Kenzo Tange
Encyclopedia
was a Japanese
architect
, and winner of the 1987 Pritzker Prize
for architecture
. He was one of the most significant architects of the 20th century, combining traditional Japanese styles with modernism
, and designed major buildings on five continents. Tange was also an influential protagonist of the structuralist
movement. He said: "It was, I believe, around 1959 or at the beginning of the sixties that I began to think about what I was later to call structuralism", (cited in Plan 2/1982, Amsterdam).
Influenced from an early age by the Swiss modernist, Le Corbusier
, Tange gained international recognition in 1949 when he won the competition for the design of Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park
. Joining the group of architects known as Team X in the late 1950s he steered the group towards the movement that became Metabolism
.
His university studies on urbanism put him in an ideal position to handle redevelopment projects after the Second World War. His ideas were explored in designs for Tokyo and Skopje
. Tange's work influenced a generation of architects across the world.
, Japan, Tange spent his early life in the Chinese cities of Hankow and Shanghai
; he and his family returned to Japan after learning of the death of one of his uncles. In contrast to the green lawns and red bricks in their Shanghai abode, the Tange family took up residence in a thatched roof farmhouse in Imabari on the island of Shikoku
.
After finishing middle school, Tange moved to Hiroshima
in 1930 to attend high school. It was here that he first encountered the works of Swiss modernist, Le Corbusier
. His discovery of the drawings of the Palace of the Soviets in a foreign art journal convinced him to become an architect. Although he graduated from high school, Tange's poor results in mathematics and physics meant that he had to pass entrance exams to qualify for admission to the prestigious universities. He spent two years doing so and during that time, he read extensively about western philosophy. Tange also enrolled in the film division at Nihon University
's art department to dodge Japan's drafting of young men to its military and seldom attended classes.
In 1935 Tange began the tertiary studies he desired at University of Tokyo
's architecture department. He studied under Hideto Kishida and Shozo Uchida. Although Tange was fascinated by the photographs of Katsura villa that sat on Kishida's desk, his work was inspired by Le Corbusier. His graduation project was a seventeen-hectare
development set in Tokyo's Hibiya Park
.
. During his employment, he travelled to Manchuria
, participating in an architectural design competition
for a bank, and toured Japanese-occupied Jehol
on his return. When the Second World War started, he left Maekawa to rejoin the University of Tokyo as a postgraduate student. He developed an interest in urban design, and referencing only the resources available in the university library, he embarked on a study of Greek and Roman marketplaces. In 1942, Tange entered a competition for the design of the Greater East Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere Memorial Hall. He was awarded first prize for a design that would have been situated at the base of Mount Fuji
; the hall he conceived was a fusion of Shinto
shrine architecture and the plaza on Capitoline Hill
in Rome
. The design was not realised.
In 1946, Tange became an assistant professor at the university and opened Tange Laboratory. In 1963, he was promoted to professor of the Department of Urban Engineering. His students included Sachio Otani
, Kisho Kurokawa, Arata Isozaki
, and Fumihiko Maki
.
was accepted and built, but a seaside park in Ujina was not.
The Hiroshima authorities took a lot of advice about the city's reconstruction from foreign consultants and in 1947 Tam Deling, an American park planner, suggested to build a Peace Memorial and to preserve buildings situated near ground zero
(directly below the explosion of the atomic bomb). In 1949 the authorities enacted the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Reconstruction Act, which gave the city access to special grant aid, and in August that year, an international competition was announced for the design of the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park.
Tange was awarded first prize for a design that proposed a museum whose axis runs through the park, intersecting Peace Boulevard
and the atomic bomb dome. The building is raised on massive piloti
(columns), which frame the views along the structure's axis.
In the initial design the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum
was dominated by adjoining utility buildings, which were linked to it by high-level walkways. Tange refined this concept to place the museum prominently at the centre, separate from the utility buildings (only one of which was subsequently designed by him). In addition to architectural symbolism, he thought it important for the design to centre around the building that houses the information about the atomic explosion.
The museum is constructed from bare reinforced concrete. The primary museum floor is lifted six metres above the ground on huge piloti and is accessible via a free standing staircase. The rhythmical facade comprises vertical elements that repeat outwards from the centre. Like the exterior, the interior is finished with rough concrete; the idea was to keep the surfaces plain so that nothing could distract the visitor from the contents of the exhibits.
The Peace Plaza is the backdrop for the museum. The plaza was designed to allow 50,000 people to gather around the peace monument in the centre. Tange also designed the monument as an arch composed of two hyperbolic paraboloids, said to be based on traditional Japanese ceremonial tombs from the Kofun Period
.
and it seemed to symbolise a new start in Japanese architecture. In 1961 when Tange and Kawazoe published the book Ise: Prototype of Japanese Architecture, he likened the building to a modernist structure: an honest expression of materials, a functional design and prefabricated elements.
in Nara
. The columns on the elevation bore only vertical loads so Tange was able to design them to be thin, maximising the surfaces for glazing. Although the hall has been called one of his finest projects, it drew criticism at the time of its construction for relying too heavily on tradition.
mat, with the largest rooms designed to have flexibility so that they can be separated into three smaller rooms by fusuma
sliding doors. The facade is designed with a rhythmic pattern; it comprises two types of facade designs ("a" and "b") that are ordered laterally in an a-b-a-a-b-a arrangement. The house is topped with a two-tier roof. Kazuo Shinohara's
1954 house at Kugayama
is remarkably similar in its design, although it is built with steel and has a simpler rhythm in its facade.
style houses.
Set in an open square, the building sits on massive columns that taper inwards as they rise. The elevation consists of horizontal planks (some of which are omitted to create windows) which overlap at the corners in a "log cabin" effect. The entrance is covered with a heavy projecting concrete canopy which leads to a monumental entrance hall. The stair to this hall ascends in cantilevered straight flights to the left and right. The walls to this interior are bare shuttered concrete punctured by windows reminiscent of Le Corbusier's La Tourette. The Council Chamber is a separate building whose raked roof has seating on top of it to form an external performance space.
is situated in an open area in Yoyogi Park
on an adjacent axis to the Meiji Shrine
. The gymnasium and swimming pool were designed by Tange for the 1964 Tokyo Olympics
, which were the first Olympics held in Asia. Tange began his designs in 1961 and the plans were approved by the Ministry of Education in January 1963. The buildings were placed to optimise space available for parking and to permit the smoothest transition of incoming and outgoing people.
Inspired by the skyline of the Colosseum
in Rome
, the roofs have a skin suspended from two masts. The buildings were inspired by Le Corbusier's Philips pavilion designed for Brussel's World Fair and Yale University's hockey stadium, which was designed by Eero Saarinen
(both structures completed in 1958). The roof of the Philips pavilion was created by complex hyperbolic paraboloid surfaces stretched between cables. In both cases Tange took Western ideas and adapted them to meet Japanese requirements.
The gymnasium has a capacity of approximately 16,000 and the smaller building can accommodate up 5,300 depending on the events that are taking place. At the time it was built, the gymnasium had the world's largest suspended roof span. Two reinforced concrete pillars support a prestressed steel net onto which steel plates are attached. The bottom anchoring of this steel net is a heavy concrete support system which forms a distinct curve on the interior and exterior of the building. In the interior, this structural anchor is used to support the grandstand seats. The overall curvature of the roof helps protect the building from the damaging effects of strong winds.
