Tokyo Pop Lab – At The Crossroads of Ideas
Personal Info
Name: Tomáš Vlasák
Nationality: Czech
Website: https://workedonthis.net/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/worked.on.this/
Name: Peter Buš
Nationality: Slovak
Website: http://www.archa3d.com/
Name: Václav Petrus
Nationality: Czech
Name: Petr Bouřil
Nationality: Czech
-FINALIST of Non Architecture Award Competition | Category: Architecture
The design proposal of Tokyo Pop Lab – At The Crossroads of Ideas was submitted for the Bee Breeders international architecture vision competition Tokyo Pop Lab. The task was to design a building of pop culture laboratory in Tokyo, an institution that will teach students the history of popular culture and prepare them for its future evolution. The competition entry was awarded the honourable mention.
The proposed facility is not a conventional building but rather a spatial structure, a three-dimensional representation of the history and evolution of popular culture. It is a materialisation of a world of ideas transformed into reality, a statue telling the story of pop culture over time.
The building consists of three parts differently shaped by their space forming concepts: an above-ground exhibition area, underground educational spaces and facilities and a parterre in between them.
The above-ground exhibition space is formed by a multi-level maze-like cluster of boxes floating above the parterre. Each box represents one category of pop culture. The boxes are interwoven with walkways which take us on a journey throughout the secrets hidden inside.
Like comic books, the space is divided into individual frames and images horizontally, footbridges determining their order. Being elevated into a “volumetric”, spatial manga, the exhibition also progresses vertically through time, being displayed across multiple levels on walls of floorless and ceilingless boxes. This allows for not only a horizontal understanding of art’s direction, but also a vertical perception of the timeline: Around us we see works of a specific period, below are works which have affected it, above lies what our current present will have had an impact on.
Multiple footbridges and staircases are strategically placed within the space to be observed from different angles and to be perceived in a different context each time. This allows us to understand the continuity, development and situations within the maze of pop-cultural space-time.
