Photo/Illutration Fumihiko Maki, photographed in 2013 (Asahi Shimbun file photo)

Fumihiko Maki, a winner of the Pritzker Architecture Prize who designed one of the new World Trade Center skyscrapers in New York after the 2011 terror attacks, died of natural causes on June 6. He was 95.

Maki was one of Japan’s most renowned international architects, whose modernist works were characterized by refinement and dignity.

In addition to 4 World Trade Center in Manhattan, Maki designed the Hillside Terrace complex in Tokyo’s Daikanyama district, the National Museum of Modern Art, Kyoto, the Tokyo Metropolitan Gymnasium and the Makuhari Messe convention center in Chiba.

Maki was awarded the Pritzker Architecture Prize, known as the Nobel Prize in architecture, in 1993.

A native of Tokyo, Maki graduated from the Department of Architecture at the University of Tokyo and also studied at the graduate school of Harvard University and elsewhere.

He opened his architectural office in Tokyo in 1965 after serving as an associate professor at Harvard University and in other posts.

Maki found a mentor in Kenzo Tange (1913-2005), one of Japan’s pioneering international architects.

Maki, Arata Isozaki (1931-2022) and Kisho Kurokawa (1934-2007) were counted as Tange’s three most celebrated proteges.

Maki made his mark from the early years and received the Architectural Institute of Japan Prize with his design of Nagoya University’s Toyoda Auditorium in 1960.

In the 1960s, he joined a group that founded the Metabolism architectural movement, which called for buildings and cities to transform in accordance with social changes.

Maki served as a professor at the University of Tokyo from 1979 to 1989.

Maki, who was designated as a Person of Cultural Merit by the Japanese government and a member of the Japan Art Academy, received the Asahi Prize and many other awards.

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