Taniguchi is the boy of designer Yoshirō Taniguchi (1904-1979). He exposed engineering at Keio University, graduating in 1960, and exposed architecture at Harvard University's Graduate School of Design, graduating around 1964. He worked briefly for designer Walter Gropius, who became an significant influence.

From either 1964 to 1972, Taniguchi worked for the studio of architect Kenzo Tange, who was mayhap a first Japanese modernist designer, at Tokyo University. Significant late collaborators include Isamu Noguchi, American landscape architect Peter Walker, and creative person Genichiro Inokuma. Taniguchi is better known for designing a total of Japanese museums, including the Nagano Prefectural Museum, the Marugame Genichiro-Inokuma Museum of Contemporary Art, the Toyota Municipal Museum of Art, and a Gallery of the Horyuji Treasures at the Tokyo National Museum.

Taniguchi won the competition around 1997 to redesign the Museum of Modern Art, beating out x more internationally famed designer, including Rem Koolhaas, Bernard Tschumi, and Jacques Herzog and Pierre de Meuron. A MoMa commission was Taniguchi's foremost act outside Japan.