Nurturing Dreams ─ Collected Essays on Architecture and the City

Born in Tokyo, educated in Japan and the United States, and principal of aninternationally acclaimed architectural practice, celebrated architect Fumihiko Maki brings to hiswritings on architecture a perspective that is both global and uniquely Japanese. Influenced bypost-Bauhaus internationalism, sympathetic to the radical urban architectural vision of Team X, anda participant in the avant-garde movement Metabolism, Maki has been at the forefront of hisprofession for decades. This collection of essays documents the evolution of architectural modernismand Maki's own fifty-year intellectual journey during a critical period of architectural and urbanhistory. Maki's treatment of his two overarching themes--the contemporary city and modernistarchitecture--demonstrates strong (and sometimes unexpected) linkages between urban theory andarchitectural practice. Images and commentary on three of Maki's own works demonstrate theconnection between his writing and his designs. Moving through the successive waves of modernism,postmodernism, neomodernism, and other isms, these essays reflect how several generations ofarchitectural thought and expression have been resolved within one career.

Fumihiko Maki is one of Japan's most prolific and distinguished architects, in practice since the 1960s. His works include projects in Japan, North and South America, Europe, and Asia. He received the prestigious Pritzker Architecture Prize in 1993. Among his current works in progress are the World Trade Center Tower 4 in New York City and the Media Lab Extension at MIT.