Five designs for the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games
As the countdown for next year’s Tokyo 2020 Olympics continues, we have rounded up five standout designs for the much-anticipated summer Games, from Kengo Kuma‘s Olympic stadium to a duo of service robots by Toyota.
Olympic torch by Tokujin Yoshioka
Japanese designer Tokujin Yoshioka took visual cues from Japan’s national flower, the cherry blossom, when creating the 2020 Olympic torch.
Made from extruded aluminium taken from temporary housing built in the wake of the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake, the 71 centimetre rose-gold torch opens out into five sections to form the motif of a flower that the designer hopes will act as a symbol of peace.
Toyota will provide 16 support robots across the Olympic and Paralympic Games to assist sports fans with tasks such as carrying food and drink, guiding people to their seats and providing event information.
The human support robot features an in-built arm for picking up trays and baskets and a digital screen for displaying information, while the delivery support robot is designed especially to assist wheelchair-users with carrying their items.
Pictograms by Masaaki Hiromura
Masaaki Hiromura spent two years creating 50 retro-style sport pictograms that reference the icons used in the first Tokyo Olympics in 1964.
The pictograms represent all 33 sports that will feature in the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games programme, and will be used for posters, tickets and merchandising as well as to provide signage for visitors at event sites, in guidebooks and on the Games website.
Tokyo 2020 logos by Asao Tokolo
Tokyo-based artist Asao Tokolo created this duo of chequerboard logos for the 2020 Olympics and Paralympic Games after the original designs were dropped amid claims of plagiarism.
The two logos feature small clusters of indigo rectangles arranged on a white background in the shape of globes.
Following the Japanese prime minister’s decision to scrap plans for a stadium designed by the late British-Iraqi architect Zaha Hadid in 2015, Kengo Kuma was selected as the architect to oversee the Olympic Stadium.
The latticed timber structure, which is due for completion later this year, features an oval structure with a huge oculus above the track.
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