ABSTRACT
As spectacular as Kenzo Tange’s Tokyo Bay project was, it was never realized; it remained a scheme on paper and a much-published model. In Skopje, although his ambitious plan had a significant impact on the initial stages of the city’s reconstruction, delineating a powerful vision for the city’s resurgence after the devastating earthquake in 1963, Tange was forced to withdraw from the commission in 1967. Apparently such a large-scale international urban redevelopment project was not beyond the influence of politics, and he gradually lost control of the project. Tange had to be content with realizing his megastructural ideas in individual building projects such as the Yamanashi Press and Broadcasting Center and the Shizuoka Press and Broadcasting Center. It was not until the end of the 1960s that a unique opportunity emerged for him to implement his urban concepts on a greater scale: Tange was named master planner for the 1970 World Exposition in Osaka, a position responsible for coordinating all construction involved with the event. This commission confirmed his status as Japan’s “national architect,” a reputation already earned for monopolizing the country’s most high-profile projects, including Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park, Tokyo City Hall and the Tokyo Olympic Stadium. More importantly the exposition allowed him to explore the urban form of the future with the structuralist approach that he had developed in his earlier works.
