Entry Structure

Mori Art Center. Tokyo, Japan, 2000-2003

 

Gluckman Mayner Architects (GMA) New York, NY

 

My Role: Project Architect under design principals and a project manager from the schematic design through to the opening of the museum for design of a cable-net-shell structure entrance pavilion, 30,000 ft2  exhibition spaces, and coordination between Japanese local architects, engineers, general construction companies (Mori Building Co. Irie-Miyake Architects, Engineering Networks, and JV: Kajima & Obayashi).

 

A 100-foot-high entry pavilion has a unique structural system of cable-net-shell with an enclosure of 60-foot-tall singled-glass cone. The pavilion takes visitors from the vehicular drop-off and shopping plaza levels at the base of the complex, up 3 to 5 floors to a seventy-foot-long bridge that leads into Mori office tower. Once inside the office building, visitors can get information about the museum at the lower lobby, then catch express elevators to the 52nd floor, where the museum proper begins. (American Architecture Award, 2004; The Chicago Athenaeum, Museum of Architecture and Design, 2004）