Not many people get to build cities and choose prime ministers, yet that was his claim to fame. In one of the last interviews before his death on Oct. 12, self-styled leader of the Symbiosis movement Kisho Kurokawa talked about the ups and downs of life as a mainstream architect, political maverick and philosophical idealist.
Kisho Kurokawa was never a household name, either in his native Japan, nor internationally. But within architectural circles he was much admired — and in demand — around the globe.
There was a globe on the table between us, covered in colored pins. Each one, he explained, was a current project: in Africa, China, Russia, the Middle East, all over. As if to prove the point, a letter inviting Kurokawa to come to Calcutta to talk about a new art museum lay alongside