Like father, like son for Paul Tange's Tokyo Aquatics Center

2021-07-02T15:25:00-04:00

Father and son duos have been prominent in the past 50 or so years of sports history. Ken Griffey Jr. and his father, the Ripkens, Curry’s, Mannings, and many others. Now, with the Olympic games coming back to their home country, one Pritzker-pedigreed combination is leaving its mark on the sports world in a much different way.

Paul and Kenzo Noritaka Tange are the architects behind designs for two Olympic aquatics venues, spread 57 years apart, that will make history when the games begin in Tokyo later this month.

Aerial view of Tokyo's Yoyogi National Gymnasium, designed by Kenzo Tange and built between 1961 and 1964. Photo: Arne Müseler / arne-mueseler.com / CC-BY-SA-3.0

The elder Tange completed Yoyogi National Gymnasium in time for the 1964 Olympic Summer Games. Featuring a spiral roof structure that the architect said was inspired by suspension bridges and Eero Saarinen’s Ingalls Rink at Yale University, the original Tange building took only two years to build and was finished...

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Like father, like son for Paul Tange's Tokyo Aquatics Center