TOKYO: Yoshio Taniguchi, the noted Japanese architect who designed a new building of New York’s Museum of Modern Art and Tokyo Sea Life Park, died of pneumonia Monday morning, it was learned Friday. He was 87.

A native of Tokyo, Taniguchi graduated from Japan’s Keio University and studied architecture at the graduate school of Harvard University. He studied under leading Japanese architect Kenzo Tange and started his own office in 1979.

Taniguchi is known for designing simple modernist buildings that embody the original textures of materials.

His major works include Shiseido Art House in Kakegawa, Shizuoka Prefecture, the Ken Domon Museum of Photography in Sakata, Yamagata Prefecture, the Marugame Genichiro Inokuma Museum of Contemporary Art in Kagawa Prefecture and the D.T. Suzuki Museum in Kanazawa, Ishikawa Prefecture.

Taniguchi also designed Ginza Six, an office and shopping complex in Tokyo’s upscale Ginza district.

He received the Order of the Rising Sun, Gold Rays with Neck Ribbon in 2011 and was selected as a Person with Cultural Merit in 2021.

JIJI Press