was an American

architect An architect is a person who plans, designs and oversees the construction of buildings. To practice architecture means to provide services in connection with the design of buildings and the space within the site surrounding the buildings that h ...

, best known for designing the original World Trade Center in New York City and several other large-scale projects. Yamasaki was one of the most prominent architects of the 20th century. He and fellow architect

Edward Durell Stone Edward Durell Stone (March 9, 1902 – August 6, 1978) was an American architect known for the formal, highly decorative buildings he designed in the 1950s and 1960s. His works include the Museum of Modern Art, in New York City, the Museo de A ...

are generally considered to be the two master practitioners of " New Formalism". During his three-decade career, he and his firm designed over 250 buildings. His firm,

Yamasaki & Associates Yamasaki Associates, Inc. (also as Minoru Yamasaki Associates, Inc. before 1986) was an architectural firm based in Troy, Michigan. Its founder, Minoru Yamasaki, was well known for his design of the twin towers of the World Trade Center. Histo ...

, closed on December 31, 2009.

Early life and education

Yamasaki was born on December 1, 1912, in

Seattle Seattle ( ) is a seaport city on the West Coast of the United States. It is the seat of King County, Washington. With a 2020 population of 737,015, it is the largest city in both the state of Washington and the Pacific Northwest region o ...

Washington Washington commonly refers to: * Washington (state), United States * Washington, D.C., the capital of the United States ** A metonym for the federal government of the United States ** Washington metropolitan area, the metropolitan area centered o ...

, the son of John Tsunejiro Yamasaki and Hana Yamasaki, ''

issei is a Japanese-language term used by ethnic Japanese in countries in North America and South America to specify the Japanese people who were the first generation to immigrate there. are born in Japan; their children born in the new country are ...

'' Japanese immigrants. The family later moved to

Auburn, Washington Auburn is a city in King County, Washington, United States (with a small portion crossing into neighboring Pierce County). The population was 87,256 at the 2020 Census. Auburn is a suburb in the Seattle metropolitan area, and is currently rank ...

, and he graduated from Garfield Senior High School in Seattle. He enrolled in the University of Washington program in architecture in 1929, and graduated with a Bachelor of Architecture (B.Arch.) in 1934. During his college years, he was strongly encouraged by faculty member Lionel Pries. He earned money to pay for his tuition by working at an

Alaska Alaska ( ; russian: Аляска, Alyaska; ale, Alax̂sxax̂; ; ems, Alas'kaaq; Yup'ik: ''Alaskaq''; tli, Anáaski) is a state located in the Western United States on the northwest extremity of North America. A semi-exclave of the U ...

salmon Salmon () is the common name for several commercially important species of euryhaline ray-finned fish from the family Salmonidae, which are native to tributaries of the North Atlantic (genus '' Salmo'') and North Pacific (genus '' Onco ...

cannery Canning is a method of food preservation in which food is processed and sealed in an airtight container (jars like Mason jars, and steel and tin cans). Canning provides a shelf life that typically ranges from one to five years, although ...

, working five summers and earning $50 a month, plus 25 cents an hour in overtime pay. In part to escape anti-Japanese prejudice, he moved to

Manhattan Manhattan (), known regionally as the City, is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the five boroughs of New York City. The borough is also coextensive with New York County, one of the original counties of the U.S. state ...

in 1934, with $40 and no job prospects. He wrapped dishes for an importing company until he found work as a draftsman and engineer. He enrolled at

New York University New York University (NYU) is a private research university in New York City. Chartered in 1831 by the New York State Legislature, NYU was founded by a group of New Yorkers led by then- Secretary of the Treasury Albert Gallatin. In 1832, th ...

for a master's degree in architecture and got a job with the architecture firm Shreve, Lamb & Harmon, designers of the

Empire State Building The Empire State Building is a 102-story Art Deco skyscraper in Midtown Manhattan, New York City. The building was designed by Shreve, Lamb & Harmon and built from 1930 to 1931. Its name is derived from " Empire State", the nickname of the ...

