Somewhere in these renderings, surely, is a pod chair with speakers piping atonal music. This is how architect Kenzo Tange’s 1974 minimalist addition to the MIA was expected to play out: the museum as mod social hub.
Tange was a starchitect before anyone had thought of the term. He blended Le Corbusier’s modernism with traditional Japanese design, doubling down on clean lines and functional open spaces. By the time he was hired to design the MIA’s new lobby and addition, he was already famous in Japan and elsewhere for his postwar architecture, having essentially rebuilt Hiroshima from its radioactive rubble.
These renderings suggest a lively, open, light-filled contrast with the older, neoclassical sections of the museum. And for the most part that’s what the MIA got from Tange, though the minimalism—always a delicate enterprise—lost some of its lightness in the decades that followed, as spaces were filled in or converted to other uses.
Recently, a coffee shop/restaurant/lounge were added to the lobby along with some arguably pod-like furniture, manifesting the lively futurism of these renderings and Tange’s original vision of the MIA as creative host to all your groovy goings-on.
Watch for more Once at MIA flashbacks every Monday at MIA Stories.