Architecture as Atmospheric Media: Tange Lab and Cybernetics

This chapter directs attention to the site of a redefinition of technologies of mediation that can be located at the 1970s World Expo in Osaka: the field of architecture. It sheds light on the “cybernetic turn” of Japanese architectural theory as a historical precursor to contemporary attempts to rethink media’s relationship to the environment. Focusing on the formative role of Tange Lab and the work of associated architects Tange Kenzo and Isozaki Arata, the chapter explores how the postwar articulation of the cybernetic model of the information city both inherited the legacy of colonial urban planning, and responded to the postwar governmental push for postindustrialization and the experimental practices of building multimedia environments. This chapter hence examines the intersection of architectural practice with communications theory, discourses around cybernetics and the information society, and media theory.