The $41 Billion Plan for Tokyo

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This is a video on multiple plans to build cities on Tokyo's bay.
This includes Kenzo Tange's famous 1960 plan.
This video would not have been possible without:
Rem Koolhaas and Hans Ulrich Obrist's book: Project Japan Metabolism talks.
Kenzo Tange Image CC 3.0
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fi...
Blender.
Davinci Resolve.
Cavalry.
Images via Getty.

[@hoogyoutube]

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[@a.m.653]

No

[@suicideistheanswer369]

no

[@hoogyoutube]

@@a.m.653yes

[@Assassin3330]

i wonder if the term meta post marketing apply here and YES

[@soremail]

The commercial was perfect in a sense that it was ironic not the chronic way of presenting an advertisement.@@zzz_zzzzzzz_zzz_imtired

[@Max-me9ol]

destroying a mountain to have enough soil to fill up an entire freaking bay sounds like a city skylines project of mine that would go horribly wrong.

[@Butter_Warrior99]

RT would definitely do that.

[@brickitect420]

@@Butter_Warrior99 A man of culture I see~

[@papierbak]

The town where I live did this but in reverse. They dug 2 giant holes to have soil to build upon. After which they filled them with water and turned them into lakes.

[@theviniso]

@@papierbak That sounds cool, which city is it?

[@akshatjain2775]

This is essentially what Mumbai is.

[@Croz89]

I can picture a long line of architectural engineers, seismic engineers and geotechnical engineers, among others, just saying "no" to all of these plans.

[@Heroasaurus]

You say that as “The Line” is being built lol

[@Croz89]

@@Heroasaurus Yeah, but that's Saudi Arabia, what the crown prince wants the crown prince gets, one way or another.

[@Just_A_Guy_Here.]

Kinda interesting pattern I notice in a couple city related megaprojects is that they tend to be linear. We have the line project of Saudi Arabia, and some Tokyo bay city megaprojects. Denser cities, more people, more people more control, more control you get what you get.

[@Heroasaurus]

@@Just_A_Guy_Here. radial cities have their own unique problems. No city exists without context and purpose.

[@magical11]

@@Just_A_Guy_Here. Line's aren't any more dense than circles. It's a line because the entire city is built along a mega transport route. Which is itself a bad idea since the entire city grinds to a halt if the line goes offline. But the Sauds already have absolute power; they're not getting anymore from this new linear metropolis.

[@bpelectric]

As a resident of Tokyo, having all of these plans explained without the associated disaster preparedness (specifically earthquake and tsunami) is utterly terrifying. A superstructure housing 10m people suspended over the bay in the most seismically active county in the world sounds like an absolutely untenable risk.

[@AD4-]

Yep, I was questioning the same thing.

[@DBT1007]

And imagine the water and food stock. Japan today need to import many resources. Even just raw vegetables, they still importing veggies. Japan need more farmer and other food producers. And also stabilize their population. Not decrease, nor increase. This project, is hoping/expecting that japan population to rise and they want to move those population to city. Man.. Japan, you cant make your nation full of city😅. Nation need villagers too. Dont be like singapore or monaco. They're micronations. And they're highly dependant on nearby nations. For singapore, so dependant on malaysia and indonesia for example. Imagine if no indonesia & malaysia. Singapore gonna be so poor. Food cost can reach maybe... 10$ per meal without Indonesia & Malaysia. That means 50$ per day. 3 meal and some snacks and drinks in between. While food cost in Indonesia & Malaysia is just 0.5-1$ per meal. 3-5$ food cost per day. That's a huge gap there 😅.

[@blackfades2grey]

I live in Chiba and work in Tokyo. I’m very sure that if this thing gets ever built (which I highly doubt), it will adhere to the strict standards for disaster prevention that are in place for buildings and infrastructure.

[@therealsharat]

@@DBT1007 Well said, but remember Tokyo is intended to be a "Major City" due to its immense and dense population. The idea you are trying to convey has got nothing to do with this project particularly, as Japan has a lot of land allocated for farms, and they have lots of villages too. A city can never be self sufficient, there will always be a need for farms and villages, however just like the former, having a major city means having a booming economy. What is required to be self-sufficient is not not Tokyo or Kyoto or Osaka, it is "Japan"

[@christopherwojtan750]

As fellow former Tokyo dweller and mariner I would think its safer. Unless the quake happened in the bay a tsunami effect isn't perilous and ground effects would be less noticeable. I was on a ship just outside the bay when the Tohoku quake happened in 2011.

