TOKYO, JAPAN.- Japanese architect Kenzo Tange, 91, died in Tokyo of heart failure. Kenzo Tange was born in the small city of Imabari, Shikoku Island, Japan. He won the Pritzker Prize at the age of 74. Although becoming an architect was beyond his wildest dreams as a boy, it was Le Corbusier's work that stirred his imagination so that in 1935, he became a student in the Architecture Department of Tokyo University.

In 1946, he became an assistant professor at Tokyo University, and organized the Tange Laboratory. His students included Fumihiko Maki, Koji Kamiya, Arata Isozaki, Kisho Kurokawa, and Taneo Oki. Tange was in charge of the reconstruction of Hiroshima. His Peace Park and Centre made the city symbolic of the human longing for peace.

In the year in which he won the Pritzker Prize, Tange revealed his plans for the new Tokyo City Hall Complex. Since built, the complex comprises an assembly hall, a civic plaza, a park, and two tower buildings. Tange has been a guest professor at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, as well as a lecturer at Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Washington University, Illinois Institute of Technology, the University of California at Berkeley, and the Universities of Alabama and Toronto. The thesis for his doctorate in 1959 was "Spatial Structure in a Large City," an interpretation of urban structure on the basis of people's movements commuting to and from work.
His "Plan for Tokyo 1960" was the Tange Team's logical response to these problems, giving thought to the nature of the urban structure that would permit growth and change. His Tokyo Plan received enormous attention world-wide, for its new concepts of extending the growth of the city out over the bay, using bridges, man made islands, floating parking and megastructures.

Other urban design and planning projects were begun in 1967 for the Fiera District of Bologna, Italy, and for a new town with residences for 60,000 in Catania, Italy. With all of his activity in Italy, it is not surprising that Olivetti retained him to design their Japanese headquarters.