entertainment

Design for new Kabuki-za unveiled

13 Comments

Japan’s leading kabuki and film production company and owner of Tokyo’s Kabuki-za theater, Shochiku Co, has unveiled the design of the new Kabuki-za.

The new design features some elements of the pre-reconstruction, specifically the traditional brick gable architecture, but a new high-rise office block will be added to the current four-story theater building. The new complex will also provide space for evacuees in case of possible disasters, Shochiku President Jay Sakomoto said.

The theater was closed last April for reconstruction, which will be completed by 2013.

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13 Comments
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"The new complex will also provide space for evacuees in case of possible disasters" - This is EXCELLENT forward thinking! Let's hope more companies start doing this for the future.

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The new design looks exactly like the old one, except there's a huge office building behind it. I could be wrong but from this artist's depiction it certainly seems that way.

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No mention of the architect?

I'm not sure why they rebuilt the old one (perhaps code/structural problems?). This is really a terrible design, with keeping the old facade look-and-feel only having a giant structure that looks like a parking tower crushing it!

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ItsMe

Same stuff been done in Marunouchi, etc and even overseas.

Never was fond of the design myself but I worked(client) in a building outside Tokyo station that was thus rebuild as will be the Post-Office next to Tokyo Station. All those designs been known for a long time.

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Great, another big ugly building

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That design is not impressive.

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The investor wants to exploit the space for higher returns so that the architect was hired to rebuild two buildings on a same lot. One for Kabuki theater and another for office building. For both aesthetic architecture standard and traditional values, Tokyo needs to respect the old structure while adding some new structures for economic matters and safety codes like escapes for quakes and tsunami. In Paris, tourists can recognize the modern and antique structures coexisting on the same ground at Louver Palace and the little crystal pyramid.

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The new complex will also provide space for evacuees in case of possible disasters

riiiide the zeitgeist. by space for evacuees they mean the stage or possibly a broom cupboard out back. sounds nice though, gold star for the marketing dept.

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Just what Tokyo needs - another concrete box. At least it's going to be very quake proof.

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That is just hideously uninspired. Do architects in this country take any courses in aesthetics, art, art history, etc? Good example of putting a cheap veneer over the engineering. The Japanese seem to love slapping their own hard-won aesthetic sensibilities in the face. Wonder why...

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...not all Japanese though

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The old Kabuki Theatre building was pretty old and deteriorating, so it needed replacement. Looks like they did a fine job there. However, why they could not at least add a few related features to the generic glass box, I just can't fathom. The architects and building committees really missed a golden chance to add a distinctive roofline, or any sort of ornamentation to the facade to tie it to the glorious kabuki below. So, agree. A bit of a shame.

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It looks like something you'd see in Final Fantasy 7. Who thought of putting a huge office building behind a building like that??? It looks stupid.

The new complex will also provide space for evacuees in case of possible disasters, Shochiku President Jay Sakomoto said.

A good thing, but it's just jumping on the flavour-of-the-month cause.

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