[@fireaza]

City Planner: "Why specifically to Chiba though?" Kanno (wearing a shirt that reads "I love Chiba"): "No particular reason."

[@akob3349]

B is next to N, maybe that is misspelling when typing, actually that would "I love China". on the internet, the name China is wellknown than Chiba.

[@shakunimama936]

Because he is an oregairu fan

[@inzane456]

​@@akob3349...He's referring to Chiba prefecture.

[@chippysteve4524]

It's almost as though property developers are all crooks ;-) Apart from Donald Trump of course!

[@mahirxia5752]

​@@akob3349huh?

[@heidirabenau511]

That sponsorship came out of nowhere.

[@suddenbrickproductions]

real tf does the ad think this videos audince is

[@ScottysHaze]

It really did.

[@franko8572]

2:00

[@chippysteve4524]

like a kick in the nuts!Gotta love that Asian sense of humour eh?

[@matteodotdpsatgmaildotcom2451]

"Uncivilized animal" Well, insults are FOR SURE going to make me buy your product

[@davidle9588]

I don't know if I should be terrified or impressed by the ad read.

[@hoogyoutube]

Both

[@heidirabenau511]

​@@hoogyoutubeI was called single in so many ways.

[@ArcturusCOG]

@@hoogyoutube the ad kept me watching it that's for sure.

[@treystephens6166]

@@heidirabenau511pussy is overrated

[@jt92]

I'd really like to know her name/instagram. For scientific purposes.

[@lesussie2237]

These architects were looking at these projects from a top-down view like the city elites, instead of imagining how it would be like inside like the people who actually lived in them

[@Bonyari_Boy]

Exactly. This type of urban design is affectionately known as ‘bird shit architecture’.

[@MaddoScientisto-fb3kb]

basically that's modernist (not "modern", that's another one) architecture, pretty scary stuff

[@stavro-kun]

@@MaddoScientisto-fb3kb argue-ably even modern ones were somewhat weird like le corbusier's master plans

[@thepedrothethethe6151]

@@MaddoScientisto-fb3kb Depends on the architect. See "Unidad Vecinal Diego Portales" or "Villa Frei"

[@user-pk6fk5ns1s]

Honestly, I think you’re looking at it the wrong way. The architects know how people live, since housing exists to fit one’s present or future needs. It’s either the city planners’ and/or the politicians’ (most ljkely) fault. You also have to look at it under the Japanese cultural lens, where architects are just doing a politician’s whims (or their client’s) and can’t afford to lose face. TLDR; It’s always the politician’s fault.

[@209bornandbred]

As a college student (I studied structural engineering) I went to an annual showcase for the college of architecture's senior projects and I got to see so many models that made the metabolists seem flat out rational with their designs. I vividly remember a skyscraper in the middle of the ocean that was supposed to be supported on a single tiny pile. When I asked the architecture student about the foundation design considering the submerged soil properties he gave me a blank look and said yeah it'll be fine. All the senior projects were pretty creative, as long as you ignore physics and cost.

[@wiegraf9009]

This is why architects need engineering sanity checks...

[@lzh4950]

Heard of the joke that BIM (building information models) software are there to bridge the gap between architects & civil engineers, such as when the former creates a fancy design that gives headaches to the latter as it may border on being impossible physically or with enough safety

[@Kuricang31]

"Feel free to design the building according to your own imagination. The more interesting and unique the building design is, the higher your score will be. Whether the building can stand or not is a matter for the next department (intended to the Civil Engineering dept)" - real life quote that came from the top senior lecturer of the architectural university class that my friend attended to build a scale model for the class final exams

[@Dibudab]

It's impressive that those ideas sprung up in country with one of the strictest anti narcotics laws

[@seph9980]

If you describe Tokyo metro as it is now to any dutch or european urban designers back in the early 1900s, they'd think you're either high on morphine or smoking crack.

[@Idkmanihatethis]

@@seph9980😂

[@tayar3797]

such is the practice of the design our greatest urban feats

[@Moonstone-Redux]

This was the early post-war era. Surplus amphetamines were everywhere and the narcotics laws haven't fully caught up with this wave of drug use. It took a few high profile criminal incidents for the police to really crack down on these amphetamines.

[@ryannewton5423]

​@@seph9980lol

[@draqblaffle8191]

As an engineer, I finally found something worse than an architecture. A cult of architectures.

