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

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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