Arata Isozaki (1931 – Present)
Oita, Kyushu, Japan
Arata Isozaki is known for using bold, exaggerated forms and inventive detailing. He often integrates Eastern ideas into his designs. Many critics have identified Arata Isozaki with the imaginative, Japanese New Wave movement known as Metabolism.
Educated in Japan, Arata Isozaki often integrates Eastern ideas into his designs.For example, Isozaki wanted to express a yin-yang theory of positive and negative space when he designed the Team Disney Building in Orlando, Florida. Also, because the offices were to be used by time-conscious executives, he wanted the architecture to make a statement about time.
Serving as offices for the Walt Disney Corporation, the Team Disney Building is a startling landmark on the otherwise barren stretch of Florida’s Route I-4. The oddly looped gateway suggests gigantic Mickey Mouse ears. At the building’s core, a 120-foot sphere forms the world’s largest sundial. Inside the sphere is a serene Japanese rock garden.
Isozaki’s Team Disney design won a prestigious National Honor Award from the AIA in 1992.
Distinguished Work:
1971-1974: Gumma Prefectural Museum of Modern Art in Takasaki City, Japan
1981-1986: Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA) in Los Angeles, California
1989-1990: Team Disney Building in Orlando, Florida
1992: Sports Hall, Olympic Stadium in Barcelona, Spain