[@Quackyyy]

Hush yourself, construction worker with a degree.

[@afiqzafran3197]

@@Quackyyy you could make engineer though of their decision entire life

[@zekelor]

You should have mentioned that much of Tokyo was originally a swamp that Tokugawa Ieyasu filled in with cedar trees so that it could be expanded when he moved Japan's capital there. Tokyo has a history of large scale terraforming projects, so this only continues that tradition.

[@BiboyHernandez]

I love how with each passing year, the proposed plans for Tokyo Bay get crazier and crazier. They make the Babylon Project in Patlabor seem downright plausible in comparison.

[@619AGT]

It kinda makes you wonder if the idea of Neo-Tokyo form Akira will become a reality. Minus the possibility of WWIII of course.

[@hiushiko]

was just thinking of patlabor, they got their mechs almost working already too. Wouldn't be too far from reality now...

[@DR3ADER1]

@@619AGTIf the aftermath of WW2 and the grand building projects spawned around the world during those postwar years have taught me anything, WW3's aftermath would just be the final push to make these stupid plans a reality. Remember, places as alien as the Barbican and as poorly planned as the Bijlmermeer were built in the years FOLLOWING the Second World War. And both locales are something out of a science fiction novel...by J.G Ballard or William Gibson.

[@nankinink]

The Babylon project was based on a real project. Search for X-SEED 4000. Theres also other building called Shimizu Mega Pyramid.

[@psiga]

Because _OF COURSE_ the notions of Neo Tokyo featured in AKIRA were inspired by real ideas had by real Japanese eccentrics. Silly of me to even begin to think otherwise, really. Superlatively impressive video, as usual. Super glad to be a subscriber!

[@Snapdragnn]

"Superlatively"

[@Eulinger8000]

i almost slipped

[@jon...5324]

@@Snapdragnn you don't know what that word means? it means the most, the upper limit of something. it describes a word such as "most", "best", "biggest", "smallest", as opposed to weaker comparisons

[@egregius9314]

I was going to ask why noone pointed out the link to Patlabor, an anime around police in mechs protecting a city being built on the water near Tokyo.

[@philtkaswahl2124]

@@egregius9314 Probably because Patlabor tends to be less well known than AKIRA these days judging from what I've seen in online discussions, which is a shame, really.

[@abdullahiabdirashid94]

The animation and rendering take this storytelling to a whole new level. Keep it up

[@li_tsz_fung]

Except the surfshark ad, it's too out of the place

[@ouioui51100]

Kind of a jumpscare at this point@@li_tsz_fung

[@FairlyEducational]

What does he use to animate if you don't mind me asking?

[@abdullahiabdirashid94]

@@FairlyEducational blender

[@ryanpoirier2215]

Crazy how backwards our builders have become. This is right up there with building the largest building in the world without a sewage system.

[@useodyseeorbitchute9450]

They are to create some grand vision, not care about some s... uhm... sewage ;)

[@shinren_]

I like how that fake news continues to spread lol 😂 you know its fake right?

[@sebastianh3129]

The Burj Khalifa, standing at 828 meters tall, uses a vacuum waste system that minimizes the use of water and allows for efficient waste management. It has no sewage system because that would require a massive amount of water to operate.

[@herman65]

Have become? Megalomaniac ideas like this are nothing new.

[@gehteuchnichtsan7911]

​@@sebastianh3129 instead they just drive shitloads of trucks to it. Doesn't seem really efficient but they have enough fuel I think.

[@csr7080]

This whole idea of having commercial and residential zones separated strictly is such a City Skylines approach to planning...

[@invinciblemode]

Not to mention a terrible idea. Mixed used is always the best

[@csr7080]

@@invinciblemodeHaha yeah that was implied. It makes such a big difference, and I hate it so much when they build a new development somewhere and don't have any commercial use planned in at all. It just makes for one of those dead places that you don't really want to hang around in - even if the buildings themselves contain luxury flats.

[@ScottysHaze]

When people say City Skylines, are they referring to something like SimCity, but the good SimCities? Like SimCity 4?

[@csr7080]

@@ScottysHaze I just meant Cities Skylines. But it's not really different for Simcity 4.

[@ErnestoGonzalezNeira]

Now Cities Skylines 2 includes mixed commercial-residential buildings.

