The coronavirus pandemic has forced the Olympics’s first postponement: Tokyo 2020, its name unchanged, will now take place in July 2021 if it takes place at all. Yet all around the Japanese capital is the legacy of another Olympics: the 1964 Summer Games, which crowned Tokyo’s 20-year transformation from a firebombed ruin to an ultramodern megalopolis. — The New York Times

Construction of all new permanent venues for the Tokyo 2020 Olympics and Paralympics is now complete, organizers said Friday, as preparations continue despite worries over the new coronavirus outbreak.

The announcement comes as the International Olympic Committee insisted this week that a potential cancellation or postponement of the Games due to the virus was "not mentioned" at a meeting of their Executive Board. — Japan Today

But so far, things have remained “on schedule,” and the Olympic stadium is on pace to be completed by the end of next year. [...]

Takeo Takahashi, the general manager of the stadium project, told the media that “roughly four-tenths” of the construction has been completed, but the situation is “as planned.” — The Japan Times

Rejecting flashy forms in favor of buildings in harmony with their environment, the architect — poised to become world famous for his stadium for the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo — is trying to reinvent his entire trade. [...]

Kuma, a constant source of paradoxes and ironies, often makes demagogic statements on behalf of his own brand of architectural modesty. “I want to change the definition of architecture,” he told me; in a way, he already has. — The New York Times Style Magazine

Dignitaries at the 2020 Tokyo Summer Olympic and Paralympic Games will obviously get the best seats--those made of wood--but ordinary common folk will have to make do with plastic. — Asahi Shimbun

Tokyo has held a groundbreaking ceremony for a $1.5bn (£1.2bn) national stadium that will host the 2020 Olympic Games.

The prime minister, Shinzo Abe, Tokyo’s governor, Yuriko Koike, and other dignitaries attended the event on Sunday at the site of the demolished national stadium that was used during the 1964 Tokyo Olympics. [...]

The ceremony ended with a video showing how the stadium is expected to look and function once completed by November 2019. — The Guardian

The Iraqi postal service has issued new postage stamps honoring two of the country's beloved architects: Zaha Hadid, who died in March, and Mohamed Makiya, who died last year at the age of 101.

Hadid and Makiya both changed the perception of architecture in the Arab world and introduced some of the aesthetics of Arabic-inspired architecture in projects around the world. — albawaba.com

“In the design, I would like to say there are no similarities at all,” Kuma told reporters when asked about Hadid’s claims. [...]

“The conditions set for the competition mean that automatically some similarities emerge ... the concept is completely different, so it is absolutely a different building, despite the similarities”. [...]

Hadid’s office is reportedly consulting lawyers, and said it would “take legal action if our concerns are not promptly addressed to our satisfaction”. — theguardian.com

The organisers of the 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games are refusing to pay a British architect for her designs for its main stadium unless she gives up the copyright and signs what amounts to a gagging order, it has been claimed.

Zaha Hadid Architects, which won the original contract to build a state-of-the-art national stadium in the Japanese capital, has reacted angrily to the attempt by the Japan Sports Council to effectively seize ownership of the copyrighted designs. — the Telegraph

The government on Tuesday picked a design by architect Kengo Kuma for the new National Stadium, a building that is expected to become the centerpiece of the 2020 Tokyo Olympics.

One of two short-listed entries and identified until now only as design A, Kuma’s plan was a joint submission in partnership with construction giant Taisei Corp.

The competing design, identified as design B, was by architect Toyo Ito [...]. — japantimes.co.jp

Wood latticework, green shrubbery, sunken sports fields and temple-like touches can be seen in the two final design proposals for Tokyo’s controversial new Olympic Stadium. [...] The new proposals [...] are more understated in style and also smaller in physical form compared to the originally commissioned design. [...]

The agency has not named the firms behind the two final designs, although unconfirmed local media reports stated that they were Kengo Kuma and Toyo Ito [...]. — telegraph.co.uk

The government hopes to cap the cost of building the main stadium for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics at ¥155 billion, much lower than the ¥252 billion projected under a recently scrapped plan [...].

The government intends to make sure that the stadium will be built by April 2020. But given the International Olympic Committee’s request that the venue be built by January of that year, it plans to ask a yet-to-be-named contractor to propose shortening its construction schedule, the sources said. — japantimes.co.jp