Money Rules Architecture

Japan Sport Council disclosed two designs for new national stadium for Tokyo Olympic in 2020. Both drafts had common concepts, which was drawn by Japanese designer, which cost was cheaper than former one designed by a foreign designer and which concept was based on woody structure. Caused by steep growth in raw material for construction, the central facility for Olympic games will be looking boring. One can question: Did we really need to replace old national stadium?

As a conclusion of international competition, JSC in 2012 chose an outlandish design by Zaha Hadid, who had been dubbed as Queen of the Curve. While JSC initially estimated the cost for construction as ¥130 billion, it proved to be costing ¥353 billion after detailed calculation. In November 2013, JSC revised the plan with smaller floor limiting the cost as low as ¥178 billion, the estimation again hiked up to ¥252, because of inappropriate prospect on price of resources. Hadid plan was finally turned down.

New plan A will cost ¥149 billion. The building is 49 meters high, quite lower than 70 meters of Hadid plan, with three layers stand and roof made by mixture of steel and wood. According to Mainichi Shimbun, team A consisted with Japanese designer, Kengo Kuma, architect company, Azusa Sekkei, and joint developers led by Taisei Corporation. The concept was named Stadium in the Forest.

The cost of new plan B will be ¥150 billion, ¥0.1 billion higher than plan A. The height of the building is 54 meters. Its stand has two-layered structure and the roof has wavy look. The greatest uniqueness can see in 72 wooden pillars surrounding the stadium. The joint venture by major Japanese general construction corporation of Takenaka, Shimizu and Obayashi established team B with designer, Toyoo Ito, and architect, Nihon Sekkei. Its concept strictly matched with plan A, which was Stadium in the Forest.

One thing clear: both plans are definitely not international. JSC seemed not to have realized difficulty of implementing designs by Hadid at the beginning. The preparation team also faced sharp international criticisms in the plagiarism scandal over official logo of Tokyo Olympic. Japan got back to the basic of simple and sturdy, less personal and cheap is best.

Nevertheless, the leadership is unworthy designated efforts to recover failure in designing. President of Tokyo Olympic Organization Committee, former Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori revealed his preference to one of the two plans before selecting process. “Watching exterior, plan B is better. That has typical image of sports. It looks like pavilion of ancient Greece,” told Mori to the reporters. “Plan A has no brightness of having Olympic games,” he added. In Japan, someone always pull the legs of frontrunner.