[@jezusbloodie]

"why is this intro so dramatic...?" Because you're a bit of a dramaqueen and I love that vibe throughout your writing

[@sleeplessstu]

You can actually get a small glimpse of what such an endeavor would have looked like or felt just by crossing the bay on the Tokyo Bay Aqua-Line which opened in 1997. The artificial island, known Umihotaru (海ほたる, Umi-hotaru, "sea firefly," is in the middle of the bay and serves as the transition between the bridge and an undersea tunnel which connects the two sides of the bay. It’s an interesting piece of architecture but it’s isolation in the middle of the sea gives it a rather soulless outlook especially in inclement weather.

[@benyseus6325]

As the common saying goes: an architect’s dream is a civil engineer’s nightmare.

[@WhizzComputer]

That intro comment "and why is this introduction so dramatic, seriously why?" made me laugh harder than it should

[@CloudyPuzzler]

I've never seen a sponsorship like that before.

[@manuelhecki]

I love this epic style of documentary, the dark aesthetic and all of it. and then theres these weird "jokes" inbetween, that make everything feel so human

[@samberg3864]

The absurdly stark contrast between the actual content of the video and the ad read almost literally made me feel like I was hallucinating lmao

[@Kilomylesco]

Unpopular opinion, brutalist architecture isn’t a good match for mega-projects, unless you want people to feel sad.

[@AskTorin]

Is this an unpopular opinion?? This is basic aesthetics lol

[@maarten1115]

@@AskTorin It must be unpopular because we've been building brutalist garbage for decades now.

[@obscurit_y4536]

@@maarten1115We??? Who’s We? The Brutalist movement has nearly completely died out with very occasional kooks building museums and other centers in brutalist fashion. The most brutalist architecture is seen in eastern Europe, so I wouldn’t call it a “we” thing.

[@davidjordan2336]

I think that making people feel sad is one of the prime objectives of brutalism. Although I think it's really despair that they're aiming at.

[@maarten1115]

@obscurit_y4536 We= The people in charge of the various European nations; the politicians and bureaucrats that determine building policy and the people/organisations wealthy enough to construct these vast buildings.

[@koharumi1]

The coolest one for me is the shimazu megacity pyramid plan. A huge pyramid in tokyo bay, using trianglar prism supports, that interlock with each other, with various buildings running down the centre, all to form the giant pyramid.

[@krisstopher8259]

I like designing insane megaprojects as a hobby so once i designed a manhattan sized/shaped artificial peninsula in tokyo bay connected to the north i think with a central park just like on manhattan surrounded by massive skyscrapers. It could house easily 5 million people maybe even 10. I used satellite images and photoshop like i usually do (i use AI and sketches too). I designed my first artificial island back in Y2K when i was in high school. A 1km wide circular city with trains traveling around on top of the outer wall and with a lake and a central island in the middle and many many more things (even a ski slope lol). I wonder how expensive it would be to build it irl?

[@notsheeple-ih6hl]

Woah! You have social media I can follow?

[@krisstopher8259]

@@notsheeple-ih6hl not anymore unfortunately. i got tired of fb and instagram

[@JordanWest]

Fr would be so fascinating to see these and your process

[@younlok1081]

pictures or it never happend seriously , can you share with us

[@tavi_knight]

Share it with us please

[@ika32]

I'm always glad that these never actually come to exist most of the time, or if they do they aren't as insane as these ones so you wouldn't notice as much. It just looks kinda depressing, and also thinking about things like the islands in Dubai reminds you that it really would not have been a good idea, it would probably cause way to many problems with the budget, the environment, etc.

[@DeanStephen]

No gumption.

[@chippysteve4524]

Err you've heard of the 100 mile long linear city which has already started,right? I guess that when u have that much money,you just keep firing people who say "no" until someone eventually says "yes"!

[@timofreee]

Wow. Those animations are amazing, I was half listening and half admiring the work put into the graphics explaining everything

[@priceostia6292]

Famous American designer Syd Mead was also a guy who designed Tokyo bay megalopolis. The design was drawn in his Bandai collaborated book “Chronovecta”.

[@thecasterkid]

lol that ad insert was wild. violently sudden.

[@fdetonaded]

Keep up the good Content Hoog, you never disappoint with the perfect balance between professionalism, quality and humor.

[@noahh1646]

As a Japanese person, I am SO happy that these plans have never come to life. They would be inefficient, destructive, and even more car centric

[@majorfallacy5926]

Turns out a city will organically grow if you let it grow organically, no pretentious masterplans needed

[@macdam11]

These designs are probably the inspiration behind the Babylon Project in the tv/movie series Patlabor

[@k4ZE106]

I was thinking the same. So there is still hope that giant worker robots will become real world canon.

