Following my invitation to "Get us out of there" I had a quick walk around the town where I came across the new Town Library. Now 'so what?' I hear you cry,
the answer comes back to architecture and a development on the Brutalism which we visited earlier. The architect responsible was Arata Isozaki
and I have taken the following extract from his Wiki biography:
"Isozaki was born in Oita on the island of Kyushu and grew up in the era of postwar Japan.
Isozaki completed his schooling at the Oita Prefecture Oita Uenogaoka High School (erstwhile Oita Junior High School). In 1954, he graduated from the University of Tokyo where he majored in Architecture and Engineering. This was followed by a doctoral program in architecture from the same university. Isozaki also worked under Kenzo Tange before establishing his own firm in 1963.
Isozaki's early projects were influenced by European experiences with a style mixed between "
New Brutalism" a "Metabolist Architecture" (Oita Medical Hall, 1959-1960), according to Reyner Banham. His style continued to evolve with buildings such as the Fujimi Country Club (1973–74) and Kitakyushu Central Library (1973–74). Later he developed a more modernistic style with buildings such as the Art Tower of Mito (1986–90) and Domus-Casa del Hombre (1991-1995) in Galicia, Spain. The Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA) in Los Angeles, completed in 1986, was his first international project and his best known work in the U.S. In 2005, Arata Isozaki founded the Italian branch of his office, Arata Isozaki & Andrea Maffei Associates. Two major projects from this office include: the Allianz Tower CityLife office tower, a redevelopment project in the former trade fair area in Milan, and the new ,
oTown Library in Maranello Italy.
Despite designing buildings both inside and outside Japan, Isozaki has been described as an architect who refuses to be stuck in one architectural style, highlighting "how each of his designs is a specific solution born out of the project’s context." Isozaki won the Pritzker Architecture Prize in 2019."
Full details can be visited
here.
Now that will offer a choice of next destination from Japan to LA . I'll let you choose