. The firm helped Yamasaki avoid internment as a Japanese-American during World War II, and he himself sheltered his parents in New York City. Yamasaki was politically active during his early years, particularly in efforts to relocate Japanese Americans affected by the internment program in the United States during World War II. After leaving Shreve, Lamb & Harmon, Yamasaki worked briefly for Harrison & Abramovitz and

Raymond Loewy Raymond Loewy ( , ; November 5, 1893 – July 14, 1986) was a French-born American industrial designer who achieved fame for the magnitude of his design efforts across a variety of industries. He was recognized for this by ''Time'' magazi ...

. During his time with Harrison & Abramovitz, Yamasaki, a gifted watercolors painter, moonlighted teaching drawing at

Columbia University Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhatt ...

. In 1945, Yamasaki moved to

Detroit Detroit ( , ; , ) is the largest city in the U.S. state of Michigan. It is also the largest U.S. city on the United States–Canada border, and the seat of government of Wayne County. The City of Detroit had a population of 639,111 at t ...

, where he secured a position with

Smith, Hinchman & Grylls SmithGroup is an international architectural, engineering and planning firm. Established in Detroit in 1853 by architect Sheldon Smith, SmithGroup is the longest continually operating architecture and engineering firm in the United States that ...

as the chief designer. At the time, Smith and associates was the oldest as well as one of the largest and most prestigious architectural firms in Detroit and the United States, with recently completed projects including Detroit landmarks the

Penobscot Building The Greater Penobscot Building, commonly known as the Penobscot Building, is a class-A office tower in Downtown Detroit, Michigan. Constructed in 1928, the Art Deco building is located in the heart of the Detroit Financial District. The Penob ...

and the

Guardian Building The Guardian Building is a landmark skyscraper in the United States, located at 500 Griswold Street in Downtown Detroit, Michigan, within the Financial District. The Guardian is a class-A office building owned by Wayne County, Michigan and s ...

. Yamasaki left the firm in 1949, and started his own partnership. He worked from Birmingham and Troy, Michigan. One of the first projects he designed at his own firm was Ruhl's Bakery at 7 Mile Road and Monica Street in Detroit.

Career

Pruitt–Igoe and other early commissions

Yamasaki's first major project was the Pruitt–Igoe public housing project in St. Louis in 1955. Despite his love of traditional Japanese design and ornamentation, the buildings of Pruitt–Igoe were stark, modernist concrete structures, severely constricted by a tight budget. The housing project soon experienced so many problems that it was demolished starting in 1972, less than twenty years after its completion. Its destruction would be considered by architectural historian Charles Jencks to be the symbolic end of modernist architecture. In 1955, he also designed the "sleek" terminal at Lambert–St. Louis International Airport, which led to his 1959 commission to design the

Dhahran International Airport Dhahran ( ar, الظهران, ''Al-Dhahran'') is a city located in the Eastern Province, Saudi Arabia. With a total population of 240,742 as of 2021, it is a major administrative center for the Saudi oil industry. Together with the nearby citi ...

in Saudi Arabia. The Dhahran International Airport terminal building was especially well received in Saudi Arabia and was featured on the one riyal bank note. In the 1950s, Yamasaki was commissioned by the Reynolds Company to design an aluminum-wrapped building in

Southfield, Michigan Southfield is a city in Oakland County in the U.S. state of Michigan. As of the 2010 census, the city had a population of 76,618. As a northern suburb of Detroit, Southfield shares part of its southern border with Detroit. The city was original ...

, which would "symbolize the auto industry's past and future progress with aluminum." The three-story glass building wrapped in aluminum, known as the Reynolds Metals Company's Great Lakes Sales Headquarters Building, was also supposed to reinforce the company's main product and showcase its admirable characteristics of strength and beauty. Yamasaki's first widely-acclaimed design was the Pacific Science Center, with its iconic lacy and airy decorative arches. It was constructed by the City of Seattle for the

1962 Seattle World's Fair The Century 21 Exposition (also known as the Seattle World's Fair) was a world's fair held April 21, 1962, to October 21, 1962, in Seattle, Washington (state), Washington, United States. The building raised his public profile so much that he was featured on the cover of ''

Time Time is the continued sequence of existence and event (philosophy), events that occurs in an apparently irreversible process, irreversible succession from the past, through the present, into the future. It is a component quantity of various me ...

