Japanese architect Arata Isozaki has been named 2019 laureate of the Pritzker Prize, architecture's most prestigious award.
Isozaki is regarded as Japan's most influential postwar architect. He is the 46th recipient of the Pritzker Prize, and the eighth Japanese architect to receive the honour.
The Pritzker jury describes him as "a versatile, influential, and truly international architect".
"Possessing a profound knowledge of architectural history and theory, and embracing the avant-garde, he never merely replicated the status quo but challenged it," reads the jury citation.
A notable early work of Arata Isozaki & Associates is the ?ita Prefectural Library (1966). Photo courtesy of Yasuhiro Ishimoto
A highly decorated architect, city planner and theorist, Isozaki won the RIBA Gold Medal for architecture in 1986 and was awarded the Leone d'Oro at the Venice Architectural Biennale 1996. His career spans more than six decades and his portfolio features over a hundred buildings spread over Asia, Europe, North America, the Middle East and Australia. His first international experience, however, was one of war and destruction on the scale of entire cities.
Born in 1931 in ?ita on Kyushu, Japan's third largest island, Isozaki was just 14 years old when nuclear bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Kitakyushu Central Library is considered a masterpiece of Japanese brutalism. Photo courtesy of Yasuhiro Ishimoto
"When I was old enough to begin an...