RSHP

Tokyo Forum

Project Partners
Graham Stirk

Project Partners
Graham Stirk

Job Sheets
English
Français

Job Sheets
English
Français

Date
1990 - Competition

Client
Mitsubishi Estate Co., Ltd

Location
Tokyo, Japan

Overview

The Tokyo Forum competition entry produced ‘an urban people’s meeting place’ which could have been one of the practice’s greatest buildings. The competition called for a huge cultural and conference centre, with auditoria and exhibition space in the commercial heart of Tokyo, close to the Imperial Palace.

The proposal aimed to distill a complex brief within a simple enclosure. The controlled, introverted environment typically required for auditoria was placed within three great airborne, flexible containers – shining steel shells providing super-graphic legibility to the served spaces. The sculpted ground mass provides the forum for a vibrant public realm made up of three linked piazzas, partially sheltered by the overhead auditoria, which accommodate exhibition spaces, cafés, restaurants, information centres, studios and shops in one animated, continuous urban landscape. Great glazed escalators take people through the open space between the piazzas and up to the suspended auditoria and roof-level gardens. The entire scheme was conceived as a continuous public realm through which people could move horizontally, vertically and diagonally.

The practice wanted to recapture the spirit of the Centre Pompidou, but with a new radicalism of expression and sheer structural daring, appropriate to the dynamic life of Tokyo. The very concept of a ‘building’ is challenged. The main spaces are suspended in a huge steel frame, like giant pieces of sculpture (the largest auditorium could accommodate up to 10,000 people), with services and means of circulation slotted between them. The space underneath is a focus for public life, a precious commodity in a famously crowded city.

Data

Team
Laurie Abbott, Peter Angrave, Mike Davies, Fiona Galbraith, Marco Goldschmeid, Jackie Hands, Shabab Kasmai-Tehran, Hiroshi Kawana, Avtar Lotay, Michael McNamara, Mark Newton, Richard Rogers, Masaaki Sekiya, Stephen Spence, Graham Stirk, Benjamin Warner, John Young

Project Partners
Graham Stirk

 

Job Sheets
English

Project Partners
Graham Stirk

 

Job Sheets
English

Location Map - Tokyo Forum

Date
1990 - Competition

Location
Tokyo, Japan

Structural Engineer
Ove Arup & Partners

Services Engineer
Ove Arup & Partners

Acoustic Consultant
Arup Acoustic

Data

Team
Laurie Abbott, Peter Angrave, Mike Davies, Fiona Galbraith, Marco Goldschmeid, Jackie Hands, Shabab Kasmai-Tehran, Hiroshi Kawana, Avtar Lotay, Michael McNamara, Mark Newton, Richard Rogers, Masaaki Sekiya, Stephen Spence, Graham Stirk, Benjamin Warner, John Young

Date
1990 - Competition

Location
Tokyo, Japan


Structural Engineer
Ove Arup & Partners

Services Engineer
Ove Arup & Partners

Acoustic Consultant
Arup Acoustic

Project Partners
Graham Stirk

 

Job Sheets
English

Location Map - Tokyo Forum

Project Partners
Graham Stirk

 

Job Sheets
English

Location Map - Tokyo Forum