was a Japanese architect and

structural engineer Structural engineers analyze, design, plan, and research structural components and structural systems to achieve design goals and ensure the safety and comfort of users or occupants. Their work takes account mainly of safety, technical, economic ...

. He is considered the "father of the Japanese skyscraper" for his contributions to earthquake engineering.

Earthquake engineering research

Mutō was born in Toride, Ibaraki,

Japan Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...

. He entered the Department of Architecture at Tokyo Imperial University (now the University of Tokyo) in 1922 and graduated in 1925. He was immediately appointed Lecturer, and obtained a Dr of Engineering degree in 1931. In 1935 he was appointed Professor of Structural Engineering, a post which he held for almost 30 years, developing and teaching the principles of earthquake-resistant design. Among his best known contributions was the development of a simple but accurate method for routine structural analysis of a moment resisting frame under lateral loading. Known as the "D Method", it replaced tedious, time-consuming calculations with numerical tables, and was widely used for many years throughout the world. It was adopted into the Calculation Standard of the Architectural Institute of Japan in 1933.

Work as structural engineer

After retiring from the University of Tokyo in 1963, Muto became executive vice president of Kajima Corporation, a major construction company. He also founded his own company, the Muto Institute of Structural Mechanics, in 1965. At Kajima, he led the team that designed Japan's first high-rise building, the 36-story Kasumigaseki Building. Among his innovations for this building was first energy dissipation system used in Japan, a slit wall system consisting of precast reinforced concrete strips that stabilized the building under strong winds and small earthquakes and absorbed the energy of strong earthquakes.

Works

Mutō was the structural engineer for many of Tokyo's tallest and best-known buildings, including the following. * Kasumigaseki Building (1967) * World Trade Center (1970) * Keio Plaza Hotel (1971) *

Shinjuku Mitsui Building The is a high-rise building in Nishi-Shinjuku, Shinjuku, Tokyo. It is owned by Mitsui Fudosan. It is one of the ten tallest buildings in Tokyo, and was the tallest building in Tokyo and Japan from September 1974 to March 1978, when Sunshine 60 ...

(1974) *

Sunshine 60 is a 60-story, mixed-use skyscraper located in Ikebukuro, Toshima, Tokyo, adjoining the Sunshine City complex. At the time of its completion in 1978, the 239.7 m (786 ft) building was the tallest in Asia, a title it held until 1985 wh ...

(1978) * Grand Prince Hotel Akasaka (1982) * Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building (1991)

Notes

{{DEFAULTSORT:Muto, Kiyoshi People from Ibaraki Prefecture 1903 births 1989 deaths Structural engineers Earthquake engineering Laureates of the Imperial Prize 20th-century Japanese architects