Sendai Mediatheque 3.04

Sendai Mediatheque is a library in Sendai, Miyagi Prefecture, Japan. It was designed by Toyo Ito in 1995 and completed in 2001.HistoryThe Sendai Mediatheque held its official opening on January 26, 2001, however the initial impetus for the project began as early as August, 1989 when the Arts Association of Miyagi Prefecture requested the construction of a new museum in Sendai. Between 1989 and 1994 the site of an old bus depot was selected for the new project, and the program was expanded to include the replacement of the existing library. After a public consultation, an architectural competition was held for the design of the Mediatheque, and in March 1995 Toyo Ito and Associates Architects was named the winner out of 235 competing proposals.Ito’s proposal was conceptually rooted in an idea of “fluid” space of technology discussed in his 1997 article Tarzan in the Media Jungle. Rather than viewing media as a foreign element to nature, Ito embraced new media/computing as forming an integral part of the contemporary urban environment. The building was conceived as a transparent cube through which thin floor plates float suspended on organic-looking seaweed-like “tubes.” The cube was meant to be read as a small representative element of an infinite, viscous information space, with the four edges sealed with glass facades which, through their reflections, would allow the building to alternately dematerialize or repeat itself creating a kind of ephemeral connection with infinite space. This concept of ephemerality of partitions was intimately linked with the Mediatheque’s mission to be barrier-free, in the sense of providing specialized services to those with visual, auditory or other physical impairments. Ito considered that the new library, as its role in the city shifts from a place of mere access to text-based information, requires a corresponding shift in the meaning of the term barrier-free to include a removal of architectural barriers which dictate how a space must be used.