Famed architect Minoru Yamasaki was born on December 1, 1912, in Seattle. His parents, John T. and Hana Yamasaki, had emigrated from Japan and barely made ends meet working as, respectively, a purchasing agent and pianist. The family lived in Seattle’s Yesler neighborhood and Yamasaki attended Garfield High School, graduating in 1929.

Inspired to follow a career in architecture after a visit from his uncle, Koken Ito, who was an architect, Yamasaki enrolled at the University of Washington, and graduated with a Bachelor’s degree in architecture in the summer of 1934. Like many under-privileged students, to afford tuition he spent the summers working; for Yamasaki, it was five years in Alaska Canneries.

Upon graduation Yamasaki left Seattle to seek a position with an architectural firm in New York City. However, the Depression made it impossible for him to find work, and instead he enrolled in the graduate program at New York University where he obtained a master’s degree in architecture (1935-36). As a student in 1936 he won the prestigious Paris Prize for an architectural scholarship to the Ecole in Paris, the first University of Washington graduate to do so. However due to political events around the globe, he did not attend the school.

While in New York he worked for a variety of architectural firms gaining practical experience and important connections. Among the firms were Morton & Keally (1935-1938); Irwin Glavan (Oct 1938 – Sept 1941); Shreve, Lamb & Harmon (Oct 1941 – Dec 1943); Harrison & Fouilhoux; (Jan 1944 – Nov 1944); and Raymond Loewy Associates (Nov 1944 – Nov 1945). On the side he became a part-time instructor of design at Columbia University (1944-45).

After his graduate work, he married Teruko Hirashiki in 1941. Together the couple later had three children: Carol, Kim, and Taro (who would go on to become a Pulitzer Prize-winning photographer at the Detroit Free Press). Since they were on the East Coast during World War II, the family was spared the forced internment of Japanese Americans on the West Coast. Yamasaki’s parents, who were still in Seattle at the time, joined the family in their two-room New York City apartment. Although many architects were out of work during the war, Yamasaki weathered the industry-wide slowdown as a draftsman. During the war years he became a strong activist for the fair treatment of Japanese Americans. As chairman of the “Resettlement Council of Japanese American Organizations in New York City,” he fought to build a hostel for Japanese Americans who fled to the city in order to escape internment on the West Coast. Because the proposed location was only a mile from the Brooklyn Naval Yard, the project met with prejudice and opposition; however, the building was eventually constructed. During this period, Yamasaki also served as a representative of the “Art Council of Japanese Americans for Democracy.”

Recognizing his talent, in 1945, Yamasaki was recruited to become the chief of design at the firm of Smith, Hinchman & Gryllis in Detroit (1945-1949). After moving to the city, he discovered that as a Japanese American, restrictive covenants prevented him from renting or buying property in many desirable metro Detroit communities. Instead, the family settled on a 7.5-acre farmstead in Troy, where they remained for the next 25 years.

He soon found that the six hundred-man architectural firm did not afford him enough creative freedom to work directly with clients. In 1949 he and two of his colleagues, Joseph W. Leinweber and George Hellmuth, left the company and decided to form their own firm – Hellmuth, Yamasaki & Leinweber. The three men opened offices in Detroit and St. Louis, Missouri. Notable projects included the award-winning Lambert-St. Louis Airport terminal (1956), and the controversial Pruitt-Igoe public housing project (1954).

Unfortunately, the constant travel between St. Louis and Detroit and the stress of working in two locations took its toll on Yamasaki. In 1954, a near-fatal bout with stomach cancer led him to convalesce and travel less. It was decided to split the firm into two, with Yamasaki and Leinweber taking over the Detroit office. That partnership soon dissolved and Yamasaki decided to open his own firm in 1959. Based in Birmingham, Michigan, the office was later moved closer to Detroit, into Royal Oak, a suburb of the city.

