ABSTRACT
A highlight during Japan’s economic miracle, the World Expositions at Osaka in 1970 has often been considered the climax of the Metabolist movement as the event provided a grand arena for their radical concepts of urbanism and experimental architectural designs. However, it also saw the decline of their utopian visions for the modern city as the architects’ earlier social ambitions yielded to a pragmatic approach to design driven by the rising consumerist economy. Expo ’70 was also the result of complex regional politics and saw the competition between differing ideologies between Uzō Nishiyama, a Marxist architectural theorists based on Kyoto, and of Kenzō Tange, representing the industrial powers in Tokyo. Several iconic designs at the Expo, including Tange’s Festival Plaza, Kikutake’s Expo Tower as well as Kurokawa’s Takara Beautilion, showcased the technological developments characterized by megastructure and capsule whiling adapting these imageries to the new aesthetics of consumerism and postmodernism.
