What’s the prize you pay to host the most prestigious event in sporting history? If your answer is breakneck development that is low on sustainability, spares not a thought on protecting what’s natural/native to the land – then you score points in Tokyo. Workers have started tearing down a Japanese landmark — the Hotel Okura. The Okura is a treasure of 1960s modernist design and has hosted every American president since Richard Nixon, Hollywood royalty and actual royalty.

Built just in time for Tokyo to host the 1964 Summer Olympics, the Hotel Okura helped make the city shine. The main building’s unique modernist design is an architectural snapshot in time — paper screens, pendant lights, warm wood.

“I’m a little bit afraid, for the Japanese modernist architecture with the [2020 Summer] Olympic Games coming up,” said Tomas Maier, the chief designer at Italian fashion house Bottega Veneta. He made a video as part of a campaign to try to keep the Okura’s main building from being torn down. Maier wasn’t alone. Guests from around the world shared memories of moments at the Okura and signed online petitions to try to keep the structure intact. Maier made his case in The Wall Street Journal:

“In Japan, the instinct to preserve modern architecture is not part of the society. We don’t have the same problem with mid-century buildings as much in the United States. In the States, it would be like tearing down really important landmarks, such as the Marcel Breuer building that formerly housed the Whitney [Museum of American Art], or Philip Johnson’s Glass House or Frank Lloyd Wright’s [Solomon R.] Guggenheim [Museum].”

But these days only construction are workers allowed in Okura’s main building, which is fenced off by barricades. With more rooms needed for the 2020 Games, simple economics fueled the decision to demolish and replace the building with two glass towers — one of them 41 floors.

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