Toyo Ito Wins the Royal Gold Medal

Toyo Ito Wins the Royal Gold Medal
The Japanese architect, Toyo Ito, is the winner of one of architecture's most prestigious prizes, the Royal Gold Medal.

Jack Pringle, President of the RIBA made the announcement at a meeting of the RIBA Council.

Given in recognition of a lifetime's work, the Royal Gold Medal is approved personally by Her Majesty the Queen and is given annually to a person or group of people whose influence on architecture has had a truly international effect.

Toyo Ito was born in 1941.

After graduating from the University of Tokyo in 1965, he worked for the Metabolist architect Kiyonori Kikutake until 1969.

In 1971 he opened his own office, Urban Robot (URBOT), which was renamed Toyo Ito & Associates, Architects in 1979.

An influential though far from prolific architect, throughout his career, Ito has been concerned with irrelevant symbolism in architecture.

In the '70s, inspired by early modernist movements such as Purism and the straightforward use of easily available industrial materials, he sought to erase conventional meaning from his work through minimalist tactics, illustrated in his early projects such as White U (1976) and Silver Hut (1984).

He also developed an aesthetic of lightweight, permeable membranes composed of fabrics, perforated aluminium panels and expanded metal sheets, which he believed is