KISHO KUROKAWA

EN | JP

Top Message Works and Projects Founder Information Company Profile Recruit Link

Works and Projects

Menu | 2010's | 2000's | 1990's | 1980's | 1970's | 1960's | Furniture

Expo’70 Takara Beautilion

Suita, Osaka, Japan

Design:
Construction: 1968 - 1970
Site Area: 1,000m²
Building Area: 298m²
Total Floor Area: 1,237.6m²
Structure: Steel Structure
1 Basement Stories + 4 Stories

Design Concept:

The four-floor framework of the upper structure is composed of steel pipes, forming. It forms a tree structure stretching out in all directions.
This structure is characterized with its potential to extend, or replicate horizontally and vertically depending on necessity.
An investigation of structure, whether a structure can expand, shrink, or reduce depending on necessity, in other words, a search for architecture of Metabolism is suggested.
The upper structure was fully prefabricated and it took only 6 days to build the whole five-storey structure including the floors, windows, roof, and tower.
Steel pipe units play a main role in this work. Twelve curved steel pipes are attached to each other to form a cross horizontally and vertically. A steel panel is welded to the curved part that is a center of the cross, turning pipes into a unit.

Expo’70 Theme Pavilion "Capsule House"

Suita, Osaka, Japan

Design:1968 - 1969
Construction: 1969 - 1970
Site Area: N/A (built on 30 m high)
Building Area:
Total Floor Area: 3,890m²（entire pavilion）
Structure: Steel Structure
1 Stories

Design Concept:

Set in the Symbol Zone’s Theme Pavilion at the 1970 Osaka World Exposition, the Capsule House was designed to express the futuristic architecture theme.
The Theme Pavilion
The Capsule House was suspended from the space frame in the pavilion, built with a window in the living room floor to view the ground below. The installation of the substructure (architecture) into the mega-structure (city infrastructure) shows one possibility of what cities in the future will be like.
The suspension of the architecture from the also shows that we are one step closer to achieving a weightless base in outer space.

Expo’70 Toshiba IHI Pavilion

Suita, Osaka, Japan

Design: - 1967 - - 1968
Construction: - 1968 - - 1970
Site Area: 6,440m²
Building Area: 3,030m²
Total Floor Area: 4,849m²
Structure: Steel Structure
Basement 2 Stories, 2 Stories

Design Concept:

This pavilion is built with the following 4 parts which are structurally independent of each other.
1) “Tetra-frame” is made of steel plate, which form three dimensional trusses. Tetra-piece of steel plates characterize the Toshiba IHI Pavilion. There is a dome theater, hanged from the Tetra-frame. Together they look like a forest. Inside the dome, there is a theater with nine screens.
2) Beneath the dome, there is a revolving floor measuring 26m in diameter which goes up and down. This is an auditorium for the theaters with nine screens. The floor with 500 seats rises through the forest into the cocoon. The floor is supported by jack with 300 ton oil pressure.
3) There is a flat lower structure. The roof of this structure is at the entrance level to the entrance to the auditorium.
4) There is a tower of 50m in height which is assembled from the same tetra-pieces. This stands in the middle of the main approach to the Toshiba IHI Pavilion.

“Tetra-piece,” which is an element of “tetra-frame,” is made of six different steel plates welded at the edges of an isosceles triangle formed by 4 apexes and a gravity point. There are four kinds of triangle steel plates: one with straight free borders and 3 with arched borders. Using the apex of the tetra-piece as a contact point, they are connected by spheres of cast steel.