'' magazine.

World Trade Center

In 1962 Yamasaki and his firm were commissioned to design his most well known project: the World Trade Center, with

Emery Roth & Sons Emery Roth ( hu, Róth Imre, July 17, 1871 – August 20, 1948) was an American architect of Hungarian-Jewish descent who designed many of the definitive New York City hotels and apartment buildings of the 1920s and 1930s, incorporating Beaux ...

serving as associate architects. The World Trade Center towers featured many innovative design elements to address many unique challenges at the site. One particular design challenge of the World Trade Center's design related to the efficacy of the elevator system, which became unique in the world when it was first opened for service. Yamasaki employed the fastest elevators at the time, running at per minute. Instead of placing a traditional large cluster of full-height elevator shafts in the core of each tower, Yamasaki created the Twin Towers' " Skylobby" system. The Skylobby design created three separate, connected elevator systems which would serve different zones of the building, depending on which floor was chosen, saving approximately 70% of the space which would have been required for traditional shafts. The space saved was then used for additional office space.Remarks by Lee K. Jaffee, World Trade Center Press Conference, New York Hilton Hotel, January 18, 1964. Internally, each office floor was a vast open space unimpeded by support columns, ready to be subdivided as the tenants might choose. Other design challenges included anchoring the massively tall towers to the bedrock located about 80 feet below lower Manhattan's soft soil. Digging a large trench to the bedrock risked flooding from nearby

New York Harbor New York Harbor is at the mouth of the Hudson River where it empties into New York Bay near the East River tidal estuary, and then into the Atlantic Ocean on the east coast of the United States. It is one of the largest natural harbors in ...

. The solution employed by Yamasaki and his team of engineers was to use a slurry wall; digging very narrow trenches about 3 feet wide and then filling these with a slurry (a mixture of clay and water) that was dense enough to keep the surrounding water out. Pipes were then lowered into the slurry trench and concrete was pumped in. The concrete, being more dense than the slurry, sank to the bottom of the trenches all the way down to the bedrock displacing the slurry to the surface, where it was drained away. This process was repeated around the entire perimeter of the site and reinforced with steel cables to create a watertight concrete bathtub surrounding the excavation site. This slurry wall system had only been employed a few times prior in the United States and never on such a large project. Another design challenge presented by the World Trade Center project was developing a wind-bracing system to keep the ultra tall but relatively lightweight steel and glass structures from swaying at their upper levels. Other contemporary modern skyscrapers had used centrally located cross-bracing systems located in the core of the interiors at the upper levels, but Yamasaki and structural engineer Fazlur Rahman Khan employed an exterior truss system; a network of vertical and horizontal structural elements on the exterior of the towers giving them structural support. This external structural support system also decreased the need for large internal pillars. The external truss support system and the unique elevator configuration created more rentable space in the World Trade Centers to satisfy the owner's ( The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey) massive demand for ten million square feet of office space. The first of the towers was finished in 1970. Many of his buildings feature superficial details inspired by the pointed arches of

Gothic architecture Gothic architecture (or pointed architecture) is an architectural style that was prevalent in Europe from the late 12th to the 16th century, during the High and Late Middle Ages, surviving into the 17th and 18th centuries in some areas. It ...

, and make use of extremely narrow vertical windows. This narrow-windowed style arose from his own personal fear of heights. After partnering with Emery Roth and Sons on the design of the World Trade Center, the collaboration continued with other projects including new buildings at Bolling Air Force Base in Washington, DC

Later years

In 1978, Yamasaki designed the

Federal Reserve Bank A Federal Reserve Bank is a regional bank of the Federal Reserve System, the central banking system of the United States. There are twelve in total, one for each of the twelve Federal Reserve Districts that were created by the Federal Reserve ...

tower in

Richmond, Virginia (Thus do we reach the stars) , image_map = , mapsize = 250 px , map_caption = Location within Virginia , pushpin_map = Virginia#USA , pushpin_label = Richmond , pushpin_m ...

