Tokyo International Forum

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.