Architecture: by Fumihiko Maki

[infoshare]

Today I saw this ‘esqusite looking’ work of architecture while browsing the web: also noteworthy because it has only recently been completed.



There are also a few buildings by Maki here in NYC, two of which I can think of are: cooper union & WTC.

Any contributions to this thread on the work of Fumihiko Maki would be greatly appreciated.

http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2010/media-lab-0304

Excerpt -
“The magic of the Media Lab is its ability to bring together researchers from an eclectic range of disciplines — engineers, computer scientists, artists, musicians, and others — who work together collaboratively to invent technologies that improve people’s lives and transform society,” says Frank Moss, Director of the Media Lab. “The openness and transparency of this incredible new building will support the Lab’s unique style of research and allow us to take on the major challenges that confront the world in the 21st century, such as human health, education and sustainable cities.”

[stache]

Fumihiko Maki obtained master of architecture degrees at Cranbrook Academy of Art (1953) and the Graduate School of Design at Harvard University (1954). Fumihiko Maki worked with Skidmore, Owings and Merrill in New York (1954-55)

[infoshare]

Excerpt from an Amazon.com book review.

Fumihiko Maki's many buildings are characterized by a commitment to the ongoing project of Modernism as well as a humanist concern for the experience of the people who inhabit them. Both a thoughtful writer and a prolific builder, Maki was a founding member of the Metabolists, a highly influential group of Japanese architects in the 1960s who redefined how designers thought about large-scale urban planning. His own work, while sometimes vast in scale, is consistently responsive to the individual user.

His 50-year exploration and expansion of the Modernist vocabulary has resulted in buildings that are technologically inventive, deceptively simple, and which carefully balance lightness and dignity. This book contains over 40 projects, extensively illustrated with drawings, photos, models, sketches, diagrams and computer renderings. These include the Spiral Building in Tokyo, the Fujisawa Municipal Gymnasium, the Kaze-No-Oka Crematorium in Nakatsu, and a tower currently under construction for the World Trade Center site in New York.

The projects are organized roughly chronologically, but are also discussed thematically. Some projects, including Hillside Terrace, a mixed-use complex that Maki was involved with for almost 30 years, are examined not just at the moment after construction but as places that evolve over time. Buildings of every scale are included, from a 150 m2 floating pavilion to a 200,000 m2 college campus. The range of projects included, from early, experimental works to projects currently under construction in Canada, Switzerland, Japan, and the US give the reader a chance to examine in full the development of one of the most revered architects working today.