Within the Home of Tradition of Japan, two architects have a big nook – Libération

2024-05-31 12:54:05

Cultural Olympics: an exhibition

Tokyo 2021 Olympic Video gamesfile

The Paris Middle is internet hosting a free exhibition till Might 29 that presents the work of Kenzô Tange and Kengo Kuma by means of their two creations for the Tokyo Video games in 1964 and 2020: the Yoyogi gymnasium and the Olympic stadium of the nation.

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The theater of sports activities, the Olympic Video games can be a spot of architectural traits. On this respect, the Olympiad of Paris is a bit completely different, as a result of it’s detached when it comes to new achievements – that could be a good factor – and these (Enviornment Porte de la Chapelle, water middle and athletes’ village) he did not. stand out for his or her formal audacity. For die-hard followers of sports activities structure, the Maison de la tradition du Japon in Paris affords some solace. Till the tip of Might, it affords a small exhibition designed as a dialogue between the 2 monuments of the Tokyo Olympics (1964 and 2020, postponed to 2021 as a result of Covid) and their architects.

First there’s the Yoyogi Olympic Gymnasium, the work of the emblematic determine of Japanese modernism, Kenzô Tange: two large concrete towers rising in direction of the sky, the place the swimming and basketball occasion happened in 1964. a placing success to which the second architectural honor concerning the present is your job. “I keep in mind that day clearly [où] my father took me to observe the swimming competitions held at Yoyogi gymnasium, mentioned Kengo Kuma within the catalog. From Shibuya station, we are able to see unusually formed structure within the distance. […] The Yoyogi Gymnasium went up like lightning. I’ve by no means seen such a spot or skilled such fireplace. […] That day, on the age of 10, I made a decision to turn out to be an architect.”

As a 4×100 m sprinter, Kuma took the Tange pole to create, fifty years later, the nationwide Olympic stadium, a system for the opening ceremony and sporting occasions in entrance of a sparse and obscure viewers, as a result of pandemic the. The constructing is nearly in opposition to the Yoyogi gymnasium: the triumphant vertical of the New Tokyo reborn from the ruins of the struggle will reply to the central peace necessary for Japan in 2020. “Japan is among the international locations the place discount within the beginning charge and getting older of the inhabitants is progressing the quickest on the planet whereas the monetary disaster is occurring, there isn’t any want for any such structure, introduced Kengo Kuma. Quite the opposite, what is required is a small and mild establishment able to defending people who find themselves weak and exhausted as a result of stress and epidemics.

Or a stadium “horizontal and small to mix into the surroundings”as defined by Saikaku Toyokawa, exhibition curator and professor at Chiba College, who additionally confirmed the“utilizing wooden to fulfill thick” we had “The mud that gives shade and permits the wind to go by means of”. He additionally invitations you to contemplate, on a partial mannequin, the slight curvature of the roof of the world, a delicate distinction which contributes to the individuality of the work. Zen has an 80,000 seat stadium.

One other mannequin, essentially the most spectacular piece of the exhibition, reveals two works of their city surroundings: we aren’t shocked by the skyscrapers than the nice forest of the Meiji shrine that separates the enclosures. However the shock comes above all from the photographs introduced. These of the Yoyogi studio have been by Yasuhiro Ishimoto, who adopted Tange in lots of tasks, particularly the six-hand guide with Walter Gropius on the village of Katsura. These of the nationwide stadium are signed by Mikiya Takimoto, a giant identify in Japanese images, who labored on many movies by Hirokazu Kore-eda. All photographs are in black and white, photographs which have been edited to boost the traces of their topics.

We clearly got here out of there with a need to go see the 2 monuments on the positioning. If it fails, we are able to all the time go and consider the French works of two architects: the Grand Ecran on the Place d’Italie for Tange, the brand new Albert-Kahn museum in Boulogne-Billancourt and, not too long ago, the station Grand Paris Specific Saint- Denis Pleyel and the gallery of Angers Cathedral for Kuma. It is cheaper than a flight to Tokyo and the carbon footprint is healthier.

“Kenzô Tange-Kengo Kuma” at Maison de la tradition du Japon (75015) till July 29. Free entry.