The 2013 Pritzker Prize winning architect Toyo Ito will deliver the keynote lecture in the Palazzo dei Congressi at the Bologna Exhibition Centre on Thursday 25 September.
Maintaining its longstanding focus on the world’s great architecture, Cersaie has invited the Japanese award-winning architect Toyo Ito to deliver the keynote lecture.
Renowned for creating and elaborating extreme architectural concepts, Toyo Ito is a leading exponent of architecture that addresses the contemporary notion of simulated city. This was particularly evident in his design approach following the terrible tsunami of March 2011, when together with other Japanese architects he promoted a new project for temporary shelters called Home-for-All, small shared spaces where people can meet, relax and socialise.
Ito graduated in 1965 in architecture from the University of Tokyo. After working for Kiyonori Kikutake Architect & Associates from 1965 to 1969, he started his own practice in 1971 called Urban Robot (Urbot) in Tokyo. In 1979 the studio changed its name to Toyo Ito & Associates, Architects. Toyo Ito holds a professorship at the Japan Women’s University in Tokyo. He is also an honorary professor at the University of North London and has served as guest professor at Columbia University.
Ito won the Pritzker Prize in 2013. At the last Biennale in Venice (2012), he won the Leone d’Oro with the Japan pavilion. Toyo Ito has received many prestigious awards including the Architecture Institute of Japan Prize, the Japan Art Academy Prize, the Grand Prize of Good Design Award, the Gold Medal of the Royal Institute of British Architects, the ADI Compasso d’Oro Award, the Austrian Frederick Kiesler Prize for Architecture and the Arts, the Medalla de Oro from Circulo de Bellas Artes de Madrid and the Asahi Prize.
Some of his most important works include the ‘Tower of Winds’ in Yokohama, the Sendai Mediathecque, the Mikimoto Ginza Tower in Tokyo, the Serpentine Gallery in London, the Taichung Metropolitan Opera House in Taiwan, the White O residence in Marbella and the Berkeley Art Museum/Pacific Film Archive in California.