Tange won a Pritzker Prize
for the design; the citation described the gynasium as "among the most beautiful buildings of the 20th century".
decided that Japan should host the 1970 Exposition
. 330 hectares of land in the Senri Hills near Osaka
were put aside for its use. Tange and Uzo Nishiyama were appointed as planners for the masterplan by the Theme Committee. Tange assembled a group of twelve architects to design the infrastructure and facilities for the Expo.
At the centre of the Expo was the Festival Plaza. Tange conceived that this plaza (with its oversailing space frame roof) would connect the display spaces and create a setting for a "festival". The plaza divided the site into a northern zone for pavilions and a southern zone for administration facilities. The zones were interconnected with moving pathways.
(CIAM). Founded in 1928 this organization of planners and architects had initially promoted architecture in economic and social context, but at its fourth meeting in 1933 (under the direction of Le Corbusier) it debated the notion of the "Functional City". This led to a series of proposals on urban planning known as "The Athens Charter
". By the 1951 CIAM meeting that was held in Hoddesdon
, England, to which Tange was invited, the Athens Charter came under debate by younger members of the group (including Tange) who found the Charter too vague in relation to city expansion. The "Athens Charter" promoted the idea that a city gains character from its continual changes over many years; this notion was written before the advent of mass bombings and the Second World War and therefore held little meaning for Tange who had evidenced the destruction of Hiroshima. The discussions at Hoddesdon sowed discontent within CIAM that eventually contributed to its breakup after their Dubrovnik
meeting in 1956; the younger members of CIAM formed a splinter group known as Team X, which Tange later joined. Tange presented various designs to Team X in their meetings. At a 1959 meeting in Otterlo
, Holland, one of his presentations included an unrealised project by Kiyonori Kikutake
; this project became the basis of the Metabolist Movement
.
When Tange travelled back to Japan from the 1951 CIAM meeting, he visited Le Corbusier's nearly complete Unité d'Habitation
in Marseilles, France. He also looked at the sketches for the new capital of Punjab
at Chandigarh
, India.
Tange had left the Team X Otterlo conference early to take up a tenure at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. His experiences at the conference may have led him to set his fifth year students a project to design a 25,000-person residential community to be erected in Boston over the bay. The scheme comprised two giant A-frame structures that resembled Tange's competition entry for the World Health Organisation's headquarters on Lake Geneva
. Both this scheme and the earlier ones by Kikutake formed the basis of Tange's speech to the Tokyo World Design Conference in 1960. In his speech he used words such as "cell" and "metabolism" in relation to urban design. The Metabolist movement grew out of discussions with other members of the conference. Amongst them were Kisho Kurokawa, Junzo Sakakura
, Alison and Peter Smithson
, Louis Kahn
, Jean Prouvé
, B. V. Doshi
and Jacob Bakema
. The conference ended with Tange's presentation of the Boston plan and his own scheme, "The Tokyo Plan – 1960".
Tange argued that the normal urban pattern of a radial centripetal transportation system was a relic of the Middle Ages and would not handle the strain placed upon it by the world's mega cities, which he qualified as those with populations greater than 10 million. Rather than building up a city from a civic centre, Tange's proposal was based on civic axis, developing the city in a linear fashion. Three levels of traffic, graded according to speed, would facilitate the movement of up to 2.5 million people along the axis, which would be divided into vertebrae-like cyclical transportation elements. The sheer size of the proposal meant that it would stretch out across the water of Tokyo Bay. Tange's proposals at this conference play a large part in establishing his reputation as "The West's favourite Japanese architect".
In 1965 Tange was asked by the United Nations
to enter a limited competition for the redevelopment of Skopje
, which was at that time a city of Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia
. The town had been heavily destroyed by an earthquake in 1963. Tange won 60% of the prize; the other 40% was awarded to the Yugoslav team. Tange's design furthered ideas put forward in the earlier "Tokyo Plan".
Tange further developed his ideas for expandable urban forms in 1966 when he designed the Yamanashi Broadcasting and Press Centre in Kōfu
. It was designed for three media companies: a newspaper printing plant, a radio station and a television studio. To allow for future expansion Tange grouped the similar functions of three offices together in three zones. The newspaper printing machinery was on the ground floor, sealed studios on the upper floors and offices on glass walled floors surrounded by balconies. The services, including stairs and lifts, are housed in 16 reinforced concrete columns that are of five-metre diameter. Space was left between the cluster of functional space to allow for future expansion, although these have been used for gardens and terraces.
who he had first met at the CIAM meeting in 1951. While lecturing at the Bauhaus
, Gropius had placed great importance on teaching architects, especially imparting on them the concept of working together as a team. The Urbanists and Architects Team was founded in 1961 and became Kenzo Tange Associates. Tange promoted a very flat hierarchy in the practice: partners were equal in importance and were encouraged to participate in every project. Multiple options were developed simultaneously, and research on individual schemes was encouraged.
During the 1970s and 1980s Tange expanded his portfolio to include buildings in over 20 countries around the world. In 1985, at the behest of Jacques Chirac
, the mayor of Paris at that time, Tange proposed a master plan for a plaza at Place d'Italie
that would interconnect the city along a east-west axis.
For the Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building
, which opened in 1991, Tange designed a large civic centre with a plaza dominated by two skyscrapers. These house the administration offices whilst a smaller seven-storey building contains assembly facilities. In his design of a high tech version of Kofu Communications Centre, Tange equipped all three buildings with state-of-the-art building management systems that monitored air quality, light levels and security. The external skin of the building makes dual references to both tradition and the modern condition. Tange incorporated vertical and horizontal lines reminiscent of both timber boarding and the lines on semiconductor boards.
Tange continued to practice until three years before his death in 2005. He disliked postmodernism
in the 1980s and considered this style of architecture to be only "transitional architectural expressions". His funeral was held in one of his works, the Tokyo Cathedral
.
The modular expansion of Tange's Metabolist visions had some influence on Archigram
with their plug-in mega structures. The Metabolist movement gave momentum to Kikutake's career. Although his Marine City proposals (submitted by Tange at CIAM) were not realised, his Miyakonojo City Hall (1966) was a more Metabolist example of Tange's own Nichinan Cultural Centre (1962). Although the Osaka Expo had marked a decline in the Metabolist movement, it resulted in a "handing over" of the reigns to a younger generation of architects such as Kazuo Shinohara and Arata Isozaki.
In an interview with Jeremy Melvin at the Royal Academy of Arts, Kengo Kuma
explained that, at the age of ten, he was inspired to become an architect after seeing Tange's Olympic arenas, which were constructed in 1964.
For Reyner Banham
, Tange was a prime exemplar of the use of Brutalist architecture
. His use of Béton brut
concrete finishes in a raw and undecorated way combined with his civic projects such as the redevelopment of Tokyo Bay made him a great influence on British architects during the 1960s. Brutalist architecture has been criticised for being soulless and for promoting the exclusive use of a material that is poor at withstanding long exposures to natural weather.
Tange's son Paul Noritaka Tange graduated from Harvard University in 1985 and went on to join Kenzo Tange Associates. He became the president of Kenzo Tange Associates in 1997 before founding Tange Associates in 2002.
