Hi Malcolm. While Tokyo is a centre of activity for earthquakes, it's also a centre of activity for earthquake engineering.
Tarken-san and Horie work in this building, Mori Tower: roppongihills.com As you can see, it is a significant building [it's the tall one on the right]. The earthquake engineering is also significant.
<"Open-mind" is the will to actively absorb information
and the power to accept new ways of thinking.
It is an open heart, a state of spirit that continues to change.
In a safe city that welcomes people from around the world,
many people exchange conversations.
From the latest art and wonderful food to challenging issues of the day,
the people who spend time at Roppongi Hills will touch upon diversity of
thought and enjoy a variety of experiences.
Here you are given a chance to imagine and think.
And from there, dreams, hopes and ideas are born.
By creating open conversations with the world,
Roppongi Hills will lead the nation and the Asian region and from here,
visions that will shape our future will emerge.
This is the kind of place we want to become. >
Comment here: 64.233.179.104
<Looming just a few blocks away is a different kind of intruder. Fifty-four stories tall and sheathed in aluminum and glass, Roppongi Hills is the latest attempt by developer Minoru Mori to change the landscape of Tokyo. For all its intense urbanism, its streets packed with people, its buildings crowding one another, Tokyo has never been a truly vertical city. A history of earthquakes and catastrophic fires (once called Edo no Hana or “the flowers of Edoâ€) has made the Japanese suspicious of very tall buildings, pushing development out rather than up. Mori wants to change that. Advances in structural engineering now allow highrises to ride out earthquakes unscathed. Rival cities in Asia, such as Shanghai and Hong Kong, are reaching relentlessly for the sky. Mori doesn’t want Tokyo to be left behind.
Before arriving in Japan, I had seen all of Mori’s promotional literature on Roppongi Hills. An all-star cast of international architects: Kohn Pedersen Fox, Jon Jerde, Richard Gluckman, Sir Terence Conran, and Fumihiko Maki. A 4-million-square-foot office tower topped with a museum of contemporary art, a swank members club with eight restaurants and five bars, and an observation deck offering some of the best views in town. More than a hundred shops, including Christian Lacroix, Vivienne Tam, Armani Jeans, Mandarina Duck, Coach, and Bally. A Grand Hyatt hotel with a Shinto wedding chapel and a separate Christian chapel. A 4-acre Japanese garden. An outdoor performance space. A new headquarters and broadcasting center for TV Asahi. A public art program with works by Louise Bourgeois, Sol Lewitt, Tatsuo Miyajima, Toyo Ito, Karim Rashid, and EttoreSottsass.
Everybody I know in Tokyo hates it. Too big, too commercial, too insensitive to the fabric of the city, they say. It doesn’t open for another three weeks and it already is the object of universal critical scorn. Can it really be that bad, I wonder. I decide to try to like it.>
Mori Tower has hot-stuff earthquake engineering moriliving.com
"Real billionaire"? Mori only makes his millions as a result of Horie paying him rent. I'd say that makes the "real" billionaire the one providing the rent. But then again, as you say, the rent-payer might be just a dot.com dreamer with some sucker shareholders. I think Horie is "real". Jay Chen is real and he's just a mouse clicker [see his recent comments about feeling "weird" about his financial shenanigans and cyberspace life]. Real is an abstract concept these days. Real doesn't necessarily have a 3D manifestation.
Mqurice |
