Kanzo TangeNationality - Japan

1.0 Life and Time1.1 Born:

Imabari , Shikoku. September 4, 1931

1.2 Died : March 22, 2005

1.3 Education: High School In Hiroshima Graduated in Architecture Courses from Tokyo Imperial University in 1938. In 1942, he returned back to the University for Graduate Course.

In 1949 ,he began his successful private practice. By 1957, Tange and Asso. Adopted firm name KENZO TANGE AND URTEC(derived from urbanist architecture)

(CIAM)

1.4 Profession:

• He seeked employment in 1938 in the office of Kunio Maekawa for 4 yrs.

• While being in office, he joined Japanese Werkbund.

• In 1946, he accepted professorship in Tokyo University.

KANZO TANGE WITH PRIME-MINISTER LEE

KUANG IN 1972

1.5 Influences:

People/Places/Art & Architectural Movements/ Period & Architectural Style• His first mentor, Maekawa, developing International Style and Bauhaus Principles under him.

• Antonin Raymond in Japan and office of Le Corb while working on Villa Savoye and Swiss Pavilion.

• Western Renaissance Architecture, especially Michelangelo.

• He developed strong sense of greatness of Rome and Greece and developed a concept of ‘Communication Space”.

•Congress Internationaux d’architecture Moderne

(CIAM)

2.0 Philosophy2.1 Architectural Theories / Styles/Principles of

Ideas/Concept/Beliefs:He believed that Japanese are searching freedom of expression symbolizing new postwar society free from old technocratic regimes.He demonstrated that unique regionalism could be developed ,and recognized within the circumstance of International Style.He marked a remarked awareness of Japanese Architectural traditions expressed through a contemporary interpretation of architectural form.Concept of “Communication Space”.Young architects should be allowed in the lapse of flights of fantasy so that architecture may progress.Architectural expression of shift of agrarian to an industrial to an information based society must be considered Modernism.

2.2 Famous Quotes

"Architecture must have something that appeals to the human heart, but even then, basic forms, spaces and appearances must be logical. Creative work is expressed in our time as a union of technology and humanity. The role of tradition is that of a catalyst, which furthers a chemical reaction, but is no longer detectable in the end result. Tradition can, to be sure, participate in a creation, but it can no longer be creative itself." 

3.0 Works

3.1 Major Architectural Works

3.1.1 Hiroshima Peace Memorial Building, Hiroshima

                              

                                           

• Date: 1949 to 1956

• Building Type: Museum and Community Center

• Construction System: Concrete

• Climate: humid subtropical

• Context: Urban

• Style: Modern

• Notes: By competition. Simple linear mass on columns with louvered walls

Site Plan

•The building is raised up on pillars, its structure a framework of exposed concrete.• The complex as a whole has a monumental quality. •There are two secondary buildings, one on either side•It consists of an auditorium, a hotel, an exhibition gallery, a library, offices and a conference center to the west, and an assembly hall with capacity for 2,500 people to the east•Together they form a kind of screen for the square of Peace, which extends to the north, in which up to 50,000 people can congregate around the monument to Peace.• The monument...in the form of a hyperbolic parabola, brings together modern tendencies and techniques and the ancient form of the Haniwa, the traditional tombs of the rulers of old Japan.

Contents

A Bomb DomeStatue of a bomb ChildrenAtomic Bomb Memorial MoundCenotaph for Korean VictimsMemorial Cenotoph Peace Flame

Peace BellHiroshima National Peace Memorial Hall for Atomic Bomb VictimsHiroshima Peace Memorial MuseumPeace GatesHiroshima Peace Memorial Ceremony

The A – Bomb Dome

•It is the skeletal ruins of the former Industrial Promotion Hall. •It is the building closest to the hypocenter of the nuclear bomb that remained at least partially standing.• It was left how it was after the bomb in memory of the bombing. •It is probably the most well-known symbol of the park.

The Statue of the A-Bomb Children.

•It is dedicated to the memory of the children who died as a result of the bombing. •The statue is of a girl Sadako Sasaki, with outstretched arms with a crane rising above her.

Atomic Bomb Memorial Mound.

•The Atomic Bomb Memorial Mound is a large, grass-covered knoll• It contains the ashes of 70,000 unidentified victims of the bomb

•It is the primary museum in the park dedicated to educating visitors about the bomb. •The Museum has exhibits and information covering the build up to war, the role of Hiroshima in the war up to the bombing, and extensive information on the bombing and its effects, along with substantial memorabilia and pictures from the bombing. •The building also offers some marvelous views of the Memorial Cenotaph, Peace Flame, and A-Bomb

The Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum

The Memorial Cenotaph.•Near the center of the park is a concrete, saddle-shaped monument that covers a Cenotaph holding the names of all of the people killed by the bomb.• The Cenotaph carries the epitaph, "Repose ye in Peace, for the error shall not be repeated." •Through the monument you can see the Peace Flame and the A-Bomb Dome.

