Works
His first internationally recognized design, was the Pacific Science Center and its iconic arches, constructed by the City of Seattle for the 1962 World's Fair. His first significant project was the Pruitt–Igoe housing project in St. Louis, Missouri, 1955. Despite his love of Japanese traditional design, this was a stark, modernist concrete structure. The housing project experienced so many problems that it was demolished in 1972, less than twenty years after its completion. Its destruction is considered by some to be the beginning of postmodern architecture.
He also designed several "sleek" international airport buildings and was responsible for the innovative design of the 1,360 foot (415 m) towers of the World Trade Center, for which design began in 1965, and construction in 1966. The towers were finished within six years, in 1972. Many of his buildings feature superficial details inspired by the pointed arches of Gothic architecture, and make use of extremely narrow vertical windows. This narrow-windowed style arose from his own personal fear of heights.
It was in 1978 that Yamasaki also designed the Federal Reserve Bank tower in Richmond, Virginia. The work was designed in almost the same way as the World Trade Center complex, with its narrow windowing, and now stands at 394 feet.
Yamasaki was an original member of the Pennsylvania Avenue Commission, which was tasked with restoring the grand avenue in Washington, D.C., but resigned after disagreements and disillusionment with the design by committee approach.
After teaming up with Emery Roth and Sons on the design of the World Trade Center, they teamed up again on other projects including new defense buildings at Bolling Air Force Base in Washington, D.C.
He also designed a number of buildings at Carleton College in Northfield, Minnesota.
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The former World Trade Center
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Rainier Tower in Seattle
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One Woodward Avenue in Detroit
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One M & T Plaza, in Buffalo, NY
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Torre Picasso, in Madrid
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Pacific Science Center in Seattle
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Reynolds Metal Regional Sales Building in Southfield, Michigan
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Temple Beth El, in Bloomfield Township, Michigan
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Education Building at Wayne State University
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The Conservatory of Music at Oberlin College, designed by Yamasaki in 1963. The distinctive style is similar to Yamasaki's design of the World Trade Center.
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Irwin Library at Butler University (Indianapolis, Indiana)
Read more about this topic: Minoru Yamasaki
Famous quotes containing the word works:
“You are always looking for already-felt emotions, just as you like to get an old pair of trousers back from the cleaners, which seem new when you don’t look too closely. Artists are cleaners, don’t let yourself be taken in by them. True modern works of art are made not by artists but quite simply by men.”
—Francis Picabia (1878–1953)
“His character as one of the fathers of the English language would alone make his works important, even those which have little poetical merit. He was as simple as Wordsworth in preferring his homely but vigorous Saxon tongue, when it was neglected by the court, and had not yet attained to the dignity of a literature, and rendered a similar service to his country to that which Dante rendered to Italy.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Through the din and desultoriness of noon, even in the most Oriental city, is seen the fresh and primitive and savage nature, in which Scythians and Ethiopians and Indians dwell. What is echo, what are light and shade, day and night, ocean and stars, earthquake and eclipse, there? The works of man are everywhere swallowed up in the immensity of nature. The AEgean Sea is but Lake Huron still to the Indian.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)