Synopses & Reviews
Calling him a "creator of timeless buildings," the Pritzker Jury further praised Ito for "infusing his designs with a spiritual dimension and for the poetics that transcend all his works." Among those works, the Jury singled out his Sendai Mediatheque, whose innovative use of structural tubes "permitted new interior spatial qualities."
The book Sendai Mediatheque presents the process of design and construction of Ito's prototype during the six years between the building's initial design through to its completion in 2001. The Mediatheque aspires to integrate real and virtual worlds - or, in Ito's words, "the primitive body of natural flow and the virtual body of electronic flow". Long after its completion, the Mediatheque is still evolving as an evolutionary building that combines the virtual and real into one design objective.
Synopsis
Originally inspired by the image of floating seaweed, Toyo Ito's multi-purpose cultural centre, the Sendai Mediatheque, is a structure both transparent and light. Thirteen steel tubular lattice structures penetrate the design and carry the weight of the 15.75 inch thin floor slabs on each of seven floors, giving the building the impression of being suspended in mid-air. Light is central to the Mediatheque's appearance: when not flooded by daylight, the structure glows artifically from within. Located in Sendai, Japan, the Mediatheque houses a library, art gallery, audio-visual library, film studio, and cafa, and was the subject of an architectural competition in which Ito's was the winning entry. This publication documents the structure's design, construction, and current use.