Japanese people
The are an ethnic group originating in the Japanese archipelago and are the predominant ethnic group of Japan. Worldwide, approximately 130 million people are of Japanese descent; of these, approximately 127 million are residents of Japan. People of Japanese ancestry who live in other countries...
architect
Architect
An architect is a person trained in the planning, design and oversight of the construction of buildings. To practice architecture means to offer or render services in connection with the design and construction of a building, or group of buildings and the space within the site surrounding the...
, and winner of the 1987 Pritzker Prize
Pritzker Prize
The Pritzker Architecture Prize is awarded annually by the Hyatt Foundation to honour "a living architect whose built work demonstrates a combination of those qualities of talent, vision and commitment, which has produced consistent and significant contributions to humanity and the built...
for architecture
Architecture
Architecture is both the process and product of planning, designing and construction. Architectural works, in the material form of buildings, are often perceived as cultural and political symbols and as works of art...
. He was one of the most significant architects of the 20th century, combining traditional Japanese styles with modernism
Modern architecture
Modern architecture is generally characterized by simplification of form and creation of ornament from the structure and theme of the building. It is a term applied to an overarching movement, with its exact definition and scope varying widely...
, and designed major buildings on five continents. Tange was also an influential protagonist of the structuralist
Structuralism (architecture)
Structuralism as a movement in architecture and urban planning evolved around the middle of the 20th century. It was a reaction to CIAM-Functionalism , which had led to a lifeless expression of urban planning that ignored the identity of the inhabitants and urban forms.Two different manifestations...
movement. He said: "It was, I believe, around 1959 or at the beginning of the sixties that I began to think about what I was later to call structuralism", (cited in Plan 2/1982, Amsterdam).
Influenced from an early age by the Swiss modernist, Le Corbusier
Le Corbusier
Charles-Édouard Jeanneret, better known as Le Corbusier , was a Swiss-born French architect, designer, urbanist, writer and painter, famous for being one of the pioneers of what now is called modern architecture. He was born in Switzerland and became a French citizen in 1930...
, Tange gained international recognition in 1949 when he won the competition for the design of Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park
Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park
is a memorial park in the center of Hiroshima, Japan. It is dedicated to the legacy of Hiroshima as the first city in the world to suffer a nuclear attack, and to the memories of the bomb's direct and indirect victims ....
. Joining the group of architects known as Team X in the late 1950s he steered the group towards the movement that became Metabolism
Metabolist Movement
In the late 1950s a small group of young Japanese architects and designers joined forces under the title of "Metabolism". Their visions for cities of the future inhabited by a mass society were characterized by large scale, flexible, and expandable structures that evoked the processes of organic...
.
His university studies on urbanism put him in an ideal position to handle redevelopment projects after the Second World War. His ideas were explored in designs for Tokyo and Skopje
Skopje
Skopje is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Macedonia with about a third of the total population. It is the country's political, cultural, economic, and academic centre...
. Tange's work influenced a generation of architects across the world.
Early life
Born on 4 September 1913 in OsakaOsaka
is a city in the Kansai region of Japan's main island of Honshu, a designated city under the Local Autonomy Law, the capital city of Osaka Prefecture and also the biggest part of Keihanshin area, which is represented by three major cities of Japan, Kyoto, Osaka and Kobe...
, Japan, Tange spent his early life in the Chinese cities of Hankow and Shanghai
Shanghai
Shanghai is the largest city by population in China and the largest city proper in the world. It is one of the four province-level municipalities in the People's Republic of China, with a total population of over 23 million as of 2010...
; he and his family returned to Japan after learning of the death of one of his uncles. In contrast to the green lawns and red bricks in their Shanghai abode, the Tange family took up residence in a thatched roof farmhouse in Imabari on the island of Shikoku
Shikoku
is the smallest and least populous of the four main islands of Japan, located south of Honshū and east of the island of Kyūshū. Its ancient names include Iyo-no-futana-shima , Iyo-shima , and Futana-shima...
.
After finishing middle school, Tange moved to Hiroshima
Hiroshima
is the capital of Hiroshima Prefecture, and the largest city in the Chūgoku region of western Honshu, the largest island of Japan. It became best known as the first city in history to be destroyed by a nuclear weapon when the United States Army Air Forces dropped an atomic bomb on it at 8:15 A.M...
in 1930 to attend high school. It was here that he first encountered the works of Swiss modernist, Le Corbusier
Le Corbusier
Charles-Édouard Jeanneret, better known as Le Corbusier , was a Swiss-born French architect, designer, urbanist, writer and painter, famous for being one of the pioneers of what now is called modern architecture. He was born in Switzerland and became a French citizen in 1930...
. His discovery of the drawings of the Palace of the Soviets in a foreign art journal convinced him to become an architect. Although he graduated from high school, Tange's poor results in mathematics and physics meant that he had to pass entrance exams to qualify for admission to the prestigious universities. He spent two years doing so and during that time, he read extensively about western philosophy. Tange also enrolled in the film division at Nihon University
Nihon University
Nihon University is the largest university in Japan. Akiyoshi Yamada, the minister of justice, founded Nihon Law School in October 1889....
's art department to dodge Japan's drafting of young men to its military and seldom attended classes.
In 1935 Tange began the tertiary studies he desired at University of Tokyo
University of Tokyo
, abbreviated as , is a major research university located in Tokyo, Japan. The University has 10 faculties with a total of around 30,000 students, 2,100 of whom are foreign. Its five campuses are in Hongō, Komaba, Kashiwa, Shirokane and Nakano. It is considered to be the most prestigious university...
's architecture department. He studied under Hideto Kishida and Shozo Uchida. Although Tange was fascinated by the photographs of Katsura villa that sat on Kishida's desk, his work was inspired by Le Corbusier. His graduation project was a seventeen-hectare
Hectare
The hectare is a metric unit of area defined as 10,000 square metres , and primarily used in the measurement of land. In 1795, when the metric system was introduced, the are was defined as being 100 square metres and the hectare was thus 100 ares or 1/100 km2...
development set in Tokyo's Hibiya Park
Hibiya Park
is a park in Chiyoda City, Tokyo, Japan. It covers an area of 161,636.66m2 between the east gardens of the Imperial Palace to the north, the Shinbashi district to the southeast and the Kasumigaseki government district to the west....
.
Early career
After graduating from the university, Tange started to work as an architect at the office of Kunio MaekawaKunio Maekawa
was a Japanese architect.-Formative years:He entered First Tokyo Middle School in 1918, and then Tokyo Imperial University in 1925. After graduation in 1928, he travelled to France to apprentice with Le Corbusier. In 1930 he returned to Japan and worked with Antonin Raymond, and in 1935 established...
. During his employment, he travelled to Manchuria
Manchuria
Manchuria is a historical name given to a large geographic region in northeast Asia. Depending on the definition of its extent, Manchuria usually falls entirely within the People's Republic of China, or is sometimes divided between China and Russia. The region is commonly referred to as Northeast...
, participating in an architectural design competition
Architectural design competition
An architectural design competition is a special type of competition in which an organization or government body that plans to build a new building asks for architects to submit a proposed design for a building. The winning design is usually chosen by an independent panel of design professionals...
for a bank, and toured Japanese-occupied Jehol
Jehol
Jehol could mean either a province or a city:* Jehol Province, former province in northeastern China* Chengde, the capital of above provinceNamed after the province:* Jehol Biota* Jeholodens* Jeholopterus* Jeholornis* Jeholosaurus...
on his return. When the Second World War started, he left Maekawa to rejoin the University of Tokyo as a postgraduate student. He developed an interest in urban design, and referencing only the resources available in the university library, he embarked on a study of Greek and Roman marketplaces. In 1942, Tange entered a competition for the design of the Greater East Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere Memorial Hall. He was awarded first prize for a design that would have been situated at the base of Mount Fuji
Mount Fuji
is the highest mountain in Japan at . An active stratovolcano that last erupted in 1707–08, Mount Fuji lies about south-west of Tokyo, and can be seen from there on a clear day. Mount Fuji's exceptionally symmetrical cone is a well-known symbol of Japan and it is frequently depicted in art and...
