The advent of the modern metropolis unleashed innovative urban visions developed in the sixties specifically for Tokyo Bay by the architects of the Metabolism Group. Changing definitely the way of thinking about urban design, the group defined a unique and heroic moment in architectural history, working on ideas that may seem utopian today, but which responded to a cultural climate that looked to the future. In fact, looking at that international situation of the hyper-engineering trend, “the inhabitation of Tokyo Bay seems plausible” (Koolhaas, Obrist, 2011: 267).
What was previously a geographical limitation became a free space to be built with the support of modern technology, a sort of tabula rasa found exactly next to the capital.
Among the dozens of plans that have been proposed at the time by Japanese architects, the most relevant is that of Kenzō Tange. The Plan for Tokyo 1960 developed by Tange Lab consisted of a civic axis that had to cross the bay with a linear infrastructure leading to megastructures. As Tange shows, infrastructure has the potential of constructing the site itself. Infrastructure prepares the ground for future buildings as well as creates the conditions for future developments.
The research developed by Rem Koolhaas on Asian cities is visible in many of OMA’s projects, of which the 1991 plan for the Mission Grand Axe in Paris is a key example of the revisitation of the tabula rasa approach. Thirty years later, Tange’s project is used as a tool for design. Starting from the name of the plan, which with its Grand Axe recalls Tange’s Civic Axis, it can be noticed OMA’s attempt to create a sort of artificial bay in the center of La Défense through a selective tabula rasa in order to design a new designed territory upon which to construct.
Tabula rasa is a Latin expression used to define the wax tablet used by the Romans for writing. After its use, the tablet was erased to write again, and then to design again, and then to construct again…
Bibliography
- Tange, K., (1961, April), A Plan for Tokyo, 1960. Toward a Structural Reorganization. The Japan Architect, n. 36.
- Koolhaas R., Mau B. (1995), S, M, L, XL. New York: The Monacelli Press.
- Koolhaas R., Obrist H. U. (2011), Project Japan. Metabolism Talks.., Cologne: Taschen.
