Cooper Hewitt says...
Born in Tokyo in 1928, Fumihiko Maki received his Bachelor of Architecture degree from the University of Tokyo in 1952 before studying for a year at the Cranbrook Academy of Art in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan. Earning his Master of Architecture Degree in 1954 from the Graduate School of Design at Harvard University, Maki apprenticed at architectural firms Skidmore, Owings and Merrill and Sert Jackson and Associates. He was committed to education from the outset of his career. After teaching architecture at Washington University in St. Louis, Maki took on the role of Assistant Professor of Architecture at Harvard Graduate School of Design from 1962 to 1965. He later taught at Tokyo University from the mid-1960s until 1987.
In 1960, Maki was one of the founding members of the Metabolists, a group of visionary Japanese architects who developed large-scale designs for megastructures and public spaces that blended the biological concepts of growth and transformation with urban design. Responding to the devastating effects of the atomic bomb and the vulnerability of the island nation to earthquakes and tsunamis, Maki and his fellow Metabolists dreamed of transforming Japan into an entirely new system, a structural and organizational utopia that could sustainably mediate the individual experience with the large-scale structures that were synonymous with modern urban life.
Maki returned to Japan in 1965 to establish his own Tokyo-based firm, Maki and Associates. By the mid-1960s, Maki began to move away from the Metabolist influence. His unequivocally modernist structures tend to be made of metal, concrete, and glass, with occasional additions of mosaic tile, anodized aluminum, and stainless steel. Maki, who believes that new technology is integral to design, often incorporates modular elements into his construction. In 1970, he described the importance of considering human experience in his design process: “The ultimate aim of architecture is to create spaces to serve society, and in order to achieve this, the architect must understand human activities from the standpoints of history, ecology, and changing trends. He must also know the relationship existing between human activities and architectural spaces and processes by means of which these relationships develop.”