The Gundam building in Shibuya rests on its axled haunches like the ultimate guard-dog, anxiously awaiting the day it will be called into service to leap-frog into battle to protect its city, tackling Mothra or some other evil invading alien with its fire-eyes and laser tail. Kind of irony, the building is known as the “Gundam” building, because many people think that it looks like the robots from Gundam anime series.
Many people in Japan believe that the Gundam building also keeps a close eye on those ‘satellites’ launched out of North Korea, ready to leap up and catch them in its big red mouth as if they were frisbees. Interesting imagination eh?
And what’s it for? The Gundam building houses the Aoyama Technical College for aspiring architects- so the form is quite fitting and relevant in a country where they train architects to build things that are mad. For that reason, Makoto Sei Watanabe built it in 1990 as a vision of what he saw as the future of urban architecture. This can be their touchstone.
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