Catch up --- The Olympics Main Stadium Issue

The national Stadium will be rebuilt and used as the main Stadium of the Tokyo Olympics.


The first design

The deign by a British architect Zaha Hadid.was selected.

(from: https://www.jpnsport.go.jp)

Neo-futuristic design!

Kind of criteria of the competition were;

- It will be also used for the 2019 Rugby World Cup.
- 80,000 capacity
- Retractable roof
- 290,000m2
- The total construction cost is about  130 billion yen     etc.

It turned up involving enormous cost!

It was estimated 300 billion yen!!!!!

For reference, the cost of building the main stadium for other Olympics were;
London: 76 billion yen
Sydney: 64 billion yen
Athens: 36 billion yen ----> 8 stadiums can be built by using 300 billion yen!

The Minister of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology, Shimomura announced that they will simplify the stadium plan, such as;
- The retractable roof is canceled
- Some of the seats will be makeshift ones.

However, it was still controversial.

Then finally,

17th July 2015
The stadium design and the plan were "SCRAPPED".

The Prime Minister Abe expressed it.
He also expressed abandoning the plan to use the stadium for the 2019 Rugby World Cup because it can't make it in time.

The competition again

Only two groups participated the competition, because there were many restrictions in the competition.

[Design A]

 (from: http://www.huffingtonpost.jp)

[Design B]

 (from: http://www.huffingtonpost.jp)

 

December 2015
Design A was selected.

Actually, I preferred the B design...

There still are problems...

No Air Conditioners in the stadium!
It was decided that air Conditioners will not be installed in the stadium.
WHAT?!?!?!?!?!
Air conditioner is MUST for a stadium in terrible horrible humid Japan's summer.
Many people from abroad will come to spectate the opening and closing ceremony and games. It could become a bad memory for them.
I hope it wouldn't cause many people to feel sick due to oppressive humidity.
Japan must improve and prepare the medical care system. Horrible.

No Olympic cauldron in the stadium!!!
It was found that the design of the stadium doesn't have the Olympic cauldron.
Huh?!?!?!?!?!
It was found even 3 months after the design was decided.
Sloppy, sloppy, incredibly sloppy!
The Olympic cauldron might be set outside the stadium, nothing has been decided though.

Using even more money!?
Some politicians in the LDP made a proposal to the government to make the seats in the stadium from wood. Wooden seats.
Plastic seats will cost around 2 billion yen, but Wooden seats will cost double or triple. On top of it, the maintenance and operation cost for the next 50 years will be tens of billions of yen!

They have cut the cost of the indispensable things - air conditioners that is around 9 billion yen (actually this is incredibly overestimated, according to an architect firm.).
And they try using much more money for unnecessary things.
This is a typical train of thought of people in public organizations.