; the hall he conceived was a fusion of Shinto
Shinto
or Shintoism, also kami-no-michi, is the indigenous spirituality of Japan and the Japanese people. It is a set of practices, to be carried out diligently, to establish a connection between present day Japan and its ancient past. Shinto practices were first recorded and codified in the written...
shrine architecture and the plaza on Capitoline Hill
Capitoline Hill
The Capitoline Hill , between the Forum and the Campus Martius, is one of the seven hills of Rome. It was the citadel of the earliest Romans. By the 16th century, Capitolinus had become Capitolino in Italian, with the alternative Campidoglio stemming from Capitolium. The English word capitol...
in Rome
Rome
Rome is the capital of Italy and the country's largest and most populated city and comune, with over 2.7 million residents in . The city is located in the central-western portion of the Italian Peninsula, on the Tiber River within the Lazio region of Italy.Rome's history spans two and a half...
. The design was not realised.
In 1946, Tange became an assistant professor at the university and opened Tange Laboratory. In 1963, he was promoted to professor of the Department of Urban Engineering. His students included Sachio Otani
Sachio Otani
is a noted Japanese architect.Otani was born in Tokyo, and in 1946 graduated from the University of Tokyo. He began his career in Kenzo Tange's studio, where he helped design the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum...
, Kisho Kurokawa, Arata Isozaki
Arata Isozaki
Arata Isozaki is a Japanese architect from Ōita. He graduated from the University of Tokyo in 1954. Isozaki worked under Kenzo Tange before establishing his own firm in 1963. He was awarded the RIBA Gold Medal in 1986.In 2005, Arata Isozaki founded the Italian branch of his office: Arata Isozaki &...
, and Fumihiko Maki
Fumihiko Maki
is a Japanese architect and currently teaching at Keio University SFC.- Biography :After studying at the University of Tokyo he moved to the Cranbrook Academy of Art in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, and then to Harvard Graduate School of Design. In 1956, he took a post as assistant professor of...
.
Post war reconstruction
Tange's interest in urban studies put him in a good position to handle post war reconstruction. In the summer of 1946 he was invited by the War Damage Rehabilitation Board to put forward a proposal for certain war damaged cities; he submitted plans for Hiroshima and Maebashi. His design for an airport in KanonKanon
is a Japanese visual novel developed by Key and originally released as an adult game on June 4, 1999, playable on a Microsoft Windows PC. An all ages version for the PC was released in January 2000, and was later ported to the Dreamcast, PlayStation 2, and PlayStation Portable...
was accepted and built, but a seaside park in Ujina was not.
The Hiroshima authorities took a lot of advice about the city's reconstruction from foreign consultants and in 1947 Tam Deling, an American park planner, suggested to build a Peace Memorial and to preserve buildings situated near ground zero
Ground zero
The term ground zero describes the point on the Earth's surface closest to a detonation...
(directly below the explosion of the atomic bomb). In 1949 the authorities enacted the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Reconstruction Act, which gave the city access to special grant aid, and in August that year, an international competition was announced for the design of the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park.
Tange was awarded first prize for a design that proposed a museum whose axis runs through the park, intersecting Peace Boulevard
Peace Boulevard (Hiroshima)
is one of the main streets in Hiroshima, Japan, which faces the south side of Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park.The street is 100 meters wide and runs 3.6 km from east to west, between Tsurumi-cho and Fukushima-cho within the green belt....
and the atomic bomb dome. The building is raised on massive piloti
Piloti
Pilotis, or piers, are supports such as columns, pillars, or stilts that lift a building above ground or water. They are traditionally found in stilt and pole dwellings such as fishermen's huts in Asia and Scandinavia using wood and in elevated houses such as Old Queenslanders in Australia's...
(columns), which frame the views along the structure's axis.
Peace Centre in Hiroshima
Work on the Peace Centre commenced in 1950. In addition to the axial nature of the design, the layout is similar to Tange's early competition arrangement for the Greater East Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere Memorial Hall.In the initial design the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum
Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum
Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum is located in Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park, in central Hiroshima, Japan.It was established in August 1955 with the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Hall ....
was dominated by adjoining utility buildings, which were linked to it by high-level walkways. Tange refined this concept to place the museum prominently at the centre, separate from the utility buildings (only one of which was subsequently designed by him). In addition to architectural symbolism, he thought it important for the design to centre around the building that houses the information about the atomic explosion.
The museum is constructed from bare reinforced concrete. The primary museum floor is lifted six metres above the ground on huge piloti and is accessible via a free standing staircase. The rhythmical facade comprises vertical elements that repeat outwards from the centre. Like the exterior, the interior is finished with rough concrete; the idea was to keep the surfaces plain so that nothing could distract the visitor from the contents of the exhibits.
The Peace Plaza is the backdrop for the museum. The plaza was designed to allow 50,000 people to gather around the peace monument in the centre. Tange also designed the monument as an arch composed of two hyperbolic paraboloids, said to be based on traditional Japanese ceremonial tombs from the Kofun Period
Kofun period
The is an era in the history of Japan from around 250 to 538. It follows the Yayoi period. The word kofun is Japanese for the type of burial mounds dating from this era. The Kofun and the subsequent Asuka periods are sometimes referred to collectively as the Yamato period...
.
The Ise Shrine
In 1953 Tange and the architectural journalist and critic Noboru Kawazoe were invited to attend the reconstruction of the Ise Shrine. The shrine has been reconstructed every 20 years and in 1953 it was the 59th iteration. Normally the reconstruction process was a very closed affair but this time the ceremony was opened to architects and journalists to document the event. The ceremony coincided with the end of the American OccupationOccupied Japan
At the end of World War II, Japan was occupied by the Allied Powers, led by the United States with contributions also from Australia, India, New Zealand and the United Kingdom. This foreign presence marked the first time in its history that the island nation had been occupied by a foreign power...
and it seemed to symbolise a new start in Japanese architecture. In 1961 when Tange and Kawazoe published the book Ise: Prototype of Japanese Architecture, he likened the building to a modernist structure: an honest expression of materials, a functional design and prefabricated elements.
The Kagawa Prefectural Government Hall
The Kagawa Prefectural Government Hall on the island of Shikoku was completed in 1958. Its expressive construction could be likened to the Daibutsu style seen at the Todai-jiTodai-ji
, is a Buddhist temple complex located in the city of Nara, Japan. Its Great Buddha Hall , the largest wooden building in the world, houses the world's largest bronze statue of the Buddha Vairocana, known in Japanese simply as Daibutsu . The temple also serves as the Japanese headquarters of the ...
in Nara
Nara, Nara
is the capital city of Nara Prefecture in the Kansai region of Japan. The city occupies the northern part of Nara Prefecture, directly bordering Kyoto Prefecture...
. The columns on the elevation bore only vertical loads so Tange was able to design them to be thin, maximising the surfaces for glazing. Although the hall has been called one of his finest projects, it drew criticism at the time of its construction for relying too heavily on tradition.