[@azi1720]

That neo-tokyo plan looks very similar to Akira as well

[@naveed755]

i dont think surfshark made an ad they made an anti ad haha

[@elblanco5]

The seminal animated movie "Akira" features a neo-Tokyo in the middle of the bay. It's mostly envisioned as a series of bridge connected islands forming an urban landscape similar to the rest of Tokyo.

[@napoleonibonaparte7198]

There is a reason why people hate modern architecture, and this encompass a lot of it.

[@easyalpha1]

Architecture folks who want to go back to stone buildings have no clue about safety and earthquakes….😂😂😂

[@Poy1357]

"How to perform CPR". I love you man.

[@Saoocey]

the way the ad just ENDED. was insane lmaoooo (happy music playing- ominous music kills it and cuts instantly to dark room)

[@napoleonibonaparte7198]

Fortunately for them, City Skylines now exists.

[@nickn1635]

An actual existing example of high-rise apartments built on pillars identical to those in the models at 7:18 is located in Trieste, Italy. That structure is called "Quadrilatero di Rozzol Melara" designed by Carlo Celli, an astonishing example of brutalist architecture.

[@Halberddent]

Even if these wild ideas never find any application in real life, they're doing the sci-fi writers of the world plenty of favors.

[@hammerr3]

Tokyo is beautiful, and so clean and organized for such a huge city

[@grissee]

watching this video, I was like: why does all of them envision the city connected by highway? where is the public transport

[@remka2000]

Neo Tokyo in Akira is directly inspired by these ideas 😅 They did end up using (mostly) trash to build Odaiba in the Tokyo Bay. But it’s waaaaay smaller.

[@necipdemirbuga7024]

There is also neo tokyo in smt games and evangelion

[@clinton4161]

Oh I like Odaiba. It's a fun place to visit. I had no idea it was built mostly from trash lol.

[@99corncob]

I live in Tokyo and have visited Odaiba many times. It is a vast sterile cityscape, a sea of concrete and large towers. It is interesting to visit for short periods but I would definitely not want to live there. It is soulless, like much of Tokyo's brutalist architecture.

[@wiegraf9009]

There is nothing brutalist about Odaiba though...brutalism involves building large structures out of unfinished concrete. That isn't what Odaiba looks like at all @@99corncob

[@remka2000]

@@clinton4161 I mean the land reclamation part, not the buildings of course 😁

[@James-N01]

Once again, great video, topic and animations. Like the theme that runs through it for the posters in the Japanese setting.

[@armanada7600]

"The building projects 500 years or so back was so good, why can't we bring them back??!!" MY BROTHER İN CHRİST... THERE IS A THING CALLED BUDGET + THE HIGHERUPS NEVER APROVE OF STUFF LIKE THIS

[@wholesomebaker5410]

Greater Tokyo Area is so massive that I really don't think anyone ever will need to build anything that massive into the water. You drive overground train for 2 hours and see only city outside, mostly low to medium density houses, all in pretty flat land. It will never run down of space.

[@GlitchSystem-xf7jb]

Reminds me of the anime called Patlabor. In the anime there's a project to protect the city from the "rising water" and that project is called The Babylon Project

[@S28426]

I love how architects and 'city planners' like Kuroakawa and Le Corbusier always end up designing the same damn thing: samey copy pasted dystopian housing complexes connected by enough massive highways to give Not Just Bikes a stroke from the sheer sight of it. All the philosophical bullshit aside imagine living in the middle of the Tokyo bay with only water, distant land and enormous concrete highways in sight.,

[@Croz89]

Yeah, but they do include transit too, generally.

[@theviniso]

I'd gladly live in such a place. Have you ever player Mirror's Edge? That game looks beautiful!

[@S28426]

@@theviniso I have played mirrors edge it's a really cool, pretty unique game in my opinion. Though I'm not sure I would want to live with that kind of architecture (the game does make it really pretty though with its stylised graphics).

[@theviniso]

@@S28426 I'm pretty biased since I like modern architecture a lot, but if you ask me all that city needs to be a very pleasant and liveable place (other than, you know, not being a police state) is some more green spaces. I find that brutalist architecture in particular often works incredibly well when surrounded by nature.

[@S28426]

@@theviniso It certainly is a nice aesthetic, whether or not I'd like to live there I can't really judge.

