Along with fashion designer and friend Issey Miyake, architects Arata Isozaki and Tadao Ando, and film-maker Akira Kurosawa, Kuramata belonged to the remarkable generation of talented young Japanese who transformed the way that Japan was viewed by the world. All of them were born just before the outbreak of the second world war and grew up under the grip of an authoritarian militarist dictatorship that demanded obedience and conformity.