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Agents of Transformation and the "Death" of Urbanism Preeminence of the Decorated Shed Staging Uncertainty |
[1M4] KINJO PIER LOGISTICS TERMINAL.
In the minds of Nagoya city planners, Kinjo Pier will act as both the muscle and brains behind many port operations. Blessed with a 6,350 meter long quay, the pier will allow up to 35 large-size vessels to dock simultaneously, and the pier also maintains four public container ship berths with four gantry cranes. Every year, Kinjo Pier handles 3,900 ships and 11.9 million tons of cargo.28 At the same time, the pier is now home to the Nagoya International Exhibition Hall, an enormous exhibition and entertainment complex, which gives many companies unprecedented opportunities for publicity. According to the Nagoya Port Authority, "Kinjo Pier continues to grow rapidly as one of Japan’s centers of trade and business."29
Kinjo Pier is indeed changing rapidly. Construction is nearly finished on two of three large suspension bridges which will connect the pier to the east and west sides of Nagoya port via the Ise Bay Highway, completing the Nagoya Ring Road around the city. Before the Aichi Expo in 2005, a new railway will connect the new international airport, located farther south in the bay, to the city on the mainland, with a major station on Kinjo Pier. With the addition of a ferry and jet foil terminal, the pier will effectively become a major public interchange, in the middle of a sophisticated distribution and communications center. The existing International Exhibition Hall is only one of many new public facilities planned for the island. An elaborate, highly-manicured park stands just east of the exhibition hall complex, which is the future site of a ‘hypertower’. A large visitor’s center will be constructed to the north, adjacent to a small vessel anchor pier. Straddling the main north-south thoroughfare on the island will be a kilometer-long string of new business facilities, including a logistics center for port administration and commercial enterprise, a hypermart, a convention hall, a hotel, and waterfront commercial and entertainment facilities flanked by a public promenade, all extending from a new train and jet foil terminal, which is located across the street from the exhibition hall.
27Port of Nagoya: 1996-1997 (Nagoya: Nagoya Port Authority, 1996) p. 15 28Ibid., p. 15 29Ibid., p. 15 Images: 1. Kinjo Pier, 2. Kinjo Pier from the Southwest, 3. Nagoya International Exhibition Hall, Kinjo Pier, 4. Kinjo Pier Future Conceptualization, 5. Future Plans for Nagoya Port
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Kinjo Futo, or ‘Golden Castle Pier,’ is a 1.91
square kilometer artificial island which is strategically located at the heart of Nagoya
port. Designed in 1960, construction was finally completed in 1994, and the pier now
represents the southern-most extent of an urban armature leading directly into the city.
The Nagoya Port Authority considers Kinjo Pier to be "a key area in international
trade and information,"27 possessing one of the port’s two container terminals,
as well as the Nagoya Port Vessel Traffic Center (NAVTIC), a surveillance and
communications tower built at the southern tip of the pier in 1994. NAVTIC aids the Nagoya
Port Operation Center, which was established by thirteen port and harbor transportation
service companies in 1989, in providing navigational information to guide vessels passing
through the port.
Because
most of the current trade operations will remain active, including the container
terminals, distribution yards, and NAVTIC, Kinjo Pier will represent a kind of experiment
in the integration of the public and private, ‘front and back door ‘aspects of
the port’s economic engine. As Nagoya Port in general is transformed from an
industrial center to a place for new business and leisure activities, interesting
juxtapositions will emerge between the existing operations and new ones. Located at the
junction of new infrastructures which will complete long-anticipated connections between
the industrial archipelago and the
mainland, Kinjo Pier will be a valuable, thriving interchange at the heart of a new city.
A Master's Thesis in Architecture at Rice University by Blaine Brownell. Copyright © 1998 by Blaine Brownell. All rights reserved. |
