Professional Documents
Culture Documents
LAYERED MEDIA book collection and local artists seeking display space for academic
paintings had no enthusiasm for open plans or virtual reality.
Disagreement began the day after the competition winner was
From modest origins as a cultural centre and library announced. The columns had to be beefed up to meet Japan’s tough
seismic code, and the challenge for structural engineer Mutsuro Sasaki
in a provincial town, Toyo Ito’s Sendai Mediathèque
was to retain the poetry while satisfying practical necessities.
celebrates and displays its different activities and Against all odds, much of Ito’s concept has survived six years of
inventive structure in a dramatic urban shop window. impassioned debate, and the need for a structure (partly fabricated and
1 3
At night, Sendai’s new Mediathèque West facade clad in a slatted screen
pulsates with light and colour like a of perforated steel floor decking.
giant, ethereal aquarium. 4
2 The glass skin disappears in a myriad
South facade is wrapped in a clear of reflections, revealing the layers of
glass skin. Literal transparency is activity within. Like great fronds of
one means of demystifying the seaweed, tubular column cages drift
46 | 10 building and encouraging use. languidly through the interior. 4 47 | 10
ar oct 2001 ito done 24/9/01 12:03 pm Page 48
M EDIATHEQUE ,
S ENDAI , J APAN
ARCHITECT
T OYO I TO
first floor (children’s library) third floor (library mezzanine) sixth floor (media library)
1 entrance
2 ramp to parking below
3 information desk
4 café
5 foyer
6 loading bay
7 store
8 children’s library
9 meeting spaces
10 main library
11 reading areas
12 staff room
13 mezzanine reading room
14 void
15 exhibition spaces
16 cinema
17 media library
18 video room
ground floor plan (scale approx 1:1000) fifth floor (exhibition space)
5
Entrance lobby on the ground
floor, its luminous volume
penetrated by the column cages
that run through the building.
5 site plan second floor (main library) fourth floor (exhibition space)
welded by shipbuilders) that is more like an ocean liner than an plan. Four symmetrically-placed corner columns of 240mm diameter
aquarium. From the broad boulevard to the south, it appears as a tubing carry much of the load and provide the necessary seismic bracing.
shimmering rectangle of glass, etched with dots and dashes that animate Nine columns of 160mm diameter tubes are scattered in between; five
the double-glazed skin and reduce glare, extending beyond the floor are straight and contain lifts, the rest are crooked and carry ducts. The
planes. Inside, a forest of canted white tubes (recalling the branches of hollow columns pull down light from above, and most are clad in glass,
the zelkova trees that run down the middle of the street), extends adding a further layer of gauzy reflections to those in the polished
through the roof to support a gridded canopy. marble floor and dematerializing the exposed structure. A shiny red
At night, the south facade disappears. Only the skeletal structure is plastic reception desk sinuously wraps around one column like a
visible, animated by a blaze of ceiling lights and tiny accents of colour seductive swirl of lipstick, and similar extruded forms in yellow and
from furnishings set close to the glass. Though little of the building’s white anchor the bar and bookshop.
activity is apparent above the ground floor, varied ceiling heights and the To understand the building’s section, take a lift to the top floor. From
alternation of transparent, translucent and opaque surfaces on the the glass cab you can see how floor planes have been sliced through,
other three sides of the block hint at its diversity of content. The revealing the structural sandwich of steel plates topped with concrete.
Mediathèque combats the blandness and visual pollution of a Japanese On a non-stop ascent, the ride gives a fleeting glimpse of each distinctive
city (a pachinko parlour formerly occupied the site) by staying cool and floor succeeding the next, as though snorkelling up the side of a coral
enigmatic. Even the graphics, stencilled onto the glass, are reticent. reef. Here, Ito’s metaphor of the interior as a fluid medium comes
The spacious foyer, shop, and café that wrap around an enclosed gallery vividly to life. As in the ocean, the colours, the patterns of activity, and
48 | 10 cross section cross section and service areas in the north-west quadrant reveal the essence of the intensity of light change with the level. 49 | 10
ar oct 2001 ito done 24/9/01 12:03 pm Page 50
Architect
Toyo Ito & Associates, Tokyo
Structural engineer
Sasaki Structural Consultants
Mechanical engineers
Sogo Consultants, ES Associates,
Ohtaki E & M Consulting Office
Lighting consultants
Lighting Planners Associates
8 Photographs
All photographs by Dennis Gilbert/VIEW
except no. 4 which is by Nacása & Partners
6
Main library on second floor.
7
Arboreal columns animate space.
M EDIATHEQUE , S ENDAI , J APAN Column cages house lifts and ducts
ARCHITECT and bring light into the interior.
8
T OYO I TO First floor children’s library,
designed by Kazuyo Sejima.
9
Top floor media library, designed
by Ross Lovegrove, one of the
more successful marriages of
50 | 10 content and container. 9 51 | 10