Yi Ku

Yi Ku was a Korean prince who was the head of the House of Yi from 1970 until 2005. He was a grandson of Emperor Gojong of the Joseon dynasty. Through Kuni Asahiko, Ku was a second-cousin to Emperor Emeritus Akihito of Japan. He was born in Tokyo, Japan, in 1931, when Korea was under Japanese colonial rule. His father, the Crown Prince Yi Un, was brought to Japan in 1907 and forced to marry a Japanese princess, Masako Nashimoto (also known by the Korean name, Yi Bangja), in 1920. Ku attended the Gakushuin Peers' School in Tokyo and later studied architecture at Centre College, Danville, Kentucky and Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the U.S. He worked as an architect with I.M. Pei & Associates in New York from 1959 to 1964. He acquired U.S. citizenship in 1959 and South Korean citizenship in 1964. He married Julia Mullock in 1959 and adopted a daughter, Eugenia Unsuk, but divorced in 1982. He returned to Korea in 1963 with the help of President Park Chung Hee and moved into the New Building of Nakseonjae hall, Changdeok Palace with his mother and wife. He lectured on architecture at Seoul National University and Yonsei University and also managed his own airline, Shinhan. He designed several buildings in Japan and Korea, such as the Sejong Center for the Performing Arts, the National Museum of Korea, and the Korean Cultural Center in Tokyo. He was the last official crown prince of the Korean royal family and was considered a symbol of Korean-Japanese reconciliation. He died of a heart attack at the age of 75 in 2005 at the Akasaka Prince Hotel, the former residence of his parents in Tokyo, Japan. His funeral was held on July 24, 2005, and his posthumous title was decided as "Prince Imperial Hoeun" by the Jeonju Lee Royal Family Association. He was buried in Hongryureung, the royal tomb of his father and grandfather, in Namyangju, Gyeonggi Province.