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| Japan Scraps Olympic Stadium Plan Over $2 Billion Price Tag | Japan Scraps Olympic Stadium Plan Over $2 Billion Price Tag |
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| TOKYO — Three years after Japanese Olympic organizers selected a vast, sleek stadium design by a prominent Iraqi-British architect for the centerpiece venue of the 2020 Summer Games, the government announced on Friday that it would scrap the plan and start over because of spiraling costs. | |
| The decision, announced by Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, came in response to growing public anger over the stadium’s estimated cost, which has ballooned to more than $2 billion — an amount that would have made it by far the most expensive Olympic stadium, and probably the costliest sports venue, in history. | The decision, announced by Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, came in response to growing public anger over the stadium’s estimated cost, which has ballooned to more than $2 billion — an amount that would have made it by far the most expensive Olympic stadium, and probably the costliest sports venue, in history. |
| “The current plan will go back to being a blank sheet of paper, and we will rethink it from scratch,” Mr. Abe said at a news conference. | “The current plan will go back to being a blank sheet of paper, and we will rethink it from scratch,” Mr. Abe said at a news conference. |
| Controversy over the stadium has been building since soon after Tokyo was selected to host the Olympics in 2013. By then the design by Zaha Hadid, a Pritzker Prize-winning architect, was already part of the Olympic plan, which emphasized “compactness” and a turn away from the bloated budgets of previous Games. | Controversy over the stadium has been building since soon after Tokyo was selected to host the Olympics in 2013. By then the design by Zaha Hadid, a Pritzker Prize-winning architect, was already part of the Olympic plan, which emphasized “compactness” and a turn away from the bloated budgets of previous Games. |
| Critics quickly began asking whether the stadium plan fit with that theme. The 80,000-seat venue was to have been built on the site of the track-and-field stadium used for the last Tokyo Games, in 1964, and it would have been far larger than its 54,000-seat predecessor. It also would have been bigger than the main stadiums for the last two Summer Games, in London and Beijing. A costly retractable roof was seen by many as an extravagance. | Critics quickly began asking whether the stadium plan fit with that theme. The 80,000-seat venue was to have been built on the site of the track-and-field stadium used for the last Tokyo Games, in 1964, and it would have been far larger than its 54,000-seat predecessor. It also would have been bigger than the main stadiums for the last two Summer Games, in London and Beijing. A costly retractable roof was seen by many as an extravagance. |
| It was unclear on Friday whether Ms. Hadid would have a role in creating a new design. She had already overhauled her proposal once at the behest of Japanese officials, who asked for a smaller and cheaper version in 2013. Yet the official cost estimate has almost doubled since then, to 252 billion yen, or $2.03 billion. | |
| Some of the criticism of the design has come from Japanese architects, prompting accusations from Ms. Hadid that nationalistic chauvinism was at work. “They don’t want a foreigner to build in Tokyo for a national stadium,” she told Dezeen, a design magazine, in December. | Some of the criticism of the design has come from Japanese architects, prompting accusations from Ms. Hadid that nationalistic chauvinism was at work. “They don’t want a foreigner to build in Tokyo for a national stadium,” she told Dezeen, a design magazine, in December. |
| Japanese officials who were involved in the selection have competed to distance themselves from the plan in recent days. Yoshiro Mori, a former prime minister who heads the Olympic organizing committee, said on Friday that the design reminded him of “a raw oyster.” | |
| “I always disliked that stadium,” he said during the taping of a program on the network TV Asahi. | “I always disliked that stadium,” he said during the taping of a program on the network TV Asahi. |
| Tadao Ando, the Pritzker-winning Japanese architect who headed the selection committee in 2012, said on Thursday that he was “surprised” at the latest cost estimates. “We were only asked to select a design,” he said at a news conference. “I’d like to know myself why it’s now up to ¥250 billion.” | |
| Olympic officials say rising costs for labor and materials are responsible for about a third of the increase in the estimated cost — issues that would affect a new design as well. But they attribute more than $600 million of the increase to the design itself, specifically its use of two massive, curved support arches that run the length of the building, which they say would be more complex and expensive to build than they initially realized. | Olympic officials say rising costs for labor and materials are responsible for about a third of the increase in the estimated cost — issues that would affect a new design as well. But they attribute more than $600 million of the increase to the design itself, specifically its use of two massive, curved support arches that run the length of the building, which they say would be more complex and expensive to build than they initially realized. |
| Construction of the stadium was supposed to have begun next year and been completed by 2019, a timetable that now looks impossible to meet. Officials said they would cancel plans to hold the 2019 Rugby World Cup in the stadium, to allow for more time. |