Exhibitions can have consequences, often unintended.
Initially inspired by Zaha Hadid's competition win in 2012 for the New National Stadium of Japan, the current exhibition at the Tokyo Opera City Art Gallery has unfolded against a backdrop of controversy swirling around the architect's proposal. By presenting a comprehensive survey of Hadid's oeuvre and thinking behind her protoplasmic forms, the organizers admirably sought to redress a "palpable lack of information regarding its designer" and bring some light to the heated debate.
However, the contrast between the vigor of Hadid unbound and her emasculation evident in the renderings of the scaled-back stadium have instead provoked Arata Isozaki to throw his own weighty stone into the mire, castigating the current design as a "dull, slow form, like a turtle waiting for Japan to sink so that it can swim away," demanding that Hadid be given the opportunity to redo the project from scratch.