TOKYO – Japanese architect Toyo Ito has been named the 2013 Laureate and Pritzker Architecture Prize winner at the age of 71. The prize is considered architecture’s “Nobel” and is given each year to a living architect who demonstrates talent, vision, and commitment consistently, while providing “significant contributions to humanity and the environment through the art of architecture.”

A ceremony will be held in Boston in May where he will receive a prize of $100,000.

Judges included Chair Lord Peter Palumbo, who has overseen the jury since 2004, Chilean architect Alejandro Aravena and U.S. supreme court justice Stephen Breyer, who praised Ito for the "quality of both public and private spaces."

Over the years Ito’s works have included the Municipal Museum in Kumamoto, Japan (2002), Sendai Mediatheque in Sendai (2001), the Main Stadium for The World Games in Kaohsiung, Taiwan (2009), and London's Serpentine Gallery Pavilion (2002).

Ito is not the first Japanese architect to win the prize. Compatriot Tadao Ando won the award in 1995, while Kenzo Tange, Fumihiko Maki, Kazuyo Sejima and Ryue Nishizawa have also been awarded the prestigious accolade.

Amongst his works, the “Tower of Winds” (1986) in Yokohama showcased Ito’s style in direct contrast to Ando, at a time when Japan was being seen as the most technologically advanced nation in the world.

Ito used metaphorical themes, transparent materials and modern technology to illuminate his building at the front of Yokohama bus station. Working with an old water tower, he used acrylic mirrors and perforated aluminum to reflect the sky by day, and an electronic system that detects wind and could translate it into colors and light, most visible at night.

Ito’s “White O” residence in Marbella, Chile (2009) was his first project in South America, a single-story contemporary home constructed on a hillside that spirals upwards around an enclosed garden.

Judge Aravena commented; "his buildings are complex, yet his high degree of synthesis means that his works attain a level of calmness.”

The humble Ito though has publicly downplayed his own designs, saying; "I will never fix my architectural style, and never be satisfied with my works."

He also told the Associated Press that "architects have made architecture too complex [and need to] be more open to nature."

Notable past winners include Canadian-American Frank Gehry whose works have become tourist attractions in their own right, Chinese-American master of modern architecture I.M. Pei, and Italian Renzo Piano, named by TIME magazine as one of the most influential people in the world in 2006.

The Pritzker Architecture Prize, sponsored by the Hyatt Foundation, began in 1979 and is named after the Pritzker family, one of America’s richest families and owners of the Hyatt hotel chain. The family, based in Chicago have also established the Pritzker School of Medicine, and Pritzker Military Library in their home city.