[@Fortuna272]

Wtaf was that that sponsor ad

[@Driretlan]

6:14 so my quick take is that it's related to the fact that much of eastern philosophy and spiritualism involves a sense of transience, and impermanence. It's literally "let's make a space that changes with the times." I've decided I'm a huge fan of the quote.

[@patvince]

phenomenal production on this vid. it feels like a documentary you'd see from an established tv studio.

[@Kooczsi]

Imagine if this was how Tokyo turned out The Venice of Japan XD

[@seph9980]

IT WILL. 50 years from now. Didn't you watch that anime movie.

[@lordwafflesthegreat]

​@@seph9980Which one? That one or the other one?

[@someasparagus]

YES A NEW HOOG VIDEO

[@varkgriep]

I've never felt so insulted by a advertisement in my life; I love it!

[@majeddaas]

The production of this video is top notch! better than any documentary made by large channels. Kudos!!!!

[@smoche]

bro was playing cities skyline with a war torn capital lmao

[@ivotakens3441]

Hwy did surfshark kindnap hoog just to plug in a add

[@awellculturedmanofanime1246]

the production quality is crazy and so unique and the ad and so well made was hilarious lmfao

[@leonsandner9870]

Honestly, megastructures are in reality the most uninviting place to exist. I don't think they would be successful except for industry. Being on the existing new artificial islands in tokyo let's you feel isolated. They are walkable, but not really because they were not designed for pedestrians first. There exist bus and monorail public transport, but due to the low density of people living there, or rather the dead-end position of the islands, they are not as frequent as in the city. It just feels of being there, but the view over the Tokyo skyline is really nice.

[@Shin_Lona]

I know what you mean. I went to Odaiba when I was in Tokyo in 2017. It was easy enough to get there by rail, so I wouldn't say it was an issue with accessibility, but it certainly wasn't integrated with the rest of the city. I guess you could say it was a place people went, rather than a place people lived.

[@kiwioh1]

Always good videos, never disappoints.

[@Masiba7517]

Bro that ad

[@mhas9110]

Love your work. I wish you made a tutorial or a documentary about your work process and how you create your videos!

[@jochannon]

Watched a few of your videos, I just want to say I like your work; the great detail, the context you add, it all adds up.

[@jonathanrouse]

That sponsored ad was taking the piss hardcore 😂 what a beast

[@shahalumuddin7007]

Only just discovered this channel, can't belive the algorithm hasn't suggested it earlier.. great content.

[@jizhang2407]

Thanks for sharing another amazingly produced video. Would be great if you can explain your workflow on how the animation is created and edited.

[@ivotakens3441]

As a dutch person i think they should just have made a poolder

[@theviniso]

Not sure if polders are a great idea in a place so prone to earthquakes and tsunamis.

[@ivotakens3441]

@@theviniso fair point, while idont think earth quakes are an problems as dams are rather study, tsunami's could make huge flooding risk

[@michaelk4896]

@@ivotakens3441 bro what are you talking about earthquakes aren't a problem lol

[@ivotakens3441]

@@michaelk4896 dams used for polders are made put of solid material, mostly rocks and earths and thus pretty hard to move. If you want to make them more earth quake resistant you can just make them wider. There reduceing the potential for land slides

[@michaelk4896]

@@ivotakens3441 I don't think polderisation is something that would even be remotely feasible for the Tokyo Bay area. Reclaiming land from the Tokyo Bay is particularly tricky due to the soil composition -- many of these reclaimed islands became structurally compromised due to liquification after the Great Tohoku earthquake in 2011 and the subsequent flooding, because the whole region has very soft soil. Before Edo was built it was just marshes and swamp. Furthermore, land slides are inevitable in a heavily mountainous place like Japan, building dams won't stop that; rainfall from the rainy season alone can cause landslides, as it did in 2021 in Atami. Combine that with the threat of mega earthquakes, volcanic activity and human incompetence, and you're looking at a disaster in the making.

[@ImRezaF]

"suggesting exploding an atomic bomb on mountain so that they have enough soil" least unhinged architect :D

[@Moonstone-Redux]

Imagine the call to the Department of Energy. "Hi, we would like to borrow a nuke to explode a mountain." Then again this was the same era as the equally as unhinged Project Plowshare, which did actually nuke some places to try to excavate harbours.

[@KeithTKO]

Here we go with bunches of “experts” telling how it would be bad or whatever. Where they live is hellish but when it comes to Japan or any other countries all these people have answers.

