This is a complex facility focusing to have function of "Messe" in the newly developed area
where the urban context of the existed land form and its history has been cut off
(discontinued).
Our concern was how to respond to it's super scaled sense of velocity of the Shinkansen,
super express railway and the site location close by its station.
On the other hand we discussed much on the following subjects such as how to relate this
contemporary facility to the Shiroishi Castle and the historical core on the contrast, and how
to recover the aerial continuity in between the divided zones where the aerial division is
clearly appeared to be called as the "civitas Parallelus".
Grouping a powerful form to beat the sensation of velocity, we reached the simple
geometrical form which easily responds to the linear form of the Shinkansen and the linear
acompositional axises found in the urban structure.
This concept could also be considered to be deeply related to a sense of simplicity and
conscientiousness of "Bushido" (Samurai Spirit).
Moreover, the image of "Velocity" produced the rectangular tube form, then pulled out the
disk-shaped floating gymnasium and ramp way from the transparent wall in the end.
The floating cafe which is suspended in the air (we call it the "Cosmic Egg") and the oval
plan-formed concert hall are the forms considered as the commitment to the velocity.
The transparent glazed concert hall which will be the first trial in the world is devised to face
the exterior environment through the transparent wall in the pianonobile (foyer) floor level.
We expect this transparent skin to manifest the internal festiveness beside the reflecting urban
situation in the outside on its obsevatorical plane, as well call it the "doublage effect" (double
projecting effect) of glazing screens to deliver the visionary information. For the purpose of
it, this architecture is expected to be reinforced as the explosive mechanism armed with the
infotechnology which we can consider today.
Velo city which is expected to be the leading project of the urban design in Shiroishi will be
deservedly a great architecture on the E-point (Effective point).
The building type of this architecture causes an image of a factory or manufacturing plant,
because it is planned as the concept of a sphere as a receptor and an incubator of productions
in the ray of information and electronic semeiology.
Hideto Horiike, the Architect
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The Site
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The model showing
the Concert Hall
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Mayor Teiichi Kawai (Left) and
Architect Hideto Horiike (Right)
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