Fumihiko Maki was born in Tokyo in 1928. After studying at the University of Tokyo and graduating with a bachelor’s in architecture (BS Arch) in 1952, he undertook further studies in the USA, at the Cranbrook Academy of Art, Michigan, and at the Graduate School of Design (GSD), Harvard University, obtaining a Master of Architecture from each in 1953 and 1954, respectively. Afterwards, Maki worked for Skidmore, Owings & Merrill in New York, and for Sert, Jackson & Associates in Cambridge, Massachusetts. In 1956 he became an assistant professor of architecture at Washington University, St. Louis. Steinberg Hall, the university’s on-campus arts center, was Maki’s first design commission. Maki served as associate professor at Harvard’s GSD from 1962 to 1965, returning to Japan afterwards to establish his own firm, namely Maki and Associates. He held a professorship at the University of Tokyo from 1979 to 1989.

Maki’s architectural oeuvre straddles Asia, North and South America, Europe, and the Middle East, encompassing a breadth of projects including art museums and performing arts venues, educational, research, and administrative institutions, conference, media, sports, and community centers, and residential projects, among others. His practice has earned him innumerable awards including the Wolf Prize (1988), the Thomas Jefferson Medal in Architecture (1990), the UIA Gold Medal (1993), the Pritzker Architecture Prize (1993), Japan Arts Association Praemium Imperiale (1999), and the American Institute of Architects (AIA) Gold Medal (2011).