Kisho Kurokawa - April 8, 1934 - October 12, 2007

A bloody good architect died today. Kisho Kurokawa designed buildings all over the world - from Melbourne to Malaysia, Berlin to Beijing. The guy was a genius, but maybe a bit mad - he claimed to go for a run in his hakama complete with a sword every day.

Kurokawa had the unusual distiction of designing a whole city - Astana, the new capital of Kazakhstan, and he stood for election in the recent Tokyo mayoral elections - what a pity we didn't get a true internationalist in office (instead of the ultranationalist we got stuck with again).

Here's a look at his National Art Center building in Roppongi, Tokyo...








No running today.