Word: tokyo
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...Tokyo's 1,090 trolleys and 2,300 commuter-railroad cars blossomed last week with hastily printed posters headlined "Protection from Radiation" and concluding, "Drink tea and rebuild bright future." In between was an explanation of the connection between these seemingly unrelated items. And between the lines was the unconcealed hope of Japan's tea industry that it could capitalize on fears of nuclear war to build future profits...
That fact alone makes Tokyo's spanking new National Museum of Western Art architectural news of the first magnitude, since it reaches so hard for perfection. Based on sketches by France's owl-wise, owl-grouchy Le Corbusier, the museum was completed by three Japanese architects who had studied with the master in the 1930s. It uses concrete, tile, French glass and Philippine teakwood to create a more finished and refined atmosphere than Le Corbusier himself enjoys. Otherwise, it faithfully represents his solutions to the two great problems of museum architecture: display" and lighting...
...magnificent building is like entering a work of sculpture and seeing it anew from within. Yet such excitement is distracting in a museum, where the works, not the walls, are the thing. Le Corbusier, the most sculptural of all living architects, apparently kept this point well in mind at Tokyo. He braked himself to produce a squared-off, surprisingly unelaborate structure. The entrance leads straight through to a large central gallery, from which smaller galleries radiate up and out. Everywhere, the aim is for a calm, quiet, noble air in the display spaces...
...lighting of museums is too changeable, except in dime-bright climates, and artificial lighting is too colorless and rigid. Le Corbusier's solution at Tokyo is a radical blend of both. Over the central gallery he raised a huge, tentlike, triangular skylight, glassed on its north side. The smaller galleries have long, rectangular skylights. And to illuminate the dark corners, spotlights are set into the ceilings. Some Japanese critics complain that walking through the building ''gives one a very mixed feeling, like a repetitive alternation of night and day." More spotlights should level out the effect...
...SERVICE from West Coast to London, Hawaii and Tokyo will be started by Pan American World Airways soon, with new 5,000-mile-range Boeing 707s. Jet time from San Francisco to London over Polar route: 11 hr. 20 min. v. 23 hr. 20 min. on prop-driven...