The $41 Billion Plan for Tokyo

This is a video on multiple plans to build cities on Tokyo's bay.

This includes Kenzo Tange's famous 1960 plan.

This video would not have been possible without:

Rem Koolhaas and Hans Ulrich Obrist's book: Project Japan Metabolism talks.
Kenzo Tange Image CC 3.0

Blender.
Davinci Resolve.
Cavalry.

Images via Getty.

[Max-meol]

destroying a mountain to have enough soil to fill up an entire freaking bay sounds like a city skylines project of mine that would go horribly wrong.

[bornandbred]

As a college student (I studied structural engineering) I went to an annual showcase for the college of architecture's senior projects and I got to see so many models that made the metabolists seem flat out rational with their designs. I vividly remember a skyscraper in the middle of the ocean that was supposed to be supported on a single tiny pile. When I asked the architecture student about the foundation design considering the submerged soil properties he gave me a blank look and said yeah it'll be fine. All the senior projects were pretty creative, as long as you ignore physics and cost.

[Croz]

I can picture a long line of architectural engineers, seismic engineers and geotechnical engineers, among others, just saying "no" to all of these plans.

[lesussie]

These architects were looking at these projects from a top-down view like the city elites, instead of imagining how it would be like inside like the people who actually lived in them

[Dibudab]

It's impressive that those ideas sprung up in country with one of the strictest anti narcotics laws

[i-ddtgdgj]

Although many people misunderstand it, this "Tokyo Plan 1960" is not an urban plan that was intended to be realized as is, but rather a thought experiment by the government and architects.
The position of the project is similar to that of a concept car created by an automobile manufacturer.
Naturally, this plan was never implemented as it was, but the urban axis and urban structure presented in this plan had a great impact on the subsequent urban development of Tokyo.
This is clearly reflected in the development of Odaiba, Ariake, Yurikamome, Tokyo Bay Aqualine, and other coastal areas.

[davidle]

I don't know if I should be terrified or impressed by the ad read.

[zekelor]

You should have mentioned that much of Tokyo was originally a swamp that Tokugawa Ieyasu filled in with cedar trees so that it could be expanded when he moved Japan's capital there. Tokyo has a history of large scale terraforming projects, so this only continues that tradition.

[fireaza]

City Planner: "Why specifically to Chiba though?"
Kanno (wearing a shirt that reads "I love Chiba"): "No particular reason."

[BiboyHernandez]

I love how with each passing year, the proposed plans for Tokyo Bay get crazier and crazier. They make the Babylon Project in Patlabor seem downright plausible in comparison.

[ryanpoirier]

Crazy how backwards our builders have become. This is right up there with building the largest building in the world without a sewage system.

[psiga]

Because _OF COURSE_ the notions of Neo Tokyo featured in AKIRA were inspired by real ideas had by real Japanese eccentrics. Silly of me to even begin to think otherwise, really.
Superlatively impressive video, as usual. Super glad to be a subscriber!

[sleeplessstu]

You can actually get a small glimpse of what such an endeavor would have looked like or felt just by crossing the bay on the Tokyo Bay Aqua-Line which opened in 1997. The artificial island, known Umihotaru (海ほたる, Umi-hotaru, "sea firefly, " is in the middle of the bay and serves as the transition between the bridge and an undersea tunnel which connects the two sides of the bay. It’s an interesting piece of architecture but it’s isolation in the middle of the sea gives it a rather soulless outlook especially in inclement weather.

[abdullahiabdirashid]

The animation and rendering take this storytelling to a whole new level. Keep it up

[noahh]

As a Japanese person, I am SO happy that these plans have never come to life. They would be inefficient, destructive, and even more car centric

[draqblaffle]

As an engineer, I finally found something worse than an architecture. A cult of architectures.

[WhizzComputer]

That intro comment "and why is this introduction so dramatic, seriously why?" made me laugh harder than it should

[benyseus]

As the common saying goes: an architect’s dream is a civil engineer’s nightmare.

[csr]

This whole idea of having commercial and residential zones separated strictly is such a City Skylines approach to planning...

[timofreee]

Wow. Those animations are amazing, I was half listening and half admiring the work put into the graphics explaining everything