[@silverwing3934]

the visual presentation is just amazingly beautiful and clear to understand, that sad tone at the end bruh💀

[@leok4007]

I live in Tokyo, and I think all of these sound horrible considering all the earthquakes and tsunami's. If some major companies moved their HQ's to the outer prefectures, that would solve the overcrowding. If major companies moved out a bit, other accomodations would soon follow to those areas, and then residential areas as well. All prefectures surrounding Tokyo have plenty of land and space to accomodate, only if the major companies stop with the "our HQ is in TOKYO so we are better".

[@salnegromusic]

This statement: "We hope to create something which, even in destruction will cause subsequent new creation. This something must be found in the form of cities we were going to make -- cities constantly undergoing the process of metabolism." Made me think for a while and this is what I was able to come up with in order to under stand it; The statement expresses a desire to build cities that have a unique quality: the ability to not only endure but also thrive and generate new opportunities even in the face of destruction or change. These cities are envisioned as constantly evolving and adapting, much like living organisms with their own "metabolism." I might have read into it too far, but after reading the statement several time and watching the video, then sleeping on it, I feel that this is what it would mean to me at the very least. What do you and everyone else think?

[@Henrik46]

I agree. Making owners develop land within a certain time limit, to avoid "dead meat" would be really great. In most cities, there is SO much barren land and so many empty buildings just sitting there, unused.

[@poofygoof]

One of the core tenets of metabolism seems to be an explicit recognition and embracing of city and building lifecycles. Land- and building-use isn't static, and needs to change over much smaller time scales than conventional buildings. Metabolist interiors were designed to be reconfigured, housing and buildings to be modular, entire city areas swapped out, removed, or added as needs change. This seems somewhat at odds with emphasis on giant arcologies, but at least some of them seemed to have modular designs.

[@barkingcatswow]

Nicely done, Hoog! Keep making good, interesting videos.

[@duphasdan]

The design with the two airports looks better looking in my opinion. Even if building on such large amount of land is expensive, you can still just add onto the thing in stages and over time like adding pebbles over time to make a nice sidewalk. The parts need not be the same shape, but it can still grow over time. One needs only plan ahead and build the important parts first, like that big airport, as the first phase. It would probably be sort of like Venice in a way, only with perhaps less canals or canals in general between small islands.

[@flashyyy]

boy the renders are so clean 🥵

[@corbinpearce7686]

I'm imagining all the ecological surveys and impact reports that are going to have to accompany even a serious proposal for a project like this. The question is not going to be if the ecosystem is affected, or even to what extent, but rather do the costs outweigh the benefits. I think it would be interesting to see that play out.

[@wiegraf9009]

Oh my friend, you think anyone gave a shit about ecological surveys and impact reports back then? Wanton natural destruction was the standard operating procedure and the pollution in Japan was terrible.

[@Oceansta]

The 3D in this video is amazing. Really well done 👍🏽

[@PrabowoMurti]

It's like when you play Cities Skylines and don't want to follow the realistic path.

[@Torabayashi]

Am surprised you didn’t mention the Tokyo Bay Aqua-Line, which is a highway bridge / tunnel combination that does actually connect Tokyo / Kanagawa with Chiba. It opened in 1997. “With an overall length of 23.7 km, it includes a 4.4 km bridge and 9.6 km tunnel underneath the bay-the fourth-longest underwater tunnel in the world.” “The Tokyo Bay Aqua-Line shortened the drive between Chiba and Kanagawa, two important industrial areas, from 90 to 15 minutes.”

[@qrzone8167]

It's nice to see that even the Japanese have completely and utterly insane architects that are detached from reality. I really want whatever magic mushrooms they were taking to come up with these plans

[@chippysteve4524]

If taking mushrooms led to buildings like that then nobody would want to take mushrooms!

[@PPpaladin]

you know these plans are came up by Architect and not civil engineers

[@d.h.negreiros4675]

Congrats to the video maker! The visual language is amazing.

[@SandburgNounouRs]

To me, 60-70's is the dark period of urban planning (Le Corbusier leader of this decay). Hopefully this projects didn't all went through. Far from realities, unable to respond to anything else than immediate problems or political ideologies but at huge costs. Thanks there is a Neo Tokyo only in animes, and see, most of them are dystopic.

