Tower of the Winds

Tower of the Winds

Toyo Ito & Associates

Location : Yokohama, Kanagawa, Japan. Date of completion : 1986. Client : Committee for the 30^th Anniversary of Yokohama West Station. Architect : Toyo Ito & Associates. Associates : Gengo Matsui, O.R.S. (structure), TI. Yamagiwa Inc. (lighting), Masami Usuki. Photography : Sinkenchiku-sha, Tomio Ohashi

The Tower of the Winds is located on a urban center of accelerated energy typical of Japan’s major cities, which are immersed in the vortex of the twin paradox about architecture that we are proposing.

The primitive ventilation and water tower that existed in the bus terminal square of Yokohama station has been re-covered, following its restoration, by an elliptical cylinder of perforated aluminium some 21 m (70 ft) high. When night falls, its surface loses all form. All that can be seen is a network that traps the essence of each moment, filters all the available environmental information, and interweaves it to produce the fabric that is the reality of the palces.

The direction and speed of the wind as well as the intensity of the traffic noise are transformed into electrical impulses to become an ephemeral architecture of light. The tower is a mirror of its circumstances, and thus is not material. The tower is never the same, which makes it ephemeral, cahanging in essence

(adapted from The World of Contemporary Architecture XX)