For the next 20 years, Yamasaki and his firm turned out an exhausting number of buildings. His notable designs includes: Wayne State University’s McGregor Memorial Conference Center in Detroit (1958); Reynolds Metals Regional Sales Office in Southfield, Michigan (1959); Wayne State University’s College of Education building in Detroit (1960); Dhahran Air Terminal in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia (1961); Michigan Consolidated Gas Company (today known as One Woodward) in Detroit (1963); North Shore Congregation Israel in Glencoe, Illinois (1964); Wayne State University’s Prentis Hall and DeRoy Auditorium in Detroit (1964); and Century Plaza Hotel in Los Angeles (1975). However, he is best known as the chief architect of the World Trade Center in New York City (1972 & 1977), at the time, the tallest office buildings in the world.

Despite being from Seattle,  his commissions in the Pacific Northwest are limited to a handful of buildings. However he maintained a strong connection to Washington state. His first reconnection to the state came in 1956 when he was asked by State Superintendent Pearl Wanamaker to be the featured speaker at the Fifth Annual School Building Conference held in Yakima. Then in 1957 he was then selected to serve on the Designs Standards Committee for the planned Century 21 Exposition (1962 Seattle World’s Fair). While there he pushed for the idea that the fairgrounds should become a civic cultural center after the exposition was over. A year later he was appointed to a five-man architectural commission at the University of Washington to study the style and development pattern of the campus and its buildings. Well respected across the U.S., despite not having a single project by him built in the state, the University of Washington honored his work with its “Most Distinguished Alumnus” award in 1960.

That same year his design for the United States Science Pavilion at the forthcoming Century 21 Exposition was released. As a proposal, it was already bringing national accolades as a virtual cathedral of science rendered in simplified, white, concrete Gothic arches, with strong vertical elements, a serene courtyard, and numerous fountains.

This was followed in Seattle by his first high-rise in the city, the IBM Office Building (1964). Featured twice in Architectural Record (December 1963 and February 1965), the office building was touted as a new breed of high-rise, significant for the reappearance of bearing wall skyscrapers. Upon completion, the project garnered the “best design and engineering” in the 1964 Design in Steel Awards program sponsored by the American Iron & Steel Institute.

In 1966, Yamasaki was asked to submit a proposal for a new $5 million Law Center at the University of Washington, but it was never built. Instead the University’s development branch, UNICO properties, asked Yamasaki to design an office tower (1977). Touted as a “people-oriented” shopping, restaurant, and park complex, the Rainier Tower’s unusual design and location brought controversy. Some were angry at the proposed demolition of the 1910 White-Henry-Stuart Building to accommodate the new building. Others saw Yamaski’s design for the building, which had a tapered 11-story high pedestal, as a scar on the architectural fabric of the city. The New York Times noted that the building was “not visually pleasing or even amusing.” Local architect, and former Yamasaki employee Victor Steinbrueck, called the building “one of the most significant disasters in the modern American city.”

However, Yamasaki’s reputation in the state endured. Upon publishing his autobiographical book, A Life in Architecture in 1979, Washington State Governor Dixy Lee Ray awarded him the Governor’s Writers’ Day Award for outstanding books in 1980. He was also named to the State Hall of Honor in 1983 by the Washington State Historical Society as part of an effort to honor 100 of the most influential Washingtonians at part of the state’s centennial celebration.

Back in 1963, Yamasaki was at the peak of his career, after his firm had received the commission for the World Trade Center in New York City, and his highly touted Science Pavilion at the Century 21 Expo had been completed. This landed him on the cover of Time magazine, which included a ten-page article (January 18, 1963). To this day, Yamasaki is one of only a dozen architects to receive this distinction.

In a career spanning three decades, Yamasaki and his Michigan-based firm designed over 250 buildings throughout the United States and internationally. His career ended with his death from stomach cancer on February 7, 1986, at age 73. His firm, Yamasaki & Associates carried on with the help of his son, Kim, until December 31, 2010, when unpaid debts forced the firm to shutter its doors.