Toyo Ito Sendai Mediatheque

Toyo Ito is one of the foremost architects working today. His architecture makes innovative use of steel and aluminum and includes such paradigm- shifting buildings as the White U House and the Eggs of Winds in Tokyo. This volume focuses on his Mediatheque in Sendai. This newly completed structure, which houses a library, art gallery, cinema, lecture theater, and cybercafé, is predicated on the idea that the users of the building occupy a media/ information landscape or digital ecology. Through a series of extraordinary technical advances -- floors supported by a system of occupiable hollow tubes and sophisticated information and media networks -- the building creates an environment in which people can engage in cultural activities both internally (within the structure) and externally (through digital connections to the world at large).