NEW YORK—Designing iconic structures around the world is one way to leave your mark. Architects Cesar Pelli and Paul Tange are certainly leaving theirs. Conveying a sense of traditional values and aesthetic, the architects move into the modern era with a solid sense of humanity and flair.
Pelli and Tange spoke at the Japan Society in New York, April 23. The topic was “Form Follows Fancy in New Architecture.”
“Visionary architects have made history and made our lives rich,” Tange said. “We should understand what we have, and what we have destroyed. History, culture, environment—we have destroyed enough.”
Tange has been involved in over 400 projects in more than 30 countries. He received his Masters degree in architecture from Harvard University Graduate School of Design in 1985 before joining his father’s practice, Kenzo Tange Associates. Tange’s father, Kenzo Tange, won the coveted Pritzker Prize for architecture in 1987, and is known for buildings such as the Tokyo’s Olympic Arena for the 1964 games.
Pelli, a native of Argentina, is especially enthusiastic about including social space within design.
“Buildings need to belong to the place where they are built, for the people that live there,” he said. “The public spaces are most important.”
Pelli introduced a “winter garden” to his winning bid for the design of the World Financial Center in downtown Manhattan. “This is, to me, what has given life and a justification for all the World Financial Center building.”