. The work was designed with a similar external appearance as the World Trade Center complex, with its narrow fenestration, and now stands at . Yamasaki was a member of the Pennsylvania Avenue Commission, created in 1961 to restore the grand avenue in

Washington, DC ) , image_skyline = , image_caption = Clockwise from top left: the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall, United States Capitol, Logan Circle, Jefferson Memorial, White House, Adams Morg ...

, but he resigned after disagreements and disillusionment with the

design by committee Design by committee is a pejorative term for a project that has many designers involved but no unifying plan or vision. Usage of the term The term is used to refer to suboptimal traits that such a process may produce as a result of having to compr ...

approach. The campus for the University of Regina was designed in tandem with Yamasaki's plan for Wascana Centre, a park built around Wascana Lake in

Regina, Saskatchewan Regina () is the capital city of the Canadian province of Saskatchewan. The city is the second-largest in the province, after Saskatoon, and is a commercial centre for southern Saskatchewan. As of the 2021 census, Regina had a city populatio ...

. The original campus design was approved in 1962. Yamasaki was awarded contracts to design the first three buildings: the Classroom Building, the Laboratory Building, and the Dr. John Archer Library, which were built between 1963 and 1967. Yamasaki designed two notable synagogues, North Shore Congregation Israel in

Glencoe, Illinois Glencoe () is a lakefront village in northeastern Cook County, Illinois, United States. As of the 2020 census, the population was 8,849. Glencoe is part of Chicago's North Shore and is located within the New Trier High School District. Glen ...

(1964), and Temple Beth El, in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan (1973). He designed a number of buildings on college campuses, including designs for

Carleton College Carleton College ( ) is a private liberal arts college in Northfield, Minnesota. Founded in 1866, it had 2,105 undergraduate students and 269 faculty members in fall 2016. The 200-acre main campus is between Northfield and the 800-acre Cowlin ...

Northfield, Minnesota Northfield is a city in Dakota and Rice counties in the State of Minnesota. It is mostly in Rice County, with a small portion in Dakota County. The population was 20,790 at the 2020 census. History Northfield was platted in 1856 by John W ...

between 1958 and 1968 as well as being commissioned to design buildings on the campus of

Wayne State University Wayne State University (WSU) is a public research university in Detroit, Michigan. It is Michigan's third-largest university. Founded in 1868, Wayne State consists of 13 schools and colleges offering approximately 350 programs to nearly 25,000 ...

in the 1950s and 1960s, including the McGregor Memorial Conference Center, the College of Education building and the Prentis Building and DeRoy Auditorium Complex. The buildings at Wayne State University incorporated many architectural motifs that would become characteristic elements in Yamasaki's designs. With regards to the McGregor Memorial Conference Center, this included placing the building on an elevated base or pedestal to emphasize its presence, repeated geometric patterns on the exterior facade of the building (many times these exterior design features were functional as well, providing structural support to the building). He also used exotic materials such as white marble tiles and columns, incorporated a skylight traversing the length of the building and made extensive use of the secondary space outside the building including constructing a plaza with reflecting pools, seating areas, greenery and sculptures. The College of Education building featured repeating gothic arches throughout the exterior of the building which were both ornamental but also provided structural support for the building. After criticism of his dramatically

cantilever A cantilever is a rigid structural element that extends horizontally and is supported at only one end. Typically it extends from a flat vertical surface such as a wall, to which it must be firmly attached. Like other structural elements, a cant ...

ed Rainier Tower (1977) in Seattle, Yamasaki became less adventurous in his designs during the last decade of his career.

Legacy

Despite the many buildings he completed, Yamasaki's reputation faded along with the overall decline of modernism towards the end of the 20th century. Two of his major projects, the Pruitt-Igoe public housing complex, and the original World Trade Center, shared the dubious symbolic distinction of being destroyed while recorded by live TV broadcasts. The World Trade Center towers were not well received by some at the time, with noted ''

New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

'' architectural critic

Ada Louise Huxtable Ada Louise Huxtable (née Landman; March 14, 1921 – January 7, 2013) was an architecture critic and writer on architecture. Huxtable established architecture and urban design journalism in North America and raised the public's awareness of th ...

