Kenzō Tange Architecture for the World

Kenzō Tange - Architecture for the World

Kenzō Tange (1913–2005) is a peerless figure among twentieth-century Japanese architects, unmatched in his talent, influence, and versatility. A leading force of the Metabolist movement, he was the first non-Western architect whose works would be embraced as universal in value. This unique assemblage of new scholarship by an international team of experts reframes Tange according to the contingencies of Japanese modernism as well as contemporary discourses of cultural identity, technology, urbanization, and the synthesis of the arts. Case studies on celebrated works—Hiroshima, Tokyo Bay Plan, and Yoyogi Stadiums—clarify Tange’s wide-ranging interests and design methodology. Abundantly illustrated with archival drawings and period photographs, this volume provides fresh and compelling perspectives on the practices, discourses, and production contexts of Tange’s work as well as the architecture and urbanism of postwar Japan. Kenzo Tange—Architecture for the World represents the most serious and comprehensive reassessment of Tange in the English language in decades.

About the authors

Seng Kuan is project associate professor and director of the international Architectural Education Platform at the University of Tokyo. He teaches regularly at the Harvard Graduate School of Design and has written extensively on Japan's postwar architectural culture. He is coeditor of Kenzō Tange: Architecture for the World (2012) and contributed to Kiyonori Kikutake: Between Land and Sea (2016). He previously taught at Washington University in St. Louis.

Yukio Lippit is professor of the history of art and architecture at Harvard University. He is author of Painting of the Realm: The Kano House of Painters in Seventeenth-Century Japan (University of Washington Press, 2012).