Tange's own home
Tange's own home, designed in 1951 and completed in 1953, uses a similar skeleton structure raised off the ground as the Hiroshima Peace Museum; however, it is fused with a more traditional Japanese design that uses timber and paper. The house is based on the traditional Japanese module of the tatamiTatami
A is a type of mat used as a flooring material in traditional Japanese-style rooms. Traditionally made of rice straw to form the core , with a covering of woven soft rush straw, tatami are made in standard sizes, with the length exactly twice the width...
mat, with the largest rooms designed to have flexibility so that they can be separated into three smaller rooms by fusuma
Fusuma
In Japanese architecture, fusuma are vertical rectangular panels which can slide from side to side to redefine spaces within a room, or act as doors. They typically measure about wide by tall, the same size as a tatami mat, and are two or three centimeters thick...
sliding doors. The facade is designed with a rhythmic pattern; it comprises two types of facade designs ("a" and "b") that are ordered laterally in an a-b-a-a-b-a arrangement. The house is topped with a two-tier roof. Kazuo Shinohara's
Kazuo Shinohara
was a highly influential Japanese architect, forming what is now widely known as the "Shinohara School", which has been linked to the works of Toyo Ito, Kazunari Sakamoto and Itsuko Hasegawa. As architectural critic Thomas Daniell put it, "A key figure who explicitly rejected Western influences yet...
1954 house at Kugayama
Kugayama
Kugayama is a suburb of Tokyo in Suginami ward, west of Shinjuku.Kugayama is a residential community located along the Keiō Inokashira Line. It is served by local and express trains. The surrounding stations are Fujimigaoka and Mitakadai....
is remarkably similar in its design, although it is built with steel and has a simpler rhythm in its facade.
Town Hall, Kurashiki
The fortress-like town hall in Kurashiki was designed in 1958 and completed in 1960. When it was constructed it was situated on the edge of the old town centre connecting it with the newer areas of the town. Kurashiki is better known as a tourist spot for its old MachiyaMachiya
' are traditional wooden townhouses found throughout Japan and typified in the historical capital of Kyoto. Machiya and nōka constitute the two categories of Japanese vernacular architecture known as minka...
style houses.
Set in an open square, the building sits on massive columns that taper inwards as they rise. The elevation consists of horizontal planks (some of which are omitted to create windows) which overlap at the corners in a "log cabin" effect. The entrance is covered with a heavy projecting concrete canopy which leads to a monumental entrance hall. The stair to this hall ascends in cantilevered straight flights to the left and right. The walls to this interior are bare shuttered concrete punctured by windows reminiscent of Le Corbusier's La Tourette. The Council Chamber is a separate building whose raked roof has seating on top of it to form an external performance space.
Tokyo Olympic arenas
The Yoyogi National GymnasiumYoyogi National Gymnasium
is an arena in Yoyogi Park, Tokyo, Japan which is famous for its suspension roof design.It was designed by Kenzo Tange and built between 1961 and 1964 to house swimming and diving events in the 1964 Summer Olympics. A separate annex was used for the basketball competition at those same games...
is situated in an open area in Yoyogi Park
Yoyogi Park
is one of the largest parks in Tokyo, Japan located adjacent to Harajuku Station and Meiji Shrine in Shibuya.What is now Yoyogi Park was the site of the first successful powered aircraft flight in Japan, on December 19, 1910, by Captain Yoshitoshi Tokugawa, after which it became an army parade ground...
on an adjacent axis to the Meiji Shrine
Meiji Shrine
', located in Shibuya, Tokyo, is the Shinto shrine that is dedicated to the deified spirits of Emperor Meiji and his wife, Empress Shōken.-History:...
. The gymnasium and swimming pool were designed by Tange for the 1964 Tokyo Olympics
1964 Summer Olympics
The 1964 Summer Olympics, officially known as the Games of the XVIII Olympiad, was an international multi-sport event held in Tokyo, Japan in 1964. Tokyo had been awarded with the organization of the 1940 Summer Olympics, but this honor was subsequently passed to Helsinki because of Japan's...
, which were the first Olympics held in Asia. Tange began his designs in 1961 and the plans were approved by the Ministry of Education in January 1963. The buildings were placed to optimise space available for parking and to permit the smoothest transition of incoming and outgoing people.
Inspired by the skyline of the Colosseum
Colosseum
The Colosseum, or the Coliseum, originally the Flavian Amphitheatre , is an elliptical amphitheatre in the centre of the city of Rome, Italy, the largest ever built in the Roman Empire...
in Rome
Rome
Rome is the capital of Italy and the country's largest and most populated city and comune, with over 2.7 million residents in . The city is located in the central-western portion of the Italian Peninsula, on the Tiber River within the Lazio region of Italy.Rome's history spans two and a half...
, the roofs have a skin suspended from two masts. The buildings were inspired by Le Corbusier's Philips pavilion designed for Brussel's World Fair and Yale University's hockey stadium, which was designed by Eero Saarinen
Eero Saarinen
Eero Saarinen was a Finnish American architect and industrial designer of the 20th century famous for varying his style according to the demands of the project: simple, sweeping, arching structural curves or machine-like rationalism.-Biography:Eero Saarinen shared the same birthday as his father,...
(both structures completed in 1958). The roof of the Philips pavilion was created by complex hyperbolic paraboloid surfaces stretched between cables. In both cases Tange took Western ideas and adapted them to meet Japanese requirements.
The gymnasium has a capacity of approximately 16,000 and the smaller building can accommodate up 5,300 depending on the events that are taking place. At the time it was built, the gymnasium had the world's largest suspended roof span. Two reinforced concrete pillars support a prestressed steel net onto which steel plates are attached. The bottom anchoring of this steel net is a heavy concrete support system which forms a distinct curve on the interior and exterior of the building. In the interior, this structural anchor is used to support the grandstand seats. The overall curvature of the roof helps protect the building from the damaging effects of strong winds.
Tange won a Pritzker Prize
Pritzker Prize
The Pritzker Architecture Prize is awarded annually by the Hyatt Foundation to honour "a living architect whose built work demonstrates a combination of those qualities of talent, vision and commitment, which has produced consistent and significant contributions to humanity and the built...
for the design; the citation described the gynasium as "among the most beautiful buildings of the 20th century".
Osaka Exposition 1970
In 1965 the Bureau of International ExpositionsBureau of International Expositions
The International Exhibitions Bureau is an intergovernmental organization created to supervise international exhibitions falling under the jurisdiction of the Convention Relating to International Exhibitions....
decided that Japan should host the 1970 Exposition
Expo '70
was a World's Fair held in Suita, Osaka, Japan between March 15 and September 13, 1970. The theme of the Expo was "Progress and Harmony for Mankind." In Japanese Expo '70 is often referred to as Ōsaka Banpaku...
. 330 hectares of land in the Senri Hills near Osaka
Osaka
is a city in the Kansai region of Japan's main island of Honshu, a designated city under the Local Autonomy Law, the capital city of Osaka Prefecture and also the biggest part of Keihanshin area, which is represented by three major cities of Japan, Kyoto, Osaka and Kobe...
were put aside for its use. Tange and Uzo Nishiyama were appointed as planners for the masterplan by the Theme Committee. Tange assembled a group of twelve architects to design the infrastructure and facilities for the Expo.
