Yoyogi National Gymnasium

Yoyogi National Gymnasium, Tokyo
Arne Müseler, CC BY-SA 3.0 de

For the 1964 Olympic Games Kenzo Tange designed two sports halls with suspended roofs. Steel cables between two tall masts carry the roof in a soft curve. The form unites Japanese temple architecture with modern engineering.

Tokyo hosted the 1964 Olympic Games, the first in Asia, and the city built new facilities to show Japan’s post-war reconstruction. Kenzo Tange was commissioned to design the swimming hall and a smaller hall for basketball. They were built in 1961–1964 in Yoyogi Park. The engineer Yoshikatsu Tsuboi calculated the structure.

The large hall has a roof suspended from two steel cables between two concrete masts. From the cables, steel members run out to a concrete base, so that the roof takes on a soft, saddle-shaped curve. The smaller hall has a single mast and a spiral roof. The form of the roofs recalls Japanese temples and seashells, and the interior is bright and free of columns. In its day the structure was one of the largest suspended roofs in the world.

The halls have been used for sport and concerts ever since and were used again during the 2021 Olympic Games. Tange received the Pritzker Prize in 1987. Yoyogi is regarded as one of the most important post-war works in Japan and one of the first internationally known examples of Japanese modernism.