[@thepedrothethethe6151]

@SandburgNounouRs Depends on the city, and architects. Some projects like "Unidad Vecinal Diego Portales", and "Villa Frei" were succesful

[@wiegraf9009]

There were many dire problems with urban planning at this time but we have to examine this period of ambitious postwar building carefully because we are seeing the problems with the reaction against the projects of this time now (extremely tight urban housing markets and lack of public housing space). Some kind of careful synthesis is needed.

[@nam.justin]

Would love a comparison between Kenzo Tange's Plan and The Line by the Saudis

[@wiegraf9009]

Tange's plan is superior because there are branches off of the "Line" which don't force residents into the most inefficient routing possible. Nevertheless it has problems. Imagine your friend lives on the next branch over, you have to go all the way to the spine and all the way down their branch to see them with no direct route. It's a similar problem to transportation networks in highly centralized countries like France or Thailand. The actual human spinal column is also highly multimodal so it can allow for communication between organs that are near each other as well as ones that are far away. Putting everything into the one "car highway" mode would have been a disaster, as it is in suburbs.

[@EM-yp1cf]

I came up with the idea of mass manufactured hexagons as a base on which to build on top of (my idea was land based - could be dirt level and you could stack them on top of each other with risers one or more levels high. Open tunnel areas to connect pipes, electric and data infrastructure. It would be flexible and large enough to accommodate future technologies.) Of course an architect thought of something like this decades ago!

[@lesussie2237]

In the end, Tokyo did in fact grow organically

[@LCTesla]

if people are going through such extreme lengths to fit more people into a small area, there's usually some form of government policy to blame that makes it not viable to for people to live in other parts of the country, or to start successful businesses there. fixing that is the solution, not technology. there should be fewer people living in Tokyo, New York City and San Francisco, not more. whatever makes these places so great to be in; replicate that in other places!

[@normieloser6969]

Concentration of large amounts of capital, labour and skill makes super-productivity easy to achieve. Their success is mainly because of why they cannot be replicated with the same results everewhere else.

[@CjqNslXUcM]

No, you're so wrong. People want to live in large cities because of job opportunities. Due to economies of scale and various other factors, economic efficiency and salaries baloon like crazy. Urbanization is the cause of economic growth. We should enable larger cities by massively upzoning and building extensive public transit networks

[@normieloser6969]

@@CjqNslXUcM Urbanisation is the process of higher concentratrion of people in a few places. You did not write anything different than me, we agree on this

[@wiegraf9009]

This is questionable in the case of Japan as having everything concentrated in Tokyo is too high of a disaster risk. There were ideas of maybe distributing some of the core functions of the country to other cities after the 2011 disaster but Japan is past the point of doing anything radical these days so the problem was ignored @@normieloser6969

[@guineyozzy5589]

Typical 1960s use of spatial science- only interested in distributing and measuring people rather than their lived experience, and the social impact of such restrictive, compound structures.

[@K3end0]

I love the self aware intro. Great video Hoog!

[@luipaardprint]

That wood texture at 3:17 is something else, very impressive.

[@xSkyWeix]

There were also plans to build Arcologies in the Tokyo Bay. Like Tokyo Piramid City. That would be cool! Alas projects like this are ridiculously expensive, impossible to predict. And The neeed for new space is constantly shrinking in Japan.

[@robertl4522]

I hate the fact that all the cool scifi architectural plans don't get built. Would they be a massive waste of materials? Probably! Would it look fucking awesome? Damn right!

[@Max-me9ol]

would it be ineffective af and way too expensive? definitely. would i like it? hell yea

[@theemperorofmankind3739]

It is the age old question of deciding between is something feasible or practical.

[@joemkdd]

@@Max-me9ol literally just repeated the joke lmao

[@sewpungyow5154]

@@joemkdd Would it be a foolish use of resources? Most certainly! Would it look beautiful? Honestly not really

[@ulrichspencer]

@@sewpungyow5154 Yeah, I certainly as heck don't want massive concrete freeways spanning over absolutely everything. Just give me trains and an organic city layout that respects the topography.

[@samranda]

wow that surfshark sponsor section made me incredibly uncomfortable there's no way that vibe switch was unintentional

[@givemealemon]

your videos are getting better and better. A big fan here!

[@Guest-lq6vt]

lmao the sponsor

[@theringsmc]

nice vid :)

[@Thetechgeek2100]

Almost every video talking about Tokyo in some aspect, "It was WWII." Such a great video!

[@marsaustralis6881]

I feel the New Tokyo idea would be the most sound. Still gives the area some needed greenspace and flood management, while also allowing for expansion all around.