D(ATR) Due to rising expected costs of construction, Japan’s Sports Minister suggests removing the retractable roof from current national stadium designs.
This is the latest in a series of conflicts arising from the new National Stadium. Since the project was revealed in 2013, criticism arose about the expensive designs, the size of the project and the architecture itself.
Such criticism resulted in budget cuts on the project of 40 percent by decreasing the size of the stadium by 25 percent in July of 2014. Nearly a year later, Japan’s Sports Minister Hakuban Shimomura is proposing further scale backs.
Included in the proposal is delaying the construction and addition of the retractable roof until after the completion of the 2020 Games. Additionally, the new proposal calls for 30,000 of the stadium’s 80,000 seats to be temporary.
The ministry says the new changes will aid in completing construction before the 2019 Rugby World Cup.
These changes were announced by Shimomura at a conference with the Tokyo Governor Yoichi Masuzoe on Monday. On top of these proposed changes, Shimomura made a request to the government of Tokyo asking the city to cover a part of the construction costs.
Masuzoe was not pleased with the additional monetary request of the city.
"Up until now, there has been absolutely no communication about this. It is irresponsible because we have to think of the taxpayers," Masuzoe commented.
The governor went on to add, "It’s irresponsible to keep repeating, ‘We can build it.’ But that’s just like the Japanese Imperial Army during the war saying, ‘We’re winning, we’re winning,’ when in fact we were losing."
Japan’s former National Stadium was used during the 1964 Olympics in Tokyo. This stadium was demolished last week in order to make way for the new project in the same location.
The new stadium is projected to begin construction this October once the existing rubble is removed. The Japanese Sports Ministry must have the finalized construction plans by this time if it wants to prevent delays.
The Japanese Sports Ministry says they hope to have a "precise budget and plan by the end of the month."
Written by Kevin Nutley, Kenta Handa and Takahiro Hashimoto
Homepage photo: Zaha Hadid Architects
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