At the centre of the Expo was the Festival Plaza. Tange conceived that this plaza (with its oversailing space frame roof) would connect the display spaces and create a setting for a "festival". The plaza divided the site into a northern zone for pavilions and a southern zone for administration facilities. The zones were interconnected with moving pathways.
Congres International d'Architecture Moderne
Tange's first placing in the design competition for the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park gained him recognition from Kunio Maekawa. The elder architect invited Tange to attend the Congres International d'Architecture ModerneCongrès International d'Architecture Moderne
The Congrès internationaux d'architecture moderne – CIAM was an organization founded in 1928 and disbanded in 1959, responsible for a series of events and congresses arranged around the world by the most prominent architects of the time, with the objective of spreading the principles of the Modern...
(CIAM). Founded in 1928 this organization of planners and architects had initially promoted architecture in economic and social context, but at its fourth meeting in 1933 (under the direction of Le Corbusier) it debated the notion of the "Functional City". This led to a series of proposals on urban planning known as "The Athens Charter
Athens Charter
The Athens Charter, or Charte d'Athènes was a document about urban planning published by the Swiss architect, Le Corbusier in 1943. The work was based upon Le Corbusier’s Ville Radieuse book of 1935 and urban studies undertaken by the Congrès International d'Architecture Moderne in the early...
". By the 1951 CIAM meeting that was held in Hoddesdon
Hoddesdon
Hoddesdon is a town in the English county of Hertfordshire, situated in the Lea Valley. The town grew up as a coaching stop on the route between Cambridge and London. It is located southeast of Hertford, north of Waltham Cross and southwest of Bishop's Stortford. At its height during the 18th...
, England, to which Tange was invited, the Athens Charter came under debate by younger members of the group (including Tange) who found the Charter too vague in relation to city expansion. The "Athens Charter" promoted the idea that a city gains character from its continual changes over many years; this notion was written before the advent of mass bombings and the Second World War and therefore held little meaning for Tange who had evidenced the destruction of Hiroshima. The discussions at Hoddesdon sowed discontent within CIAM that eventually contributed to its breakup after their Dubrovnik
Dubrovnik
Dubrovnik is a Croatian city on the Adriatic Sea coast, positioned at the terminal end of the Isthmus of Dubrovnik. It is one of the most prominent tourist destinations on the Adriatic, a seaport and the centre of Dubrovnik-Neretva county. Its total population is 42,641...
meeting in 1956; the younger members of CIAM formed a splinter group known as Team X, which Tange later joined. Tange presented various designs to Team X in their meetings. At a 1959 meeting in Otterlo
Otterlo
Otterlo is a small village in the province of Gelderland in the Netherlands, in or near the Nationaal Park De Hoge Veluwe....
, Holland, one of his presentations included an unrealised project by Kiyonori Kikutake
Kiyonori Kikutake
is a prominent Japanese architect known as one of the founders of the Japanese Metabolist group. He has also been the tutor and employer of several important Japanese architects, such as Toyo Ito and Itsuko Hasegawa.-Career:...
; this project became the basis of the Metabolist Movement
Metabolist Movement
In the late 1950s a small group of young Japanese architects and designers joined forces under the title of "Metabolism". Their visions for cities of the future inhabited by a mass society were characterized by large scale, flexible, and expandable structures that evoked the processes of organic...
.
When Tange travelled back to Japan from the 1951 CIAM meeting, he visited Le Corbusier's nearly complete Unité d'Habitation
Unité d'Habitation
The Unité d'Habitation is the name of a modernist residential housing design principle developed by Le Corbusier, with the collaboration of painter-architect Nadir Afonso...
in Marseilles, France. He also looked at the sketches for the new capital of Punjab
Punjab (India)
Punjab ) is a state in the northwest of the Republic of India, forming part of the larger Punjab region. The state is bordered by the Indian states of Himachal Pradesh to the east, Haryana to the south and southeast and Rajasthan to the southwest as well as the Pakistani province of Punjab to the...
at Chandigarh
Chandigarh
Chandigarh is a union territory of India that serves as the capital of two states, Haryana and Punjab. The name Chandigarh translates as "The Fort of Chandi". The name is from an ancient temple called Chandi Mandir, devoted to the Hindu goddess Chandi, in the city...
, India.
Tokyo World Design Conference and urban planning
Lake Geneva
Lake Geneva or Lake Léman is a lake in Switzerland and France. It is one of the largest lakes in Western Europe. 59.53 % of it comes under the jurisdiction of Switzerland , and 40.47 % under France...
. Both this scheme and the earlier ones by Kikutake formed the basis of Tange's speech to the Tokyo World Design Conference in 1960. In his speech he used words such as "cell" and "metabolism" in relation to urban design. The Metabolist movement grew out of discussions with other members of the conference. Amongst them were Kisho Kurokawa, Junzo Sakakura
Junzo Sakakura
was a Japanese architect and former president of the Architectural Association of Japan.After graduating from university he worked in Le Corbusier's atelier in Paris. He rose to the position of studio chief during his seven year stay in the studio....
, Alison and Peter Smithson
Alison and Peter Smithson
English architects Alison Smithson and Peter Smithson together formed an architectural partnership, and are often associated with the New Brutalism .Peter was born in Stockton-on-Tees in north-east England, and Alison was born in Sheffield, South Yorkshire...
, Louis Kahn
Louis Kahn
Louis Isadore Kahn was an American architect, based in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. After working in various capacities for several firms in Philadelphia, he founded his own atelier in 1935...
, Jean Prouvé
Jean Prouvé
-Images:**- External links :***...
, B. V. Doshi
B. V. Doshi
Balkrishna Vithaldas Doshi is an Indian architect.-Early life:B. V. Doshi was born in Pune, India. He studied at the J. J. School of Architecture, Mumbai.-Career:...
and Jacob Bakema
Jacob B. Bakema
Jacob Berend Bakema was a Dutch modernist architect, notable for his public housing and involvement in the reconstruction of Rotterdam after the Second World War....
. The conference ended with Tange's presentation of the Boston plan and his own scheme, "The Tokyo Plan – 1960".
Tange argued that the normal urban pattern of a radial centripetal transportation system was a relic of the Middle Ages and would not handle the strain placed upon it by the world's mega cities, which he qualified as those with populations greater than 10 million. Rather than building up a city from a civic centre, Tange's proposal was based on civic axis, developing the city in a linear fashion. Three levels of traffic, graded according to speed, would facilitate the movement of up to 2.5 million people along the axis, which would be divided into vertebrae-like cyclical transportation elements. The sheer size of the proposal meant that it would stretch out across the water of Tokyo Bay. Tange's proposals at this conference play a large part in establishing his reputation as "The West's favourite Japanese architect".
In 1965 Tange was asked by the United Nations
United Nations
The United Nations is an international organization whose stated aims are facilitating cooperation in international law, international security, economic development, social progress, human rights, and achievement of world peace...
to enter a limited competition for the redevelopment of Skopje
Skopje
Skopje is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Macedonia with about a third of the total population. It is the country's political, cultural, economic, and academic centre...
, which was at that time a city of Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia
Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia
The Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia was the Yugoslav state that existed from the abolition of the Yugoslav monarchy until it was dissolved in 1992 amid the Yugoslav Wars. It was a socialist state and a federation made up of six socialist republics: Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia,...
