Phase 1 : Kenzo Tange, Tokyo Bay Master Plan (1961)

Tokyo Bay Housing Unit - Axonometry

Built elements

Environment

Transportation

Outside perspective

Night view

Inside perspective

     Kenzo Tange’s Tokyo Bay Master plan was designed in the early 60’s, and appeared to be the project that stated the Japanese metabolist architecture movement. This mega-structure was designed to make a link between the two capitals that were Kisarazu and Tokyo, but also to re-bond Tokyo’s inhabitant with the sea.

     To do so, Tange imagined a mega infrastructure coupled with a business area in the middle as the continuity of the city on the water, a housing program in fish bone structure from the major axis.

In order to de-congest the coast and liberate the industrial area, it was also decided to built harbor units all around the bay. According to the Metabolism characteristics, the Tokyo Bay Master Plan is a big scaled mega-structure, showing an organic growth of the housing system, featuring self sufficient units.

These units are supposed to include all the facilities it needs within themselves, like malls, schools, green spaces and all sorts of activities. Due to a lack of original information, we assumed some of these activities in the axonometry above.

   Tange’s objective was to link every megalopolis of Japan with this self-sufficient and self-growing system, but the project stayed theoretical. However, his ideas of a united city through the whole country inspired the Japanese architects and launched the metabolism wave.