Luminaries of our times - Fumihiko Maki

Pritzker Prize laureate, AIA Gold Medalist, and multi-award winner, Fumihiko Maki, turns 91 in September this year. Of his design philosophy, he says, “Humanism in architecture has always been my focus and is a continuous thread running through all my projects.” With a career spanning over seven decades, and despite all the changes in technology, design styles or alternate thought processes that he has witnessed, he asserts, “My philosophy hasn’t changed. I have always focused on decency as a basic ethical principle, giving consideration to all users. We do our best for a given site or project, executing the client’s desires, while also meeting the hidden expectations of society. And for this reason there has never been any peak in my career as an architect.”

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Maki graduated from the University of Tokyo in 1952 and obtained his Master of Architecture degree from the Harvard Graduate School of Design in 1954. Interestingly, his foray into architecture was a fallout of the post-World War II ban on Japan from manufacturing aircraft. “As a young boy, I was fascinated by making model airplanes and originally wanted to be an aeronautical engineer; but as Japan had been forbidden by the US, this specific career was not available then. So, I decided to become an architect instead. Also, during those years, I chanced to visit some of the earliest modernist houses in Tokyo, which I still remember today. Perhaps that also influenced my decision.”

His career began in 1956, when he took up assistant professorship at Washington University in St Louis and landed his first commission - designing the Steinberg Hall, the University Museum and Art/Architecture Library. In 1960, he returned to Japan and founded his own practice Maki and Associates in 1965.

Currently, Maki divides his time between participating in group discussions for on-going projects, preparing lectures, writing essays and editing books. He remains heavily involved in all his projects, right from conceptualisation, material and detail selection…visiting the building sites as often as possible. “Our first step is the formation of an appropriate core team for each project, from a few to a dozen, depending on size. We always make a large site and building model simultaneously approaching the project from a variety of scales; discussing and deliberating, till we narrow it down to the final design.”

Maki is no stranger to India too…. His firm built the Bihar Museum in Patna, a project he was awarded through a limited design competition. They developed a museum plan similar to an academic campus so visitors could enjoy varied experiences across galleries and open spaces. Work began in 2013, and was completed in four years. The museum is a two-storey building spread over 5.6 hectares, having 24,000 sqm of built space including a children’s museum, temporary and permanent exhibition halls, auditoria, workshop centres and offices.

Amongst his earlier projects, cherished memories are connected to Hillside Terrace in Tokyo. A project which began in 1969, and continued in seven phases through 1998. “Memorable because it has spanned across my career, an unusual chance to build a part of the city with the same client but spread over decades,” says the architect. It, therefore, signifies a built record of Maki’s abiding design principles and also of the technical developments in Japan over three decades. “Time passing between phases allowed us to assess the design of each phase and adapt to changing conditions. As our office is also located in the latest phase (since 1998), we have daily contact and exposure with the building. The other phases are nearby, with stores, restaurants, galleries that we use. Some of my family also lives here. So, these earlier designs are not simply a memory, but a part of my daily life, creating new memories year after year.”

In 2013, Maki completed the iconic Tower 4 of the new World Trade Centre in New York; 2014 saw the inauguration of the Aga Khan Museum in Toronto; and 2017 the Shenzhen Sea World Culture and Art Centre; while the city hall of Yokohama is currently under construction. 

Stepping into the 90s has not brought any lessening of commitment for the modernist architect. So what next for Fumihiko Maki? Planning and execution of the Reinhard Ernst Museum (Wiesbaden, Germany), Shibaura Area Redevelopment Project (Tokyo, Japan); Keio University Student Residential Complex (Fujisawa, Japan); Tokyo Metropolitan Gymnasium / Makuhari Messe:  Renovations for 2020 Summer Olympics  (Tokyo and Makuhari, Japan)….

The strong design fabric of his architectural marvels interweaving a minimalist Japanese aesthetic with Western culture and new technology make Maki’s structures evergreen. However, what truly sets them apart is the seamless manner in which multi level human interactions are  possible within each of them.

(Produced by PLANE—SITE, the video Fumihiko Maki – TIME SPACE EXISTENCE   has been commissioned by the GAA Foundation and funded by the ECC in the run-up to the Time-Space-Existence exhibition during La Biennale di Venezia Architettura in Venice in 2018.)

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