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The 1990 Kyoto Prize
1990
10 /24 Wed
Place：Kyoto International Conference Center
The 1990 Kyoto Prize Kyoto Prize Laureates
Lecture topics
Adventures with Genes
Abstract of the lecture
Genetics is the study of the plan of organism; we try to find out how the information specifying an organism is passed on from generation to generation and how the genes work to construct the new organism. This is the central science of biology, because this is what makes biological systems different from everything else. I have had many gene adventures but none so exhilarating as my early work on bacteriophage. It covers a period written about by many people, but Dr. Inamori encourages us to give more than a plain account of the science and this I have tried to do. It is a history, and a very selective one, because it it mostly about my scientific work and life. There is much of the past, some of the present and even a little of the future.
Lecture topics
The Chimpanzee—a Living Bridge Between Man and Beast
Abstract of the lecture
Chimpanzees are among the most fascinating animals in the world. They live in a complex society. Each individual has unique personality and life history. There are bonds between family members lasting throughout life and they show many intelligent behaviors. Across Africa chimpanzees are vanishing fast as forests are destroyed. Chimpanzees are hunted for food and to capture infants for sale. Some end up in medical research because they are physiologically so similar to humans. We must remember the behavioural emotional and intellectural similarities too. Chimpanzees are so like us that they help us to better understand man's place in nature. We are not as different as we once believed. Chimpanzees can be seen as a bridge between "Man" and "Beast". But we humans are unique. Our intellect led to the development of technologies that now threaten to destroy the world. Is there hope for us? Yes, but only if we all work together, and realize that each one of us is important.
Lecture topics
Architecture in My Experience As a Frontier Between Art and Science
Abstract of the lecture
The history and philosophy of my work coincide perfectly and are the simple and linear result of the story of my life: thus, here it is in a few words. I was born into a family of builders (for many generations), and I spent the first period of my professional life realizing "pieces" of architecture, not "architecture". And it is from the experience gained between 1964 and 1970 that I inherited my attention to detail, my love for the craftman's approach and the patient game, and an ingrained habit for putting together saying and doing, the head and the hand. Then, between 1971 and 1977, I had the most extraordinary team-work experience with the Centre Beaubourg in Paris, with Richard Rogers, Peter Rice, Tom Barker, Shunji Ishida and Noriaki Okabe, two Japanese architects, who became at that time both my associates. This was my last experience of "Piece by piece" architecture, and also the most intense exercise of determination and professional advancement. Following this, from 1978 to 1982, came the reaction: fatigue for big projects and the desire to try my strength against another marvellous world: that of human and social intercourse. During this period, thanks to the projects for UNESCO, I had numerous experiences of participation, from which I learned a great deal on the art of listening (and also not to mistake instruments for objectives). I was educated in humility, I gleaned diffidence towards personal glorification and the advantages of calm creativity. The itinerant exhibition for IBM, the Menil Collection in Houston, the Calder exhibition in Turin, the rehabilitation of the Schlumberger factory in Paris, the Lowara Head Offices in Vicenza, the Sports Hall in Ravenna, The FIAT Lingotto factory rehabilitation in Turin, the ancient walls of RhodesE. What is my philosophy of architecture? I do not know: what interests me is "making architecture"; I am neither a moralist nor a puritan, still less a boy-scout. And, luckily, I have no style to hand down: only, perhaps, a manner (which on the other hand I find quite ancient) of engaging in the metier of the architect.
