Yoshio Taniguchi, MoMA's Renaissance Architect, Dies at 87

Yoshio Taniguchi, the Japanese architect who transformed the Museum of Modern Art in New York with a $850 million expansion completed in 2004, died of pneumonia on December 16, 2024, at age 87. Born in Tokyo on October 17, 1937, as the son of architect Yoshiro Taniguchi, he studied mechanical engineering at Keio University before attending Harvard University Graduate School of Design. He worked for Walter Gropius and Kenzo Tange before opening his own Tokyo studio in 1975. Taniguchi's MoMA expansion, which nearly doubled exhibition space, featured a hall stretching from 53rd to 54th Street, a 30-meter-high atrium, a new education wing, and a sculpture garden. Despite criticism of the design as cold and oversized, director Glenn Lowry noted that attendance doubled within a decade. Among Taniguchi's notable Japanese projects are the visionary municipal incinerator in Hiroshima, the Horyuji Treasure Gallery at the Tokyo National Museum, and the Tokyo Sea Life Park. Internationally, he also designed the Asia Society Texas Center in Houston. Taniguchi won the MoMA commission in 1997, beating Rem Koolhaas, Herzog & de Meuron, Steven Holl, and Bernard Tschumi.