the complexity of the world.
By laureate Martínez Figueroa