Yoshio Taniguchi is a Japanese architect, known for his work on the Museum of Modern Art in New York City and the Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Taniguchi was born in Tokyo in 1937. He graduated from the University of Tokyo’s Department of Architecture in 1964. After working for several architectural firms in Japan, he moved to the United States in 1969 to work for the firm of Mies van der Rohe. He returned to Japan in 1971, and worked for several years as an independent architect before being appointed chief architect of the Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Art in 1979.
In 1986, Taniguchi was selected to design the expansion of the Museum of Modern Art in New York City. The project, which was completed in 2004, added approximately 40,000 square feet of new exhibition space to the museum.
Taniguchi’s other notable projects include the Sony Center in Berlin (2000), the Ueno Royal Museum in Tokyo (2000), and the National Museum of Western Art in Tokyo (2007). He has received numerous awards for his work, including the Pritzker Prize, the Japan Art Association’s Praemium Imperiale, and the American Institute of Architects’ Gold Medal.
