Japan's superstar architect Kisho Kurokawa has died, aged 73.
Kurokawa was one of the co-founders of the metabolist movement, and designed buildings such as Tokyo’s National Art Centre, the Republic Plaza skyscraper in Singapore and Kuala Lumpur International Airport.
The metabolist movement was a group of Japanese architects who came together in the late 1950s to promote large-scale flexible city plans which could expand organically. Their ideas were considered similar to the British Archigram movement.
Kurokawa lectured and wrote extensively on the incorporation of Japanese tradition into a broadly modernist movement. He designed two stadiums for the 2002 Football World Cup in Japan, in Oita and Toyota. Only the Oita Stadium was used in the tournament following the decision to co-host with South Korea, but the Toyota Stadium was built anyway to celebrate the city’s 50th anniversary as a municipality. Its air-powered retractable roof is now considered one of the most challenging and unique pieces of engineering in stadium design.
Kurokawa ran unsuccessfully to become governor of Tokyo this year. He died of heart failure on 12 October.
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