Yi Ku

Korean prince, also named in English as Yi Gu, who was head of the House of Yi from 1970 until 2005. He was a grandson of Emperor Gojong of the Joseon dynasty. He was born in Kitashirakawa Palace (which is currently the Akasaka Prince Classic House, formerly part of the Akasaka Prince Hotel), Kioicho, Kojimachiku, Tokyo, Japan; his parents were Crown Prince Yi Un of Korea and Yi Bangja. Ku attended the Gakushuin Peers School in Tokyo. He later attended Centre College, Danville, Kentucky and studied architecture at Massachusetts Institute of Technology both in the USA. He was employed as an architect with I.M. Pei & Assocs, Manhattan, New York from 1959 to 1964. Made stateless by Japan in 1947, Ku acquired United States citizenship in 1959 and Korean citizenship in 1964. He married Julia Mullock (b. 1927) on 25 October 1959 at St Georges Church in New York and they adopted a daughter, Eugenia Unsuk. After the fall of Syngman Rhee, he returned to Korea in 1963 with the help of the new president Park Chung-hee, moving into the new building in Nakseon 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. When that went bankrupt in 1979, he went to Japan to earn money. In 1982, his family forced him to divorce his wife because she was sterile; his mother died in 1989. He started living with a Japanese astrologer, Mrs. Arita. In November 1996, he decided to reside permanently in Korea. Restlessly going back and forth between Japan and Korea, he eventually died of a heart attack, at the age of 73, on 16 July 2005 at the Akasaka Prince Hotel, the former residence of his parents in Tokyo, Japan. Link to Wikipedia biography Read less