SENDAI MEDIATHEQUE-TOYO ITO

Images of the Mediatheque have circulated widely in the architectural media since 1995, when Toyo Ito's competition project revealed a new structural prototype (or archi-type) which expressed the will to incorporate the notions of mobility and fluidity into space and structure. Second in the series of "Verb" monographs, this book presents the process of design and construction of this prototype throughout these years, leading to the building's use as of the beginning of 2001, and reflects on the project's ambition to integrate the real and the virtual worlds - or, in Ito's words, the primitive body of natural flow and the virtual body of electronic flow. Long after its completion, the Mediatheque is still under construction.