•The Hall of Remembrance which contains a a 360 degree panorama of the destroyed Hiroshima recreated using 140,000 tiles - the number of people estimated to have died from the bomb by the end of 1945.

Hiroshima National Peace Memorial Hall

3.1.2 St. Mary's Cathedral, Tokyo,Japan

•Date: 1963

•Building Type: Church

•Construction System: Concrete

•Climate: Temperate

•Context: Urban

•Style: Modern

•Notes: Up-sweeping hyperbolic paraboloid roofs.

An Interior View

Comments

The plan of the building is in the form of a cross, from which the walls, eight hyperbolic parabolas, rise up at an angle. These open upwards to form a cross of light which continues vertically the length of the four facades. To this rhomboid volume other secondary constructions are added. their rectangular volumes contrasting with the symbolic character of the cathedral with which they communicate by way of pathways and platforms.

The bell tower is 60 m in height and stands at a little distance from the cathedral proper, whose interior is finished in exposed concrete.

The exterior surfaces are clad in stainless steel, which gives them a special radiance in keeping with the religious character of the building."

The baptistery and the baptismal font are among these secondary buildings.

3.1.3   Fuji Broadcasting Center. Tokyo , Japan

• Date: circa 1990

• Building Type:broadcasting center, commercial offices

• Construction System: metal cladding

• Climate: Temperate

• Context: Urban

• Style: Modern, Neo-Metabolist

• Notes: Square tubes and blocks mega structure with sphere.

Plan - Fuji Broadcasting Center · Tokyo, Japan

Interior Views

3.1.4  Tokyo City Hall

•Date: 1991

•Building Type: broadcasting center, publishing building, commercial offices

•Construction System: metal cladding

•Climate: Temperate

•Context: Urban

•Style: Modern, Neo-Regionalist

•Notes: A pair of tall geometric towers

•Details :Two towers, 243 meters and 163 meters tall.

3.1.5

The National Gymnasium de Yoyogi (Tokyo)

•Twin gymnasiums designed for the 1964 Tokyo Olympics

3.1.6.U.O.B. Plaza. Singapore

Date: May 1995.Location: Singapore.Client: United Overseas Bank.Area: 131,887 sq. mts.structure: Steel; Reinforced concrete.Materials: Granite.Cost: US$290 million.Award: Best Building Design Award.

Site - Plan

Lower Floor PlanUpper Floor Plan

Section

Contributions and Achievements: Awards/Publications/Writings/Exhibitions/ Lectures/Discoveries

In 1949, he won the contest for the Park of Peace and the museum of the atomic bomb, which he builds in the center of the reappearing city of Hiroshima.The thesis for his doctorate in 1959 was "Spatial Structure in a Large City," an interpretation of urban structure on the basis of people's movements commuting to and from work.

His "Plan for Tokyo 1960" was the Tange Team's logical response to these problemsHe received Pritzker Architecture Prize Laureate ,1987

Chronology of Works

2005: Hwa Chang Institution Boarding Institute, Singapore

2003: The Linear –Private Apartments, Singapore

2000: Tokyo Dome Hotel

2000: Kagawa Government Perfectural Building, the main offices, Takamatsu, Kagawa

1998: WKC Center for Health Department, Kobe, Hyogo

1998: University of Bahrain, Sakhir, Bahrain

1996: Fuji Television Building, Odaiba, Tokyo

1991: Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building, Shinjuku

1991: Tokyo City Hall

1986: Nanyang Technological University, Singapore

1979: Hanae Mori Building Aoyama, Tokyo1970: Site of Expo’70, Snita, Osaka1964: Yoyogi National Gymnasium for the 1964 Summer Olympics, Tokyo 1964: St. Mary’s Cathedral(Tokyo Cathedral) (Roman Catholic), Tokyo1960: Kurashiki City Hall, Kurashiki,Okayama1958: Kagawa Perfectural Government Building the east offices, Takamatsu,Kagawa1957: (Former) Tokyo Metropolitan Government, Yurakucho1955: Hiroshima Peace Memorial Building, Hiroshima

4.0 Bibliography/Webliography

Kanzo Tange And URTECWorks Of Kanzo Tange and UrtecTwentieth Century ArchitectureArchitecture And ArchitectsKanzo Tange