Architect Drawings : A Selection of Sketches by World Famous Architects Through History

Hara, Hiroshi (1936)
Mid-Air City sketch, 1989, Umeda Sky Building, Kita-ku, Osaka, Japan, 1993,
3.6 2.1 in., Air brush, colored pencil
An innovative architect, Hiroshi Hara is known for his fanciful and emotive buildings. He often uses
building materials to achieve unique effects, such as the cloud-like walls of the Tasaki Museum of
Art. Hara was born in Kawasaki in 1936. He attended the University of Tokyo for his BA and MA
studies, receiving a Ph.D. in 1964. He immediately began teaching at the University of Tokyo, where
he continues today as a Professor Emeritus. He has collaborated as a designer since 1970, with such
projects as Tasaki Museum of Art in Nagano (1986); Iida City Museum, Nagano (1988); and the
Kyoto Station Building (1997). Since 1999, Hara has headed the firm that bears his name, Hiroshi
Hara Atelier. Several of his most recent works include: Hiroshima Municipal Building (2000);
Komaba Campus, Meguro-ku (2001); and the Sapporo Dome (2001). Hara has been the recipient of
numerous awards for architectural design, including competition project awards. 13
One of Hara’s most published buildings is the Umeda Sky Building in Osaka. This beautiful glass
and steel high-rise building was built in 1993. It was conceived as two paired towers, connected by
glass escalators with a balcony stretched between them. The platform in the sky has a circular cutout
crossed with thin ‘catwalk’ passages. The flush glass curtain wall is reflective and appears blue.
This sketch (Figure 8.11) appears to be an early ‘ideogram,’ in that it shows a large complex of tall
buildings connected by ramps, walkways, and escalators. The fantasy image reveals platforms of
potentially occupied space (implied by small windows), dotted with several large oculi opening a
view to the sky. The horizontal slabs are vaguely sketched in pencil over fluffy clouds and the light
framing seemingly floats above a large, historic building. Without articulated structural support, the
walkways and cutouts integrate with the clouds to cover the city. The ring of high-rise buildings
lends some support to the framework, but maintains a certain amount of transparency since the
buildings are abstractly defined.
The smooth underside of the frames morph into clouds on their upper sides. Their light color
assists in their cloud-like nature and weightlessness. The sketch’s ambiguous forms and tenuous connections
provide a surreal impression, as if Hara is designing an ideal future at the same time he is
designing for Osaka.
Eerie light, emitting from behind the dark historic building, creates an atmospheric quality of an
active and glowing city. Its industrial look and exposed structure mix the technical with the
ephemeral. Hara’s sketch describes the idea of the Umeda building, rather than the reality of its final
construction. The image is both an illusion (speculating on a possible future) and an allusion (referring
to conceptual notions of urbanism).
In comparison to the sketch, the building, as constructed, retains the thin skywalks and an oculus
but only part of the sketch’s vast urbanism. The two towers resemble the sketch’s towers, achieving a
certain transparency. The sky-platform effectively evokes the tenuous qualities of residing in the sky
(the theme of the sketch). The steel and glass add to the illusion and dramatic impression.
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