Architect Fumihiko Maki was born in Tokyo on September 6, 1928. He attended Keio University from kindergarten through high school. However, he dropped out to study architecture. He enrolled in the Department of Architecture at the University of Tokyo's Faculty of Engineering, graduating in 1952. He then completed master's programs at Cranbrook School of Art and Harvard University Graduate School. From 1954, he worked for Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, Sert Jackson Architects, and the University of Washington Campus Planning Office. He also served as an associate professor of urban design at the University of Washington and Harvard. Returning to Japan in 1965, he founded Maki and Associates. While maintaining an office of 45 architects, he served as a professor at the University of Tokyo until 1989. He continues to lecture in Japan, the United States, and Europe. His major architectural works include the Keio University Hiyoshi Campus Library, Daikanyama Hillside Terrace, Aoyama Spiral, Makuhari Messe, and the TV Asahi Headquarters Building. Maki's work has received high praise both in Japan and abroad. In 1993 he received the Pritzker Architecture Prize, the highest honor for architects, and in 2011 he received the Gold Medal from the American Institute of Architects (AIA). He has also been selected as the designer for 4 World Trade Center, a skyscraper currently under construction on the site of the former World Trade Center (also known as the World Trade Building), and is currently working on the project. It is scheduled for completion in 2013.