criticizing the towers as being "pure technology, the lobbies are pure schmaltz and the impact on New York of 110-story buildings...is pure speculation" with criticizing the gothic exterior branches at the lower levels as "General Motors gothic". In many ways, these best-known works ran counter to Yamasaki's own design principles, and he later regretted his reluctant acceptance of architectural compromises dictated by the clients of these projects. Several others of his buildings have also been demolished. Yamasaki collaborated closely with structural engineers, including John Skilling, Leslie Robertson, and Jack V. Christiansen, to produce some of his innovative architectural designs. He strived to achieve "serenity, surprise, and delight" in his humanistic modernist buildings and their surrounds. Decades after his death, Yamasaki's buildings and legacy would be re-assessed more sympathetically by some architectural critics. Several of his buildings have now been restored in accordance with his original designs, and his McGregor Memorial Conference Center was awarded

National Historic Landmark A National Historic Landmark (NHL) is a building, district, object, site, or structure that is officially recognized by the United States government for its outstanding historical significance. Only some 2,500 (~3%) of over 90,000 places liste ...

status in 2015.

Personal life

Yamasaki was first married in 1941 to Teruko "Teri" Hirashiki. They had three children together: Carol,

Taro Taro () (''Colocasia esculenta)'' is a root vegetable. It is the most widely cultivated species of several plants in the family Araceae that are used as vegetables for their corms, leaves, and petioles. Taro corms are a food staple in Afri ...

, and Kim. They divorced in 1961 and Yamasaki married Peggy Watty. He and Watty divorced two years later, and Yamasaki married a third time briefly before remarrying Teruko in 1969. In a 1969 ''Detroit News'' article about the remarriage, Yamasaki said "I'm just going to be nicer to her". Yamasaki suffered from health problems for at least three decades, and ulcers caused surgical removal of much of his stomach in 1953. Over time, he endured several more operations on his stomach. His health was not improved by increasingly heavy drinking towards the end of his life. Yamasaki died of stomach cancer on February 6, 1986, at the age of 73. Yamasaki was affectionately known as "Yama" among his friends and associates.

Gallery

Honors

Fellow A fellow is a concept whose exact meaning depends on context. In learned or professional societies, it refers to a privileged member who is specially elected in recognition of their work and achievements. Within the context of higher education ...

of the

American Institute of Architects The American Institute of Architects (AIA) is a professional organization for architects in the United States. Headquartered in Washington, D.C., the AIA offers education, government advocacy, community redevelopment, and public outreach to s ...

, 1963 * DFA from

Bates College Bates College () is a private liberal arts college in Lewiston, Maine. Anchored by the Historic Quad, the campus of Bates totals with a small urban campus which includes 33 Victorian Houses as some of the dormitories. It maintains of nature p ...

, 1964 * American Institute of Architects' First Honor Award, three times * Cover story of ''TIME'' on January 18, 1963

References

External links

GreatBuildings.com listing

The Wayne State University Yamasaki Legacy

Minoru_Yamasaki_interview,_[ca._1959_Aug.
/nowiki>.html" ;"title="a. 1959 Aug.">Minoru Yamasaki interview, [ca. 1959 Aug.
/nowiki>">a. 1959 Aug.">Minoru Yamasaki interview, [ca. 1959 Aug.
/nowiki>- Archives of American Art *
Images from the Minoru Yamasaki Collection
Walter P. Reuther Library * Researchers can access archival evidence of Yamasaki's work i
The papers of Minoru Yamasaki
at the Walter P. Reuther Library. Available materials include correspondence on projects, travel, communications with associates, speaking invitations, and involvement in professional organizations. Early architectural drawings, speeches and writings, photographs, awards and doctoral degrees, scrapbooks detailing the progress of his career, and various publications are also included. {{DEFAULTSORT:Yamasaki, Minoru Modernist architects from the United States . 1912 births 1986 deaths Fellows of the American Institute of Architects Architects from Detroit Architects from Seattle American people of Japanese descent Bates College alumni Polytechnic Institute of New York University alumni University of Washington College of Built Environments alumni Garfield High School (Seattle) alumni Deaths from cancer in Michigan Deaths from stomach cancer People from Auburn, Washington 20th-century American architects