. The town had been heavily destroyed by an earthquake in 1963. Tange won 60% of the prize; the other 40% was awarded to the Yugoslav team. Tange's design furthered ideas put forward in the earlier "Tokyo Plan".
Tange further developed his ideas for expandable urban forms in 1966 when he designed the Yamanashi Broadcasting and Press Centre in Kōfu
Kofu, Yamanashi
is the capital city of Yamanashi Prefecture in Japan.As of May 1, 2011, the city had a estimate population of 197,540, with 85,794 households. The total area is 212.41 km².-History:Kōfu's name means "capital of Kai Province"...
. It was designed for three media companies: a newspaper printing plant, a radio station and a television studio. To allow for future expansion Tange grouped the similar functions of three offices together in three zones. The newspaper printing machinery was on the ground floor, sealed studios on the upper floors and offices on glass walled floors surrounded by balconies. The services, including stairs and lifts, are housed in 16 reinforced concrete columns that are of five-metre diameter. Space was left between the cluster of functional space to allow for future expansion, although these have been used for gardens and terraces.
The Urbanists and Architects Team
Tange's inspiration for his design office came from his friend Walter GropiusWalter Gropius
Walter Adolph Georg Gropius was a German architect and founder of the Bauhaus School who, along with Ludwig Mies van der Rohe and Le Corbusier, is widely regarded as one of the pioneering masters of modern architecture....
who he had first met at the CIAM meeting in 1951. While lecturing at the Bauhaus
Bauhaus
', commonly known simply as Bauhaus, was a school in Germany that combined crafts and the fine arts, and was famous for the approach to design that it publicized and taught. It operated from 1919 to 1933. At that time the German term stood for "School of Building".The Bauhaus school was founded by...
, Gropius had placed great importance on teaching architects, especially imparting on them the concept of working together as a team. The Urbanists and Architects Team was founded in 1961 and became Kenzo Tange Associates. Tange promoted a very flat hierarchy in the practice: partners were equal in importance and were encouraged to participate in every project. Multiple options were developed simultaneously, and research on individual schemes was encouraged.
Later career
Jacques Chirac
Jacques René Chirac is a French politician who served as President of France from 1995 to 2007. He previously served as Prime Minister of France from 1974 to 1976 and from 1986 to 1988 , and as Mayor of Paris from 1977 to 1995.After completing his studies of the DEA's degree at the...
, the mayor of Paris at that time, Tange proposed a master plan for a plaza at Place d'Italie
Place d'Italie
The Place d'Italie is a public space in the 13th arrondissement of Paris. The square has an average dimension somewhat less than 200 meters in extent , and the following streets meet there:*Boulevard Vincent-Auriol...
that would interconnect the city along a east-west axis.
For the Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building
Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building
The , also referred to as Tokyo City Hall or Tochō for short, houses the headquarters of the Tokyo Metropolitan Government, which governs not only the 23 wards, but also the cities, towns and villages that make up Tokyo as a whole....
, which opened in 1991, Tange designed a large civic centre with a plaza dominated by two skyscrapers. These house the administration offices whilst a smaller seven-storey building contains assembly facilities. In his design of a high tech version of Kofu Communications Centre, Tange equipped all three buildings with state-of-the-art building management systems that monitored air quality, light levels and security. The external skin of the building makes dual references to both tradition and the modern condition. Tange incorporated vertical and horizontal lines reminiscent of both timber boarding and the lines on semiconductor boards.
Tange continued to practice until three years before his death in 2005. He disliked postmodernism
Postmodern architecture
Postmodern architecture began as an international style the first examples of which are generally cited as being from the 1950s, but did not become a movement until the late 1970s and continues to influence present-day architecture...
in the 1980s and considered this style of architecture to be only "transitional architectural expressions". His funeral was held in one of his works, the Tokyo Cathedral
St. Mary's Cathedral, Tokyo
St. Mary's Cathedral is the seat of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Tokyo. It is located in the Sekiguchi neighborhood of Bunkyo, Tokyo, Japan....
.
Legacy
Archigram
Archigram was an avant-garde architectural group formed in the 1960s - based at the Architectural Association, London - that was futurist, anti-heroic and pro-consumerist, drawing inspiration from technology in order to create a new reality that was solely expressed through hypothetical projects...
with their plug-in mega structures. The Metabolist movement gave momentum to Kikutake's career. Although his Marine City proposals (submitted by Tange at CIAM) were not realised, his Miyakonojo City Hall (1966) was a more Metabolist example of Tange's own Nichinan Cultural Centre (1962). Although the Osaka Expo had marked a decline in the Metabolist movement, it resulted in a "handing over" of the reigns to a younger generation of architects such as Kazuo Shinohara and Arata Isozaki.
In an interview with Jeremy Melvin at the Royal Academy of Arts, Kengo Kuma
Kengo Kuma
is a Japanese architect.- Biography :Kuma was born in Kanagawa, Japan, and attended Eiko Gakuen junior and senior high schools. After completing a major in architecture at the University of Tokyo in 1979, he worked for a time at Nihon Sekkei and TODA Corporation. He then moved to New York for...
explained that, at the age of ten, he was inspired to become an architect after seeing Tange's Olympic arenas, which were constructed in 1964.
For Reyner Banham
Reyner Banham
Peter Reyner Banham was a prolific architectural critic and writer best known for his 1960 theoretical treatise Theory and Design in the First Machine Age and for his 1971 book Los Angeles: The Architecture of Four Ecologies...
, Tange was a prime exemplar of the use of Brutalist architecture
Brutalist architecture
Brutalist architecture is a style of architecture which flourished from the 1950s to the mid 1970s, spawned from the modernist architectural movement.-The term "brutalism":...
. His use of Béton brut
Béton brut
Béton brut is architectural concrete left unfinished or roughly-finished after pouring and left exposed visually. The imprint of the wood or plywood forms used for pouring is usually present on the final surface....
concrete finishes in a raw and undecorated way combined with his civic projects such as the redevelopment of Tokyo Bay made him a great influence on British architects during the 1960s. Brutalist architecture has been criticised for being soulless and for promoting the exclusive use of a material that is poor at withstanding long exposures to natural weather.
Tange's son Paul Noritaka Tange graduated from Harvard University in 1985 and went on to join Kenzo Tange Associates. He became the president of Kenzo Tange Associates in 1997 before founding Tange Associates in 2002.
List of selected projects
- 1955: Hiroshima Peace Memorial MuseumHiroshima Peace Memorial MuseumHiroshima Peace Memorial Museum is located in Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park, in central Hiroshima, Japan.It was established in August 1955 with the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Hall ....
, Hiroshima - 1957: (Former) Tokyo Metropolitan Government BuildingTokyo Metropolitan Government BuildingThe , also referred to as Tokyo City Hall or Tochō for short, houses the headquarters of the Tokyo Metropolitan Government, which governs not only the 23 wards, but also the cities, towns and villages that make up Tokyo as a whole....
