*Markus Dochantschi, Idenburg and Kulapat Yantrasast are the rising young architects…

Mr. Dochantschi has  practiced with Ms. Hadid, Mr. Idenburg has practiced with Ms. Sejima and Mr. Nishizawa,  Kulapat Yantrasast, who was born in Thailand, worked for seven years for the Japanese master Tadao Ando and then moved to Los Angeles in 2003. He has already designed one American museum from the ground up and has several other museum buildings in the works.

The rise of the young architects is good news for the industry, which is in a deep recession — so deep that even star architects aren’t in a position to give work to their former employees. The protégés accept that. Asked about Mr. Ando, Mr. Yantrasast said, like a loyal son, “No one ever handed him anything, and he wants me to learn the same lesson.”

The dance of young architect and mentor is a tricky one, and may involve hurt feelings on one or both sides. “Kulapast Yantrasast apprenticed in Japan. He moved from Thailand to Tokyo to pursue a Ph.D. in architecture. But after hearing Mr. Ando lecture, he followed him to Osaka, in 1996, where he worked on Mr. Ando’s competition entry for the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth. When Mr. Ando won the competition, he asked Mr. Yantrasast to stick around, and soon he was something of a surrogate son to the childless Mr. Ando and his wife, Yumiko. Mr. Yantrasast left the firm to move to Los Angeles in 2003; he speaks flawless English and is building himself a house with a pool in the Venice neighborhood. When the trustees of the Grand Rapids Art Museum in Michigan were looking for an architect for their new building, they wanted someone up and coming — and chose not Mr. Ando but his protégé.

The Grand Rapids building not only contained a number of green features but was a stunning piece of architecture reminiscent of Mr. Ando’s best work. Mr. Yantrasast, however, sees it as more open than Mr. Ando’s buildings. “The Japanese sensibility,” he said, “is about tension, control and discipline. Thai people love the openness of things.” He said he had unconsciously incorporated that openness into his architecture.

His wHY Architecture now has museum commissions in Tyler, Tex., and Louisville, Ky., and is renovating several galleries at the Art Institute of Chicago, which is known for its exacting standards. Mr. Yantrasast attributes his success, with a modesty that may reflect the years he spent in Japan, to luck. Meanwhile he still acts as the eyes and ears for Mr. Ando in the United States and says he hopes to help his mentor land a job in a major American city. “Frank Lloyd Wright without the Guggenheim would not be the Frank Lloyd Wright we know,” he said, explaining his desire to find a career-capping commission for Mr. Ando.

*This text is a summary of New York Times’s Leaving the Nest, Proteges Article

Art and Architecture: Old Masters at the Pulitzer
Scholar Symposium at The Pulitzer Foundation for the Arts
May 31 – June 1, 2009

Kulapat Yantrasast from The Pulitzer on Vimeo.

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