Tokyo International Forum
Glass-hulled convention hall shaped like a ship, its steel-ribbed atrium soaring sixty meters above a plaza on old castle ground.
Location
About this audio guide
This guide to Tokyo International Forum traces an unusual competition the city held in 1989 for a hall to replace the old city hall that once stood on this site. Judges bypassed the expected Japanese firms and chose Rafael Vinoly, a relatively unknown architect running a small New York firm, whose winning design took the shape of a glass-hulled ship held up by curving steel ribs. Look up at those ribs overhead, climbing about sixty meters above the plaza with no column breaking the view.
This audio guide was created using AI.
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