He became the leading Modernist architect in the country from the 1950s and taught generations of younger proteges in Tokyo University, MIT and Yale. He produced a lots of projects throughout Japan as his international reputation grew, outside the country as well.
Kenzo graduated from Tokyo University in 1938 but resumed his postgraduate studies there during the war before beginning his professional career in the office of Kunio Mae
kawa who had worked for Le Corbusier.
Tange became committed to the Modern Movement ideas of Le Corbusier, Gropius and Mics van der Rohe. He attempted to combine these strands of inspiration with a more diffuse interest in Japanese traditional culture. This is probably best seen in his first and universally praised building for the Hiroshi
ma Peace Centre and Museum.
In 1957 he completed the Tokyo Metropolitan Government offices in Yurakucho, a functionally organized government building with a steel frame, yet elevated on pilotis displaying an obvious to debt to both Mies and Le Corbusier.
Tange then produced two separate structures for the Olympic site in Yoyogi Park, the main gymnasium for swimming and a smaller gymnasium for basketball and tennis. They were among the most extraordinary structures seen in the Olympic movement with their enormous membrane roofs, a type that had been experimented with both by Le Corbusier.
PROJECTS BY TANGE:
BMW buiding in San Donato Milanense
Saint Mary's Cathedral in Tokyo
