Project Description
FROM THE PRITZKER PRIZE FOUNDATION:
Toyo Ito calls the Sendai Mediatheque, completed in 2001 in Sendai City, Miyagi, Japan, one of the high points of his career. In the Phaidon book, Toyo Ito, he explains, “The Mediatheque differs from conventional public buildings in many ways. While the building principally functions as a library and art gallery, the administration has actively worked to relax divisions between diverse programmes, removing fixed barriers between various media to progressively evoke an image of how cultural facilities should be from now on.”
The jury commented on this project in their citation, saying, “Ito has said that he strives for architecture that is fluid and not confined by what he considers to be the limitations of modern architecture. In the Sendai Mediatheque he achieved this by structural tubes, which permitted new interior spatial qualities.”
Read ARCHITECT Magazine’s complete coverage of Toyo Ito’s 2013 Pritzker Prize:
http://www.architectmagazine.com/architecture/2013-pritzker-prize-toyo-ito.aspx