When he says why he especially likes Sendai Mediatheque, the public library that ranks among his most famous works, Toyo Ito, the Japanese architect awarded the 2013 Pritzker Architecture Prize, says he likes to see people napping and relaxing inside the transparent structure.
Ito, the sixth Japanese to win the honor likened to a Nobel Prize for architecture, said Monday that the field needs to evolve to suit changing times, to “be more open to nature.”
“Architects have made architecture too complex. We need to simplify it and use a language that everyone can understand,” Ito said at one of his offices in Tokyo, a strictly functional place whose only frills were the lavish bouquets of orchids, lilies and other blooms sent to congratulate him for the award.