Video: Violent shaking but no real destruction at Toyo Ito's Mediatheque in Sendai

Earthquake-wracked Sendai is home to Toyo Ito's 2001 Mediatheque building, a multipurpose cultural center and one of Japan's -- and the world's -- most significant pieces of contemporary architecture. This video appears to have been shot by someone taking shelter from the quake under a desk inside the building.

Two things are extraordinary here: The sheer length of the shaking and the way the building seems to sway violently without buckling.

This picture appears to show another interior view of the post-quake Mediatheque, and like the video suggests that the building remains largely intact.

Pictures of the building when it was new can be found here, here and here.

--Christopher Hawthorne 

Comments

[Rodrigo Fernandes]

What about the tsunami, did it get there?

[Eelum]

crouching under those tables is not the best option, is it? they'd be flattened if that ceiling fell.

[Sarah]

Amazing - it is as if Ito designed the detachable ceiling to move with the earth ... possible, as Sendai is earthquake country.