, YūrakuchōYurakuchois a neighborhood of Chiyoda, Tokyo, Japan situated in between the Ginza and Hibiya Park, near the neighborhood of Shinbashi. Unlike its tonier neighbor Ginza, Yūrakuchō provides a glimpse of Japanese life from the early postwar period, with its many izakaya and outdoor yakitori restaurants , many... - 1958: Kagawa Prefectural Government Building the east offices, Takamatsu, Kagawa
- 1960: Kurashiki City Hall, Kurashiki, Okayama
- 1964: Yoyogi National GymnasiumYoyogi National Gymnasiumis an arena in Yoyogi Park, Tokyo, Japan which is famous for its suspension roof design.It was designed by Kenzo Tange and built between 1961 and 1964 to house swimming and diving events in the 1964 Summer Olympics. A separate annex was used for the basketball competition at those same games...
for the 1964 Summer Olympics, Tokyo - 1964: St. Mary's Cathedral (Tokyo Cathedral)St. Mary's Cathedral, TokyoSt. Mary's Cathedral is the seat of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Tokyo. It is located in the Sekiguchi neighborhood of Bunkyo, Tokyo, Japan....
(Roman Catholic), Tokyo - 1966: Master plan for rebuilding of SkopjeSkopjeSkopje is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Macedonia with about a third of the total population. It is the country's political, cultural, economic, and academic centre...
, Republic of MacedoniaRepublic of MacedoniaMacedonia , officially the Republic of Macedonia , is a country located in the central Balkan peninsula in Southeast Europe. It is one of the successor states of the former Yugoslavia, from which it declared independence in 1991...
, then part of YugoslaviaYugoslaviaYugoslavia refers to three political entities that existed successively on the western part of the Balkans during most of the 20th century....
after the 1963 earthquake - 1967: Towers of Fiera district (Regional administration of Emilia-RomagnaEmilia-RomagnaEmilia–Romagna is an administrative region of Northern Italy comprising the two historic regions of Emilia and Romagna. The capital is Bologna; it has an area of and about 4.4 million inhabitants....
), BolognaBolognaBologna is the capital city of Emilia-Romagna, in the Po Valley of Northern Italy. The city lies between the Po River and the Apennine Mountains, more specifically, between the Reno River and the Savena River. Bologna is a lively and cosmopolitan Italian college city, with spectacular history,...
, ItalyItalyItaly , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and... - 1970: Site of Expo '70Expo '70was a World's Fair held in Suita, Osaka, Japan between March 15 and September 13, 1970. The theme of the Expo was "Progress and Harmony for Mankind." In Japanese Expo '70 is often referred to as Ōsaka Banpaku...
, Suita, OsakaSuita, Osakais a city located in northern Osaka, Japan. As of August 1, 2011, the city has an estimated population of 356,751 and the density of 9,880 persons per km². The total area is 36.11 km².... - 1970: Librino New Town Project, Catania City Italy
- 1977: Sogetsu Kaikan, Aoyama, Tokyo
- 1979: Hanae MoriHanae MoriHanae Mori is a fashion designer in Japan. She is the only Japanese woman to have presented her collections on the runways of Paris and New York, and the first Asian woman to be admitted as an official haute couture design house by the fédération française de la couture in France...
Building, Aoyama, TokyoAoyama, Tokyois a neighborhood of Tokyo, located in the northeastern Minato Ward. During the Edo Period, Aoyama was home to various temples, shrines, and samurai residences. The name Aoyama derived from a samurai named Aoyama Tadanari who served the Tokugawa Shogunate and held his mansion in this area... - 1982: Centro DirezionaleCentro DirezionaleThe Centro Direzionale is a service center in Naples, Italy. The district is mainly devoted to business.The project of the Centro Direzionale dates back to 1964. It was designed in 1982 by Japanese architect Kenzo Tange....
, NaplesNaplesNaples is a city in Southern Italy, situated on the country's west coast by the Gulf of Naples. Lying between two notable volcanic regions, Mount Vesuvius and the Phlegraean Fields, it is the capital of the region of Campania and of the province of Naples... - 1982: Central Area New Federal Capital City of NigeriaAbujaAbuja is the capital city of Nigeria. It is located in the centre of Nigeria, within the Federal Capital Territory . Abuja is a planned city, and was built mainly in the 1980s. It officially became Nigeria's capital on 12 December 1991, replacing Lagos...
, Nigeria - 1986: Nanyang Technological UniversityNanyang Technological UniversityNanyang Technological University is one of the two largest public universities in Singapore with the biggest campus in Singapore and the world's largest engineering college. Its lush 200-hectare Yunnan Garden campus was the Youth Olympic Village of the world's first 2010 Summer Youth Olympics in...
, Singapore - 1986: OUB Centre, Singapore
- 1987: American Medical AssociationAmerican Medical AssociationThe American Medical Association , founded in 1847 and incorporated in 1897, is the largest association of medical doctors and medical students in the United States.-Scope and operations:...
Headquarters Building, Chicago, Illinois, USA - 1991: Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building, Shinjuku, Tokyo
- 1992: UOB PlazaUOB PlazaUnited Overseas Bank Plaza is a complex with twin tower late-modernist skyscrapers in the city of Singapore. UOB Plaza One is one of the three tallest in the city, sharing the title with the OUB Centre and Republic Plaza...
, Singapore - 1993: Phu My HungPhu My Hung Urban AreaPhu My Hung New City Center is a new urban area in District 7, Saigon, Vietnam. The new urban area covers an area of 750 hectares.Phu My Hung has set a high standard for urban planning and development in Vietnam. Unlike most disordered urban areas in the country, Phu My Hung features improved urban...
Saigon South Master Plan, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam - 1996: Fuji TelevisionFuji Televisionis a Japanese television station based in Daiba, Minato, Tokyo, Japan, also known as or CX, based on the station's callsign "JOCX-DTV". It is the flagship station of the Fuji News Network and the ....
Building, OdaibaOdaibais a large artificial island in Tokyo Bay, Japan, across the Rainbow Bridge from central Tokyo. It was initially built for defensive purposes in the 1850s, dramatically expanded during the late 20th century as a seaport district, and has developed since the 1990s as a major commercial, residential...
, Tokyo - 1998: University of BahrainUniversity of BahrainThe University of Bahrain , a public university in the Kingdom of Bahrain, is the largest university in Bahrain. In post-nominals the University of Bahrain is typically abbreviated as UoB....
, SakhirSakhirSakhir is a desert area located in the Kingdom of Bahrain, near Zallaq. It contains the Al-Sakhir Palace, built in 1870. In the past few years, it has seen many changes such as the creation of the University of Bahrain main campus, al-Areen Wildlife Park, and Bahrain International Circuit. In...
, Bahrain - 1998: WKC Centre For Health Development, KobeKobe, pronounced , is the fifth-largest city in Japan and is the capital city of Hyōgo Prefecture on the southern side of the main island of Honshū, approximately west of Osaka...
, HyōgoHyogo Prefectureis a prefecture of Japan located in the Kansai region on Honshū island. The capital is Kobe.The prefecture's name was previously alternately spelled as Hiogo.- History :... - 2000: Kagawa Prefectural Government Building the main offices, Takamatsu, KagawaTakamatsu, Kagawais a city located in central Kagawa Prefecture on the island of Shikoku in Japan, and is the seat of the prefectural government. It is designated a core city by the Japanese Government. It is a port city located on the Seto Inland Sea, and is the closest port to Honshu from Shikoku island...
- 2000: Tokyo Dome Hotel
- 2003: The Linear – Private Apartments, Singapore
- 2005: Hwa Chong Institution Boarding SchoolHwa Chong Institution Boarding SchoolHwa Chong Institution Boarding School is a boarding school in Singapore.The boarding school began its operations in 2002, and was officially opened in 2003 by then deputy prime minister Mr. Lee Hsien Loong...
, Singapore