The Aeropolis 2001 is a proposed 500-story high-rise

building A building or edifice is an enclosed Structure#Load-bearing, structure with a roof, walls and window, windows, usually standing permanently in one place, such as a house or factory. Buildings come in a variety of sizes, shapes, and functions, a ...

over

Tokyo Bay is a bay located in the southern Kantō region of Japan spanning the coasts of Tokyo, Kanagawa Prefecture, and Chiba Prefecture, on the southern coast of the island of Honshu. Tokyo Bay is connected to the Pacific Ocean by the Uraga Channel. Th ...

Japan Japan is an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean off the northeast coast of the Asia, Asian mainland, it is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan and extends from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea ...

, envisioned by

Obayashi Corporation is one of five major Japanese construction companies along with Shimizu Corporation, Takenaka Corporation, Kajima Corporation, and Taisei Corporation. It is listed on the Tokyo Stock Exchange and is one of the Nikkei 225 corporations. Its h ...

. With a height of , the mammoth structure would have been approximately five times as tall as the former

World Trade Center World Trade Centers are the hundreds of sites recognized by the World Trade Centers Association. World Trade Center may also refer to: Buildings * World Trade Center (1973–2001), a building complex that was destroyed during the September 11 at ...

New York City New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's largest natural harbors. The city comprises five boroughs, each coextensive w ...

. The Aeropolis 2001 was proposed in 1989, amid a spate of similar projects for incredibly large buildings. All were proposed during the

Japanese asset price bubble The was an economic bubble in Japan from 1986 to 1991 in which real estate and stock market prices were greatly inflated. In early 1992, this price bubble burst and the country's economy stagnated. The bubble was characterized by rapid acceler ...

, which ended in the early 1990s. According to a 1995 article, the corporation still had plans for the structure, and gave a proposed height of . At the time it proposed Aeropolis 2001, Obayashi Corp. also proposed building a city on the moon by 2050. Newspapers have reported little on either proposal since 1995.

Proposed details

Newspapers reported that plans called for the building to have 500 floors accommodating over 300,000 working inhabitants and 140,000 live-in residents. The structure was expected to be mixed-use, including

restaurant A restaurant is an establishment that prepares and serves food and drinks to customers. Meals are generally served and eaten on the premises, but many restaurants also offer take-out and Delivery (commerce), food delivery services. Restaurants ...

office An office is a space where the employees of an organization perform Business administration, administrative Work (human activity), work in order to support and realize the various goals of the organization. The word "office" may also denote a po ...

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cinema Cinema may refer to: Film * Film or movie, a series of still images that create the illusion of moving image ** Film industry, the technological and commercial institutions of filmmaking ** Filmmaking, the process of making a film * Movie theate ...

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hospital A hospital is a healthcare institution providing patient treatment with specialized Medical Science, health science and auxiliary healthcare staff and medical equipment. The best-known type of hospital is the general hospital, which typically ...

s, and

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s. It would have offered eleven square kilometers of floor space. A shuttle lift, with 300 seats, would have gone from the ground floor to the top floor in 15 minutes, and stopped at every 40th floor. The proposal called for the tower to be fully

sustainable Sustainability is a social goal for people to co-exist on Earth over a long period of time. Definitions of this term are disputed and have varied with literature, context, and time. Sustainability usually has three dimensions (or pillars): env ...

and

air conditioned Air conditioning, often abbreviated as A/C (US) or air con (UK), is the process of removing heat from an enclosed space to achieve a more comfortable interior temperature, and in some cases, also controlling the humidity of internal air. Air c ...

. A 1991 article by I. Uchizaki in ''Kensetsu No Kikaika'', indexed by the

U.S. Department of Energy The United States Department of Energy (DOE) is an executive department of the U.S. federal government that oversees U.S. national energy policy and energy production, the research and development of nuclear power, the military's nuclear we ...

, discussed Aeropolis 2001 along with other proposed high-rise urban projects in Japan, such as the

X-Seed 4000 The X-Seed 4000 was a concept for a megatall skyscraper. Its proposed height, sea-base, and 800-floor capacity could accommodate 500,000–1,000,000 inhabitants. This structure would have been composed of over of steel. It was designed fo ...

, TRY2004, Sky City 1000, and DIB-200. The article noted that while these concepts were not expected to be realized in the near term, they were intended to identify limitations in then-current construction technology and areas for future development.

Proposed details

See also

References

External links

Further reading