Japan approves "hamburger" design for 2020 Olympics' main stadium

The Japanese government on Tuesday approved a design by architect Kengo Kuma for the main stadium for the 2020 Tokyo Olympic and Paralympic Games with the planned project also linking in construction behemoth Taisei Corp. whose bid to build the facility won.

The planned cost of the new stadium is 149 billion yen (1.22 billion U.S. dollars) and the facility will be completed two months ahead of the International Olympic Committee's deadline of November 2019, a government panel confirmed Tuesday.

But the overall price tag of hosting the games remains a major point of contention, in light of the government's monumental flip-flop over a previously approved stadium design by London-based architect Zaha Hadid, which saw projected costs of the construction balloon to more than double its initial 130 billion yen estimate.

Owing to increasing antiterrorism measures in wake of the deadly Paris attacks, the cost of the Games is skyrocketing to around 15 billion U.S. dollars, Japan's public broadcaster NKH said recently, which is more than six times as much as the Tokyo 2020 Organizing Committee's initial estimate.

The latest price tag will put the cost of hosting the Games here above that of the 2012 London Olympic Games, as well as the Rio Olympics in terms of operating budget. Analysts have said that due to the uncertain security outlook, the cost of the Games could continue to soar in the future, in a further headache for the committee and the government, which have suffered numerous Games-related debacles.

But Kuma's design being selected is "momentum" at least, as some observers have attested, and while the design features so-say revolutionary, environmentally-conscious wooden columns and roofing fixtures, in a bid to blend with the city's natural surroundings, with the stadium being partly build underground to further merge its structure with the surrounding environment, some critics have argued that the design is bland compared to previous stadiums and Hadid's futuristic "bicycle helmet" proposal.

Others have gone so far as to, legitimately, liken the design, with its multiple tiers, to a giant hamburger.

With the overseeing of the Games also being called into question, particularly in terms of transparency concerning design selection and bidding, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Tokyo Olympic and Paralympic Minister Toshiaki Endo and Sport Council President Kazumi Ohigashi met with other relevant ministers and "confirmed that the selection process had been conducted appropriately," NHK said.

But as the stadium's design is now locked down, despite being long overdue and leaving the Rugby World Cup, also to be hosted in Japan in 2019, without a new major stadium, the logo design for the Games has also been mired in avertable hiccups.

Starting with a plagiarism scandal meaning the selection process for the logo had to be scrapped as the winning design was suspected of being ripped off by an alleged serial plagiarizer, and restarted, the organizing committee said it accidentally leaked the e-mail addresses of 100 designers who submitted their entries in the Games' logo competition.

Following an investigation after the plagiarism debacle, an image containing 100 e-mail addresses of designers was "mistakenly mailed out" due to a clerical error.

The organizers of the Games on Dec. 15 began screening more than 10,000 entries for the Games' logos, following the previous logos being pulled in September.

The designs have been sent in by the public and 27 judges comprising members of a panel within the committee as well as outsourced designers have begun the process of shortlisting potential designs for the logos.

From 10,600 entries, the designs have initially been whittled down to just over 300 as of Monday. In the next round of judging, the committee will focus on shortlisting their favorites to less than 200 entries before Jan. 9.

The final logo selection will be unveiled in spring next year and the winning designer will pocket 1 million yen in prize money and will be a special guest at the Games' opening ceremony. Endit