Arie Kutz

Arie Kutz was born in 1953 in Israel

Arie Kutz was born in Israel on 9 March 1953. He attended the Ohel Shem municipal high school in Ramat Gan.

After his military service he studied architecture at the Technion and finished a bachelor's degree in 1979. From 1981 to 1984 he studied in Japan on a Japanese government scholarship. He earned a master's degree at the Tokyo Institute of Technology, with a thesis on the approach to the traditional Japanese house.

He worked at the firm Yaski-Gil-Sivan in 1975-1981 and 1984-1988, and helped design HaSharon Mall in Netanya. In 1988 he founded Nir-Kutz Architects with architect Roni Nir. From 1991 to 1997 he served on the central planning team of Tel Aviv.

In 1997 he founded the urban planning company Planners' Cell, and in 1999 a landscape studio with Paul Friedberg and Dorit Shahar. In 2003 he became head of the team for renewing central Jerusalem, and prepared a master plan for Mea Shearim. His firm won a 2011 competition for a new Check Point wing with plant-covered walls, completed in 2018.

Since 1985 he has led study tours of Japan for Israeli architects, and he teaches East Asian studies at Tel Aviv University. In 2016 Japan awarded him the Order of the Rising Sun.