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Japan’s Order of Culture: Toyo Ito, Motoko Ishii and Shigeru Miyamoto

Japan’s Order of Culture 2026 goes to the architect Toyo Ito, the lighting designer Motoko Ishii and Shigeru Miyamoto of Nintendo, the first recipient from video games. The honours were presented at the Imperial Palace on 3 November.

Eva Winterer

Japan has conferred its Order of Culture on eight people, among them the architect Toyo Ito, the lighting designer Motoko Ishii and Shigeru Miyamoto of Nintendo. The honours were presented at the Imperial Palace in Tokyo on 3 November, Culture Day. The education ministry lists Ishii under “design (lighting)” and Miyamoto under “media arts (games)”, which makes him the first recipient from the video game industry. The other five are the scientists Tsuneyoshi Kuroiwa, Kenso Soai and Shigekazu Nagata, the scholar Tetsuya Shiokawa and the composer Shunichi Tokura.

● In brief

Light. Ishii, 88, founded her studio in Tokyo in 1968 after working in Finland and Germany. She lit Tokyo Tower in 1989 and the Rainbow Bridge, and abroad the Elisabeth Bridge in Budapest.

Architecture. Ito, 85, received the Pritzker Prize in 2013. His buildings include the Sendai Mediatheque and the Tama Art University Library, and after the 2011 tsunami he built Home-for-All shelters for survivors. He is the first architect to receive the Order since Tadao Ando in 2010.

Games. Miyamoto, 73, created Mario and The Legend of Zelda. In 2019 he became the first person from games to be named a Person of Cultural Merit.

Fashion and craft. Earlier recipients include Hanae Mori in 1996, Issey Miyake in 2010 and Junko Koshino in 2025, as well as the potter Shōji Hamada and the lacquer artist Gonroku Matsuda.

Tokyo Tower glowing gold at dusk above the city, in the lighting Motoko Ishii designed in 1989; Ishii receives Japan’s Order of Culture 2026
Tokyo Tower in the lighting Motoko Ishii designed in 1989. Courtesy of Motoko Ishii Lighting Design

● Why it matters

The state is widening what it counts as culture. The same announcement names the anime director Rintaro a Person of Cultural Merit, and the government aims to raise overseas sales of Japanese content to ¥20tn by 2033, from about ¥5.8tn in 2023.

Design now stands beside science and music. Ito’s buildings, from the Sendai Mediatheque to the shelters for tsunami survivors, belong to the architecture of well living, and Ishii’s light shapes how millions see Tokyo at night.

Craft waits for its turn. None of the 21 new Persons of Cultural Merit this year comes from the traditional crafts. The next list follows in October 2027.

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