ABSTRACT
July 2015 was not an auspicious month for the International Olympic Committee (IOC). On the 17th, the Japanese Prime Minister Shinz-o Abe announced the scrapping of the chosen design for the new National Stadium, which would have been the $2 billion centrepiece for the Tokyo 2020 Games. The design in question had been selected in November 2012 from entries submitted to a competition organized by Japan’s Sport Council. The brief was for a new 80,000-seater stadium to replace the one previously constructed for the 1964 Olympics, with the proviso that it would be ready in time to host the 2019 Rugby World Cup (Fulcher, 2012). The winning submission from the eleven shortlisted entries supplied by international architectural practices was a sinuous design by the London-based Zaha Hadid Architects that resembled a giant cycling helmet.
