Plan for Tokyo: Kenzo Tange

Abstract When Kenzo Tange travelled to Otterlo to attend the last meeting of the Congrès internationaux d'architecture moderne (CIAM) in September 1959, he seemed to be preoccupied by questions of the future urban form. Like other participants in this conference, organized by Team 10, that ended with a formal dissolution of CIAM, Tange was asked to present “a project which he considered to express in the best way possible his conception of the task of the architect and urbanist, and his thoughts on how the architect and urbanist might rationalize and harmonize the connections between people and their surroundings.” Tange concluded his presentation with two projects by another young Japanese architect, Kiyonori Kikutake, including his own residence, Sky House, and a utopian city design called the Marine City. This became the first exposure of the Metabolism group's work in an international event. Tange particularly referred to the project of Marine City and claimed: “Tokyo is expanding but there is no more land, and we shall have to expand into the sea.” This bold statement launched his exploration of alternative urban forms for this emerging megacity with a series of visionary projects that culminated with the Plan for Tokyo 1960, also known as the Tokyo Bay Plan.